Adolescent activities for physical development
By
OptimistMinds
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Author bio
The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
The current blog post will be based on the question “what are adolescent activities for physical development?”. We will focus on various types of activities that can be done by adolescents to feel physically active. We will also discuss the various strategies through which we can motivate adolescents to get involved in physical activities.
What are adolescent activities for physical development?
Adolescent activities for physical development are based on various exercises that help them to exert their energies and channelize their energies.
It is often suggested that adolescents need to remain physically active for at least 60 minutes a day. The 60 minutes each day need to contain aerobic activities, strength building activities and bone strengthening activities.
The adolescent physical activities are divided into :
- Light physical activity
- Moderate physical activity
- Vigorous physical activities
- Activities that strengthen muscles and bones
Light physical activity
Light physical activities are activities that are based on everyday activities including an evening walk, standing to do creative work or artwork and playing a musical instrument.
Moderate physical activity
The moderate physical activity for adolescents include exercises that make your child exert their energies that leave them being breathless or having their heart beat increased a bit. These include :
- Brisk walking
- Dancing
- Bike riding
- Swimming
- Doing jumps
- jogging
Vigorous physical activities
Vigorous physical activities for adolescents are based on having the adolescents involved in activities that increase their cardiac activity. Vigorous activities involve high energy consuming activities like trekking, hiking, and playing football. Hockey, cricket, basketball and zumba dancing.
Vigorous activities also include aerobic activities are suggested three days a week . some of the activities included in aerobics include :
- Active recreation activities
- Trekking
- Hiking
- Cycling
- Brisk walking
Activities that strengthen muscles and bones
Making adolescents work harder than normal and involving them in various activities that help them strengthen their muscles and bones is also very crucial to the physical development of adolescents. Such activities include :
- Pushups
- Lunges
- Squats
- Planks
- Weight bearing exercises
- Hopscotch
- Hoping
- Skipping the rope
- Situps
- Rope climbing
- Swinging
- Tug of war
What are some key aspects of involving the inactive adolescents into the active adolescents regime?
Following are some of the strategies that need to be necessarily considered and followed before including the inactive adolescents into the active adolescents regime :
- For the inactive adolescents, try to take them slowly from very initial and minimum strength bearing exercises towards hard exercises.
- Gradually increase the time over the course of weeks and months while increasing the intensity of exercise as well
- Aim for light to moderate exercise activities
- Instead of focusing on organization focus on what interests the adolescents more
- Always keep in mind the body structure and the weight of the adolescents before involving them into rigorous exercises.
How can we motivate adolescents for physical activity?
We can motivate adolescents for physical activity by following the below points :
- We need to plan ahead for the physical activity
- We need to help the adolescents in managing their screen time and the physical activity as often the adolescents are more taken up by the screen time including social media and on screen games
- If your adolescent is not interested in competitive games, plan out some activities that make him physically active inside the home or in the nearby premises
- If an adolescents feels not confident enough to involve in any team based physical activity, help them gain their confidence by focusing on practice
- Be a role model for your adolescent. Observing you being active will help them be more focused and active
- Help the adolescents to balance their school life and physical activity. Help them to schedule a daily routine that enables them to at least be rigorously or genuinely active at least 3 times a week.
- Break your adolescent’s long desk periods and table tasks into short periods with a physical activity break in between to keep them physically active.
- Knowing that your adolescent needs some special attention based on their physical or mental disability, you can find activities that help them to be physically active in their own comfort zones.
- Motivate your adolescent’s physical activity by reinforcing them and appreciating them to encourage their participation in physical activities that boost their development
What is the importance of physical activity for adolescent development?
There are many advantages of physical activity in adolescents’ development. These include the following:
- An improvement in adolescent’s respiratory and cardiac health among adolescents
- A strong impact on immunity system among adolescents
- Development of string bones and muscles among adolescents
- Development of resilience and tolerance among adolescents
- A decrease in the risk associated to cardiac diseases
- A decrease in risk associated to weight gain among adolescents
- Maintenance of healthy weight among adolescents
- An improved focus among adolescents
- An improved memory among adolescents
- An enhanced emotional regulation among adolescents
- An increased confidence level among adolescents
- Low levels of anxiety and associated feature among adolescents
- Low levels of depression and associated features among adolescents
- Enhances interpersonal skills among adolescents
- Improved socialization among adolescents
- Better motivation in life among adolescents
- More self awareness among adolescents
Conclusion
The current blogspot focused on the various types of physical activities of adolescents that help in promoting their physical development. We also discussed the advantages of various physical activities for the development of adolescents and the strategies through which adolescents can be helped to overcome the barriers to physical activity.
Frequently asked questions : adolescent activities for physical development
How can adolescents promote physical activity?
Following are the ways through which adolescents can promote their physical activity:
- Make physical activity opportunities accessible for the adolescents
- Lower the activities cost for adolescents without compromising on the quality of the activities
- Make the physical activity opportunities more locally available
- Improve the standards of physical activity opportunities for adolescents that already exist
- Make the physical activities more specific to teenagers to cater to their developmental needs
What are examples of physical activities?
Following are some of the examples of physical activities:
- Going for a walk or a jog
- Riding bicycle
- Leaving and entering a place through the stairs instead if elevator or escalator
- Playing at park
- Doing household chores
What are the activities of an adolescent?
Following are the activities of adolescent :
- Various indoor and outdoor games
- Sports activities
- Sports clubs
- Musical concerts
- Gyming activities
- Trips to the park
- Bowling
Citations
https://raisingchildren.net.au/teens/healthy-lifestyle/physical-activity/physical-activity-teens
https://food.unl.edu/physical-activity-youth
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK201497/
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