The Ultimate Race

Love and forgive others!

Getting started

Help your family to be active this week with three fun sessions:

  • Involve everyone – anyone can lead!
  • Adapt for your family
  • Encourage each other
  • Challenge yourselves
  • Don’t exercise if it causes pain

Share family.fit with others:

  • Post a photo or video on social media and tag with #familyfit or @familyfitnessfaithfun
  • Do family.fit with another family
Warm up 512

Day 1: Warm-up

Arm circles and body shapes

Arm circles: Stand in a circle and together complete 15 of each arm movement. Small circles forward, small circles backward, big circles forward, big circles backward.

Body shapes: Lie face down, arms overhead and palms facing each other. Move your arms like the hands of a clock into each formation.

Do three rounds.

Play Video

Rest and talk together.

Share how you feel when someone is impatient with you.

Go deeper: Who do you struggle to be patient with? What do they do that makes it difficult to bear with them?

Move 512

Day 1: Move

Partner lunges

full lunge 900

Stand straight with hands on hips. Step forward with one leg and lower your hips until your front knee is bent at 90 degrees. Alternate legs.

Play Video

Practice lunges in pairs facing each other. Start slowly and carefully. Do three rounds of 10 repetitions with a 30 second pause between each round.

Go harder: Increase the number of repetitions.

Challenge 512

Day 1: Challenge

Spin the bottle

Write labels for the six movements below (one per card) and place in a circle. One person spins a bottle and does the movement it points to. Tap to the next family member.

Challenge: 100 movements as a family.

  • 5 lunges
  • 5 squats
  • 5 burpees
  • 5 speed skaters
  • 5 supermans
  • 10 mountain-climbers
Play Video

Go harder: Increase the total number of movements to 150 or 200.

Explore 512

Day 1: Explore

Bear with one another

Read Colossians 3:13-14 from the Bible.

Paul challenges believers of Jesus to live differently. We are to “bear with one another.” This describes the patience we need with others when they fail or wrong us. We all make mistakes every day and we all need forgiveness. We all need to forgive others too.  Forgiveness is at the heart of love and unity.

Each person is lifted off the ground by the rest of the family starting with the smallest person and working to the biggest.

How did it feel to bear the weight of others? What does it mean to bear with one another?

We all have to bear the failures of those around us and they need to bear our failures too.

What attitudes do you need to foster to bear others well?

Chat to God: Pray for the others in your family. Pray you would be able to bear their mistakes and failures with grace. Give thanks for each person.

Play 512

Day 1: Play

Pay it back

Stand opposite a partner. One person is ‘A’ and the other ‘B’. Player A touches Player B (for example, a shoulder tap). Player B repeats that action back to A and adds a second action (for example, a shoulder tap and a head touch). Continue adding actions until one player cannot remember the sequence correctly.

Play Video

Reflect: Was this hard or easy to do? How is this like unforgiveness?

Health tip for living long

Eat slowly.

Warm up 512

Day 2: Warm-up

Knee tag

Compete in pairs. Try to touch your opponent’s knees as many times as you can in 60 seconds while you protect your own with your hands and body position. Change partners and try again.

Now go further and try to touch everyone else’s knees while protecting your own.

Play Video

Rest and talk together.

What does it feel like to ask for forgiveness?

Go deeper: How does it feel to be forgiven when you have wronged someone?

Move 512

Day 2: Move

Slow deep lunges

full lunge 900

Practice the slow lunge. Focus on tempo.

Step forward with one leg and count to five as you slowly lower your hips until your back knee touches the ground. Stand up quickly. Repeat for the other leg. Be a turtle, not a rabbit!

Repeat five times per leg.

Play Video

Go easier: Count to three as you lower your knee to the ground.

Challenge 512

Day 2: Challenge

Plank and lunge challenge

plank and lunge 900

Work with a partner. While one person is in a plank position, the other does lunges. Change places after 10 lunges on each leg.

Do four rounds.

Go easier: Do five lunges on each leg.

Go harder: Add weights to your lunges.

