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Want to add a few fun activities to your next boot camp class? Or looking for a way to add some silliness to a group workout or team building day? Try one of these entertaining boot camp games that will have participants laughing and time flying while they’re working hard….
1. Clothespin Chase
Give each participant two to four clothespins. Participant should place them on the side of their shirts, as close to the edge as possible. When the game begins, participants should run and try to grab as many clothespins as possible from other players and pin them to their own shirt. The person with the most clothespins at the end is the winner.
2. Poker Party
Put a deck of cards in a bucket – or split between several buckets if you have a big group – a comfortable distance down the field or gym. Each participant must lunge walk to the bucket, grab a card, and then run back to their starting place. They then repeat the activity until they are holding a 5 card hand. Each participant then looks at their cards and the participant with the best poker hand gets to decide what everyone will do for each suit (for example, hearts = push ups, spades = squats, etc). You can decide how to structure this – each person can do the number of repetitions on their own hand, each person can follow along with the winner’s hand, or you can rotate through the entire group’s hands. You can repeat this activity a few times depending on how you’re using it.
3. Flip the Cones
Set up a bunch of disc cones in a large field or gym. {Side note – I recommend having some disc cones for any kind of boot camp. It makes it easy to set up perimeters of a field; shuttle runs; weaving drills; etc. I ordered this set of 20 disc cones and love them.} For the flip the cones game, make half of them right side up, and half of them upside down. Break the team into two groups. One group should try to get all the cones right side up, and the other’s goal is to get them all upside down. The team with the most in their direction at the end of the game wins.
4. Hungry Hungry Hippos
A trip to the dollar store where I found these numbers inspired this game! {If you can’t find them yourself at a dollar store, you can spend a few more bucks to get some magnetic colored numbers and use those instead.} Here’s how this game works: Arrange buckets in 4 corners and place one in the center of a field or gym. Break into 4 teams, and each team starts at their corner bucket. When the game starts, one team member at a time must run to the center to pick out a colored number from the center bucket. Once they return, they put the number in their team’s bucket and then the next teammate runs in (relay race style).
When that part of the game is “done”, then the strength training begins! Each team should lay out their colored numbers and do all the numbers for each color according to this chart:
- Blue = Burpees
- Yellow = Push-Ups
- Red = Lunges
- Green = Crunches
5. Toilet Tag
Admittedly, this is not mine and came from BOKS training a few years ago. I learned it then for kids but think adults have just as much fun playing as the little ones.
Select a few people to be “it” as the taggers. When participants are tagged, they must freeze into squat position with one arm raised. Anyone who is not it can lower your arm (“flush the toilet”) in order to unfreeze you. Play for a minute or so, then take a quick rest and pick new taggers to play again.
Share with me: Do you have a favorite fitness game that you’ve either played in a class, or used yourself to teach a class? Do you like games or do you prefer more drill-like activities?
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So many fun ideas here!! Love them!!
Thanks Nicole! 🙂
Whelp you just helped me write some serious class plans for teaching bootcamp! Thanks for the fun ideas ! I always love adding animal drills for a fun different way to work hard!
Animal drills sound so fun Jenna! I’ve done a few animal themed things (like an animal race with bear crawl, then crab walk, etc).
I’ve never heard of any of these games. Games definitely help to make a workout feel more like fun and less like “work.”
I like games for something to mix up a class. It’s fun having the variety (at least I think so!).
This is a fun idea to get people moving! I work with a lot of kids who are overweight and need to move. I’m always looking for fun ideas.
Wendy, if you ever have the chance to do a program with BOKS, they have TONS of great ideas for kid-friendly activities.
I never went to a Boot Camp that used games. Could be fun!
I think it’s fun! I know some people are anti-game and just like straight up drills, but I prefer the variety. 🙂
Fun ideas! I’ve never played games at boot camp before 🙂
Amanda, give them a try the next time you teach and let me know how you like ’em!
These sound like so much fun! Love it!!
They are definitely a blast 🙂
Love all of these fun ideas!! Hungry hippo sounds like a blast {and challenge, too!}!!
Haha yes – it’s totally a play on that game from when we were kids that had the hippos in the 4 corners and you had to send your hippo into the middle to grab stuff. Do you remember that game? I loved it, haha.
Chrissy this is awesome! Pinning as a great resource.
Glad it was helpful Jill!
I love this idea of fitness games. So much fun it would not even seem like a workout. The competitiveness would definitely keep me going no matter what!