Exercise

I suppose if you're the sort of person who has five kids, you might as well use them to keep yourself in shape. This fellow from Minnesota, for instance, has developed an entire exercise regimen based the recognition that his children offer decent amounts of resistance for pull-ups and various other exercises:

We've got the Baby Girl Car Seat Curl, Pile on the Back Stack Attack, Master Blaster Pull-Up Disaster and Sling Your Nipper Ab Rippers. An example of a winter circuit would be to start with pull-ups and do them with and without a child. Then I do the same with dips -- I have a dip bar in the basement. And then I'll do my sit-ups, box steps or stairs -- grabbing a kid and running up and down the stairs 10 times is pretty invigorating.

Then I'll do pushups with up to three kids on my back to failure, drop a kid, go to failure and drop a kid. Then lunges, and lunges are very good to do with children because they force you to keep your back straight and keep the weight in the middle. Then there's the one-arm bench press. The kids don't let me rest very much; that's another way in which they're good trainers.

After my daughter was born, I thought I might add some extra tone to my arms and legs if I used her car seat as a large, awkward dumbell. While standing in elevators, I'd perform a few calf raises; while walking through the mall, I'd swing the seat from one arm to another while lunging a bit with each step. I could definitely feel the burn, but I also looked like a bit of a moron, so I stopped. I suppose the key is to do these things in the security of my own home, where pretty much everyone else is used to me looking ridiculous.

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Exercise

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