Explore 512

Day 2: Explore

Forgive as God forgave

Read Colossians 3:13-14.

What is forgiveness?

Each person draws their picture on a sheet of paper with three arrows to remind them of these questions:

  1. an arrow pointing away from you – Is there someone I need to say sorry to?
  2. an arrow pointing towards you – Is there someone I need to forgive?
  3. an arrow pointing up – Is there something I need God to forgive me for?

Reflect on these questions and share an example of each together.

Read about the Rwandan sitting volleyball team.

Chat to God: Take your paper and spend some time walking and talking with God about it.

Sitting volleyball

How do you go from enemies to teammates?

The Rwandan sitting volleyball team competed at the 2012 London Olympics. Although they didn’t win a game, they demonstrated the incredible power of forgiveness and love within their team.

In the 1990s Rwanda suffered a terrible civil war between two tribes, the Tutsis and Hutus. Two volleyball players in the 2012 Paralympic team, Dominique Bizimana and Jean Rukondo, had lost legs from landmines in the civil war. One was a Hutu and the other a Tutsi. They had good reason to hate each other but instead became teammates and friends. They helped bring unity to their whole team.

They rebuilt their lives because they could forgive and accept forgiveness.

How does this story inspire you to run your own race?

How can your family take forgiveness to the next level?

Play 512

Day 2: Play

Rob the nest

Place several balls or pairs of socks per person in a container in the middle. It should be an equal distance from all players. Each person also has a ‘nest’ (small container) in front of them. Set a timer for five minutes.

On “go” everyone runs to the middle and grabs one item for their nest. Continue until all the ‘treasure’ is gone. Players can steal one item at a time from each other’s nests but cannot defend their own. The person with the most ‘treasure’ in their nest at the end of five minutes wins.

Play Video

Health tip for living long

Eat slowly. Experts suggest you will eat less and feel better if you slow down your eating and chew each mouthful more.

Warm up 512

Day 3: Warm-up

Burpee relay

Set up a course about 10 meters long.

Do this relay in pairs. One person in each pair does a lap of the course doing a sequence of burpees and long jumps while the other person does superman holds at the start line. Tag and swap places.

Do four to six laps each.

Play Video

Rest and talk together.

What is your favorite family time?

Go deeper: Where do you see love working in your family?

Move 512

Day 3: Move

Weighted lunges

full lunge 900

Add weight to the lunge. Wear a backpack with a book in it or hold water bottles in your hands. Think creatively to find the right size weights for each person. Remember to keep the proper technique.

Complete two sets of 10 repetitions. Rest 30 seconds between sets.

Go harder: Do more sets or carry more weight.

Challenge 512

Day 3: Challenge

Global lunge challenge

lunge process 900

How many lunges can your family do in 90 seconds?

Each family member does as many lunges as they can in 90 seconds. Combine the scores for the family total.

CLICK HERE to input your family score.

CLICK HERE to look at the weekly leaderboard to see your country’s progress.

Which nation will be our family.fit champions?

Explore 512

Day 3: Explore

Love brings unity

Read Colossians 3:13-14.

Hold hands in a circle and run a course around your house going into every room. Time yourselves. Stay connected at all times.

Was this easy? Why or why not?

Unity can be difficult. If we want to live well with each other, we need forgiveness flowing freely in all our relationships. This is an important way we show love. And love is the quickest way to bring people together.

How can you grow in love as a family?

Chat to God: Who can you show more love to today? Ask God to give you the strength to love them even if they are hard to love and have wronged you.

Play 512

Day 3: Play

Human machine

As a family, decide on a machine you want to build using only your bodies (could be a car, airplane, or anything that has moving parts). Each person must be a moving part of the machine. You will need to move and work together as a family.

Was this hard to do? What was hard? When each member did their movement, did the machine work?

Have fun! If it is not working, stop and talk about how you can make it work better.

Check this new video with a family making a refrigerator.

Play Video

Tip for parents

Make mealtimes important family occasions where food and relationships are valued. Make it a place of good conversations and fun stories. Let children also take the lead in conversation topics.

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The family.fit team