A different kind of activity tracker -or- are your kids moving all their parts?

I listened to this episode of the Move Your DNA podcast by Katy Bowman a while back and found her different ways of categorizing movement quite interesting. I’ve thought about aerobic vs. strength training before, and outdoor vs indoor time, but she has a bunch of important categories on her tracker that I’ve never thought that much about before, like whether the thighs are in front of the body or behind the body and whether the arms are in a fixed position or hanging or above the head or dynamic. She discusses the categories more in the podcast and explains why she thinks they are important.

Ever since I listened to the podcast episode I’ve been meaning to think about her categories in terms of the activities Chickpea engages in in a typical week.

Chickpea spends much of her weekday time at school or after-school care or inside at home, plus some time in the car and a little time walking.

• Home (36 hours a week, mostly seated): At home she does a mix—some chair time, some floor time, and sitting in bed or on the couch while we read to her. I have specifically not bought her a desk and/or desk chair so that she will spend more time on the floor. When Chickpea and I play games we usually play on the floor, but her Dad usually plays with her at the table. We’re home weekdays 7-7:45 and in the afternoons usually 4:30-7:30. But on Friday afternoons we spend some time at our CSA farm, on Mondays she has climbing, and sometimes in the afternoon between after-school care and dinner we go to a playground, usually by ourselves but occasionally we will meet up with some other kids. Finally, while I cook dinner Chickpea will sometimes go out to our courtyard and play with the neighborhood kids. That’s maybe 2 to 4 hours a week when she does something else on a weekday afternoon, so maybe about 16 hours total at home on weekdays. On Saturdays we are home 7am to 7:30pm except for maybe 3 to 4 hours for equestrian vaulting, playground/walking time and shopping time. On Sundays we are probably home 6:30am to 7:30pm except for maybe 1 to 2 hours outdoors taking a walk, going to a playground, or riding bikes. So maybe 20 hours at home each weekend?
• School (23.25 hours a week, around 15 hours seated and 8.25 hours moving): She’s at school from 8 until 12:30 every day, plus she stays until 4pm one day a month for her forest day. Most of her school time I think she’s probably sitting in a chair, but she has 45 minutes of recess on the playground each day, and 75 minutes of theatre/dance on Wednesday afternoon and 75 minutes of gym class on Friday afternoons. I think both dance and P.E. are indoors and relatively structured, but with other kids. Also she has a forest day from 8 to 4pm one day a month. So per week that adds up to 4.5 hours school * 5 weekdays – 3 hours (gym/dance) – 0.75*5 hours recess – 6 hours forest day / 4 (since it’s just once a month) = 15 hours sitting in school per week, 5.25 hours a week outside at recess or in the forest, and 3 hours a week indoors moving in dance or gym class.
• After-school care (15 hours a week, maybe 11 hours seated and 4 hours outdoors moving): I’m not sure how her after-school care time is spent. Definitely there’s some time in a chair eating and probably when playing games, and some outdoor time playing with other kids, but I’m never sure how much. She’s typically there from about 1pm to 3:30 or 4:30pm, so maybe an average of 15 hours a week. I’m guessing most of that time is spent sitting indoors and maybe 30 minutes to an hour is playing outdoors with the other kids?
• Car (4 hours a week): She’s in the car for about 15 minutes on the way to school and about 20 minutes on the way home from school, so 35 minutes a day maybe, plus on Mondays (climbing day) and Fridays (farm day) I usually pick her up from after-school care with the car as well. On the weekend we drive to equestrian vaulting and back (around 30 minutes total) and often we drive somewhere on Sunday for our walk. I’d guess she spends maybe 4 hours a week in the car?
• Walking (3.5 hours a week): I usually pick her up from after-school care and we walk home. It takes us about 20 minutes. On climbing day and farm day though I pick her up with the car, but then we do a bit of walking at the farm and sometimes walk home from the climbing gym. Occasionally her Dad parks further away from school in the morning and they walk in for 10 minutes, but usually they are running too late. On the weekend we probably spend around 30 to 90 minutes a day walking. So I would say she’s probably walking only around 3 to 4 hours a week?

