Thirty questions, answered straight. The last few are the ones grown-ups ask.
About an hour a day, and it does not have to be in one go — ten minutes here and twenty there all counts. On three days a week, some of it should be the kind that makes your muscles work, like climbing, carrying or push-ups, and some the kind where your feet hit the ground, like running or jumping.
Yes. Three minutes done most days beats an hour done once a month, every time. Short bits add up, and the habit is worth more than any single workout.
Everybody is bad at a move before they are good at it, and most moves take a few weeks. The useful trick is to pick the easier version and do that one properly, because practising the right shape is what actually makes you better.
Your muscles need more oxygen when they work, so you breathe faster to get it in and your heart beats faster to deliver it. Being out of breath is the system doing its job, not your body failing — and it gets better surprisingly fast if you move most days.
That dull, spread-out ache a day or two after something new is normal, and it goes away in a couple of days. What is NOT normal is a sharp pain in one spot while you are moving: that one means stop and tell a grown-up.
You are not too young to learn the SHAPE — bottom back, flat back, stand up tall — and that is worth learning now, because everybody picks things up all their life. What you should not do is pick up anything heavy without a grown-up who knows what they are doing, which is why the Gym only ever uses a ball, a towel or a bag with a book or two in it.
Do a move that is hard for you, a few times, a few days a week, and then rest — because the getting-stronger bit happens while you rest, mostly while you are asleep. Make it a bit harder every couple of weeks: one more rep, or the next version up.
Short, fast runs with a proper rest in between, rather than lots of slow ones — speed is practised fresh, not tired. Pumping your arms hard helps more than most people expect, because your legs go at the speed your arms set.
A cold muscle is stiff like cold chewing gum, and a warm one is bendy. Three minutes of easy moving also reminds your brain of the shapes you are about to make, so the first round is as good as the last.
One rep is doing a move once — one squat is one rep. A round is getting through the whole list once, and a set is a bunch of reps in a row before you rest.
Every jumping move in the Gym has a no-jump version, and they are listed right there on the move's own page — usually rising onto your toes and lowering slowly, which trains nearly the same thing. Nothing here needs both feet off the floor.
Most of the Gym needs a bit of floor the size of you lying down with your arms out. Tap the "a bit of floor" chip on the front page and it will only show you those.
Tap the Quiet chip on the front page. About a third of the Gym has no jumping, no stamping and nothing that drops, so nobody below will know you are there.
Moving every day is great. Doing the HARDEST thing every day is not — your body builds the new bits on the rest days. Mix it up: a hard one, then an easy one, then some stretches.
Because a shape you practise badly is the shape you learn, and then you have to unlearn it. Get it right, get it right every time, and only then make it quick — that order never changes, at any age.
It means being able to do lots of different kinds of work, for a long time and for a short time. Someone who can run far but cannot carry anything, or carry anything but not reach their toes, is fit at one thing rather than fit.
Keeping going, staying power, strength, bendiness, springiness, speed, putting it together, quick changes, balance and aim. Four come from your body changing, four from your brain learning, and two from both — Fitness School lesson 2 has the whole thing.
The one you will actually do, most days, for years. After that, the best answer is "all three kinds": move your own body, move something else, and go somewhere.
Nineteen of the Gym's workouts need nothing but you and a bit of floor. Tap the No gear chip, or start with Carpet Three.
Before, move everything gently — circles, swings, easy versions of what you are about to do. After, hold the long still stretches, when you are warm. Holding a long stretch on a cold muscle is the one to avoid.
Working hard is meant to feel hard, and it passes within a minute or two of stopping. But if you cannot catch your breath at all, or your chest hurts, that is one of the five stop signals: stop, sit down and get a grown-up.
A glass before you start and a glass after, and more if it is hot or you are outside. Being short of water makes you tired and gives you a headache long before you actually feel thirsty.
Yes, and mostly in the bits that are not the ball: landing, changing direction, holding yourself up and not getting tired in the last ten minutes. Doing lots of different movements when you are young helps more than doing one sport all year, which is what nearly everyone who studies this says.
The Two of You shelf is built for exactly two people, and the games work with anybody who is about. You Go, I Go is the one to start with: one of you works while the other rests.
Then do a game instead — they count, they train the same things, and there is no score in them. Or tap Surprise me and let the Gym pick something you have not done.
It has one spoke for each of the ten parts of fitness, and a spoke fills up as you do workouts that train it. If nine spokes are thin and one is fat, you have found out something useful about what you have been skipping.
For the youngest two levels, yes — somebody in the room. For anything that leaves the ground, yes, at any age. And for anything that involves stairs or a climbing frame, always.
The things that make youth training risky are no supervision, equipment that can fall on a child, and going heavy before the shape is right — so the Gym has no barbell, dumbbell, bench or bar at all, keeps load to a ball or a bag with a book or two from 3rd grade, and gives the youngest levels no clock to race. Every workout carries the five stop signals, and every jumping workout teaches landing first.
The way this section thinks about fitness — ten skills, three ways to move, do it right before you do it fast, and end with a game — comes from CrossFit's published training model and its CrossFit Kids program. Peabody isn't affiliated with them, and the safety rules here are our own and in several places stricter.
Because a fitness section is the likeliest place on a children's site to plant a lasting worry about food and bodies, and because it is not needed: everything worth saying can be said as strong, fast, springy, steady and bendy. The words are refused in the code, not just avoided by the writers.
For grown-ups: Peabody has no ads, not one, and nothing to sell your child. The Kids Pick, an independent kids' directory, rates its games 90/100. See what other free kids' sites load · Grown-ups, sign in · Already have a profile?