Kids Fitness Circuits combine state of the art equipment with clever design strategies that encourage children to be physically fit. Often, customers wish to purchase or design a custom play structure. Their main goal is to get kids outside and keep them safely entertained. What many don’t realize is that a cleverly designed play structure encourages children to push their physical limits. Other benefits include helping kids become more confident, fit and spatially aware. Kids fitness circuits are perfect for updating an existing playground with more challenging activities.
Kids Fitness Circuit Benefits
The short answer is that a kids fitness circuit can be anything that you want it to be. You can create a dedicated obstacle course style structure or implement circuit design principles into a more traditional play structure. A lot will depend on your vision, budget, who you’re building the playground for, and the space you have available.
Circuits that allow side by side play or circuit races, are great for elementary schools and larger parks. Smaller playgrounds can include a few challenging climbers and overheads that encourage children to take on more difficult tasks. Unlike other play structures, kids fitness circuits don’t focus on slides and platforms but rather on laying out individual elements in such a way that it encourages more stamina, greater strength and balance.
Improve Strength
Total body strength is the keystone of kids fitness. Encouraging greater strength requires presenting children with a variety of climbers and overheads that challenge children at different fitness levels. Incorporating a variety of hand holds and climbing objectives work different muscle groups and require various levels of coordination. Climbers allow children to develop upper and lower body strength but are less taxing than other equipment.
The most challenging strength building equipment on a playground will always be overhead climbers. Horizontal ladders and ring races challenge children to move across the structure using a swinging, right-left hand motion. Additionally, track riders and twisters encourage them to build momentum and glide. This helps children just learning to use this type of equipment build endurance and confidence.
Better Balance
The most obvious equipment for promoting balance is a traditional balance beam but contemporary playgrounds offer so much more. From spring loaded beams, to moving stepping stone style paths, balance play activities are more varied than ever before. These activities don’t require much upper body strength, they are still some of the most rewarding equipment on the playground.
Coordination and Endurance
Kids fitness circuits can consist of one large structure or several pieces of equipment strung together. However, individual elements are laid out in relation to one another is what really determines how challenging the playground is. The key to creating a fun and engaging kids fitness circuit is planning transitions between obstacles. Your fitness circuit is more challenging by stringing similar activities together. Or make them less challenging by transitioning between dissimilar activities (e.g., upper body followed by lower body).
Moreover, the type of transition between obstacles is another key element in design. When equipment transitions from one type of play to another, children are challenged to keep going, or start again if they stop. Structures that offer larger breaks between activities allow for more break time in between. There is no right or wrong type of transition, although the best playgrounds have both.
Children are naturally drawn to swinging, spinning and sliding so activities. These can be anything from spacewalks, cargo nets or fireman’s poles. Placing more transitional activities into more challenging activities is enough to keep children striving to master the most challenging equipment. Ask about a kids fitness circuit for your space today!