In terms of other sport activities she currently takes two (hopefully soon three) sport classes a week:

• Climbing (1 hour a week): She does an hour climbing class at the climbing gym on Monday afternoons (but only about 15 to 20 minutes of that is actual climbing and the rest is just waiting her turn)
• Equestrian Vaulting (1 hour a week): She does an hour equestrian vaulting class on Saturdays afternoons. That includes about 20 minutes of callisthenics, lots of standing around waiting time, and only about 10 minutes of time on the actual horse or wooden horse.
• Swimming (0 hours a week): She used to do a weekly swimming class but it was cancelled due to Covid. We’re planning to start a weekly swimming class shortly. I just have to find a class with a free spot!

Weekends usually involve some walking, some grocery shopping, occasional bike rides with her Dad, some playground time (alone without other kids), some time on her stomach watching TV on Sunday mornings, and lots of sitting time (e.g., on the sofa watching a movie or in bed listening to stories or on the floor or at the table playing games). We occasionally go to the forest for a longer walk / hike, but not that often. 😦

When I add it all up I am left with about 2.5 hours unaccounted for. Not bad given that all my numbers are a pretty rough estimate.

So trying to break it down:

• structured vs. unstructured: I would say equestrian vaulting and swimming are totally structured, climbing and taking walks and forest day are somewhat structured, and playing at the playground (at recess or alone) or playing outside in after-school care is unstructured. Not sure how to classify bike riding? I guess it’s unstructured since nobody is telling her what to do? It doesn’t seem that creative though. Lots of her home time is unstructured, although I’m not sure how to count the time we spend playing games or reading books.
• with other kids vs. alone: Although all her sport classes are technically with other kids, she’s actually not interacting with the other kids much. When she’s climbing she’s up on the wall alone. When she’s on the horse she’s on it alone. Swimming there’s a bit more interaction but not much. Outdoor time at school and after school and in our courtyard is with other kids, but on weekends it’s usually just with us parents. Walking and bike riding are usually with her parents but not other kids. Forest day is with other kids.
• indoor vs. outdoor: Climbing and swimming are indoors, equestrian vaulting is mixed, and playing at the playground, taking walks, bike riding and forest day are outdoors. Most of her day at school and at home is spent indoors. She does spend 45 minutes at recess at school and some time in after-school care outdoors, plus our daily walk home for about 20 minutes, and whatever walking we do on the weekend.
• eyes up close vs. eyes varied/distance:  At first I was thinking that eyes up close vs. eyes varied/distance is the same thing as indoor vs. outdoor time. But then I thought more and I realized reading outside would be eyes-close time, so I guess it’s not exactly the same. I’m not sure how far you have to look to count as eyes varied/distance. I guess walking/forest days and maybe bike riding have eyes varied/distance, but everything else is pretty up close eyes?
• grip strength: Climbing requires quite a lot of grip strength I think, and equestrian vaulting a bit and playground a bit if she’s doing monkey bars or things like that. I think her other activities don’t do much for grip strength.
• arm position: Climbing mostly has arms over the head, and swimming has pretty dynamic arms. Equestrian vaulting has a little bit of variation in arm position (when they turn around and ride the horse backwards and reach behind them to hold on, for example, or when they hold their arms up or out). Walking and playground and forest day have dynamic/hanging arms, but biking has a fixed arm position, as do most of her indoor activities like school and home time.
• thigh position (forward / in front of the body vs. back / behind the body): Most of her indoor time has thighs in front of the body, except when she watches TV on her stomach on Sunday mornings. Biking is all thighs in front of the body. Climbing I would say mostly has thighs neutral, but maybe a bit in front of the body? Swimming has thighs back. Equestrian vaulting and playground have a mix depending on the position. Walking and forest day have thighs behind the body.
• balance challenging: I would say that equestrian vaulting challenges balance quite a bit, and maybe climbing a tad. The other activities probably don’t involve that much balance. Maybe biking if she tries to take her hands off the handlebars?
• spine position (dynamic vs. fixed/flexed). Seated indoor time has a fixed/flexed spine position, as does biking. I would say that equestrian vaulting has a pretty dynamic spine, as does swimming. And maybe even climbing? Walking/playground/forest are all definitely dynamic spine.
• jumping: None of her activities have a huge amount of jumping in them. Equestrian vaulting has a little when she dismounts the horse. Swimming has none. Climbing has almost none. Maybe playground has the most?
• body-weight bearing: Swimming is definitely a no. I’m guessing climbing is also a no? Equestrian vaulting probably also no? Walking/playground/forest are all body-weight bearing.
• mostly seated: Biking is seated, as is all day at school and most of her activities at after-school care and at home. Her other activities are mostly not seated.
• heart/lung moves (aka aerobic activity): I think swimming moves the heart and lungs. Not sure about climbing. The callisthenics bit of equestrian vaulting definitely seems aerobic. I guess taking walks moves the heart a little as does bike riding, but more if she pushes herself or races with someone. Not sure about playground time or her gym class at school.
• accuracy, throwing/kicking: I don’t think she’s doing much of anything that requires accuracy. Maybe a tad when climbing to reach a handhold?
• fine motor: I think her main fine motor activities are coloring and cutting (mostly at school these days), and sometimes beading at home. What else would work on fine motor skills? Maybe she’d like to do some more bracelet making with thread like we did in New Hampshire?

Now that I’ve done this exercise I need to spend some time thinking about how to fill in some of the gaps. I’m thinking about dropping the equestrian vaulting class even though Chickpea likes it. I just don’t know that it’s worth it for 5 to at most 10 minutes on an actual horse or wooden horse. Other activities I was thinking about having her try include judo and parkour. But neither of those involve accuracy I don’t think? I don’t know how social they are either. Gymnastics would be good for body-weight bearing and jumping and balance and grip strength, and I think she would like it. I don’t know why I’m nervous about it. I did gymnastics when I was a kid. I guess I feel like it’s not something adults ever do, so why start a kid on it if it’s not something they can hope to continue. Maybe a racquet sport would be good. I’m pretty sure they don’t have squash for kids, but I saw something recently about a crossminton class (a cross between badminton, tennis and squash I think). I have to look it up again.

Probably we should also go to the climbing gym on our own more often so she has more time on the actual wall. It would be good for me too! For aerobic activity, trampoline time would be good, and her best friend has a trampoline. I wonder if I could try to schedule trampoline time with them more regularly. It would also be great if we could schedule at least one longer walk/hike each week. I just have to figure out how to fit it in. And if we could reduce our car time and make more of that time walking time, that would be good too! I should listen to some of the other Katy Bowman episodes on this topic on her podcast. I know she’s talked about it before, specifically about how to fit in more movement time with kids.

Finally, Bowman doesn’t mention this separately from a dynamic spine, but I was also thinking that some activities involve much more rotation of the torso than others. I know from physical therapy that Chickpea struggles to rotate her torso to one side, and I’m wondering what activities would involve a lot of bilateral torso rotation? Maybe a racquet sport?

Update Feb 24: So around six weeks ago Chickpea said she didn’t want to go to equestrian vaulting any more, so we stopped that entirely. However, she has been taking a swimming course / going swimming once a week since October / November, with some breaks due to Covid. She’s occasionally going to her Turnen group on Thursdays and spends some time in the gym in her new after school care (not sure exactly what she does), but less time outside. She doesn’t want to take on any new classes right now, but I think once her swimming course is over I’m going to try to get her to try out a gymnastics class, since it will work on a ton of areas at once—grip strength, rotation, hanging, balance, dynamic arms, dynamic spine, dynamic legs, jumping, body-weight bearing, and heart/lung work. Of course, an hour a week isn’t all that much, but it’s better than nothing! And I will work harder on organizing at least one extended family movement activity on the weekend—things like squash/badminton, bouldering at the climbing gym, hiking somewhere new, going to the pool together, going on a long bike ride, ….  I would like to build this into our Sunday routine somehow. Maybe Sunday after lunch we also do some activity involving movement. I also want to try to organize one playground playdate a week, now that the weather is improving again.