The Physio ‘Equipment’ You Didn’t Even Know You Had!
What can you do at home with ‘equipment’ you didn’t even know you had?
See below for home ideas that are easy to implement when you’re in-between visits with your pediatric (or grown-up) physiotherapist - no fancy tools required!
Cushions
Round up all the pillows, couch cushions, outdoor cushions, and decorative cushions you have! These are so functional and can be used to target a wide variety of skills from strengthening to balance to body awareness.
Place them on the ground and have your littles walk over them to target dynamic balance. Walking on uneven surfaces in bare feet wakes up the muscles in the feet that are responsible for supporting our arches.
While on the ground, with some stacked in piles, have your little walk between the cushions encouraging them to take some sideways steps and backwards steps.
Use firmer cushions to practice stepping up and down to target lower extremity strengthening. You can even stack some to create make-shift stairs that are a little more tricky to manage because they are soft and uneven. Stepping up/down in a sideways direction also targets different muscles on the outside of the hip than stepping up/down in a forwards direction.
Have fun building a tower! All the lifting and reaching and rotating engages targets core and upper extremity strengthening.
Once you’ve made a tower have your little knock them over using their arms or even their legs, which secretly targets single leg balance!
Make a fort! This will encourage all kinds of squatting to bend down low for the lower levels, and all the tiptoe raises to lift the cushions for the roof. It’s a great whole-body activity!
Chalk
Chalk can not only be used as a creative outlet; it can be used to target gross motor skills too!
Draw a straight line and have your little walk across it like a balance beam. Increase the challenge by showing them how to walk with the toes of your back foot contacting the heel of your front foot (tandem stepping, as seen above). Pretend you’re a gymnast walking the beam, or a circus performer walking the tight rope!
Progress to drawing a wavy line to up the difficulty level - just a little bit!
Hopscotch! This can be used to target two-foot jumping, and eventually, one foot hopping.
Draw targets of some kind on the side of the house. Have your little lift one foot to touch the target. Then try with the other foot. Increase the challenge by lifting one foot to touch all 3 targets before putting their foot down. This way you are gradually increasing the duration of time your little is able to balance on one leg. You could do different colour circles and make it a game “touch the red circle with your foot”.
Draw two lines ~10 ft. apart – a start and a finish – and have your little do animal walk races. You can practice walking like a crab, a duck, a bear, a frog, or a MONSTER!
Draw an obstacle course including all of the above! Add other obstacles from your garage that they have to step over or step on and off of.
Shoeboxes, Diaper Boxes, Amazon Boxes … All the Boxes!
Depending on the strength of the box/material, there are so many ways these can be used so think twice before recycling them!
Fill the box with something a little bit heavy (they could fill it up with their toys and ‘deliver’ things around the home) so that the box has resistance. Have your little push and pull the box around the house to get those core muscles firing. You can also have them do this activity in high kneel (bum off the backs of their legs). This can be achieved with a laundry basket as well.
Have your little step in and out of the box to target the muscles that bend the hip and knee, and lift the toes.
Flip the more sturdy boxes over and work on stepping up and down to target lower extremity strength. Remember you can do both forward stepping up/down and sideways stepping up/down.
Sit on the box and work on sit to stands. The lower the box, the harder the sit to stand is.
Taller boxes, where toes can’t reach the floor when sitting on them, can be used to work on sitting balance. Present bubbles or a favourite toy in all directions and have your little reach to pop the bubbles or to touch their toy. This works all the muscles of the trunk. Add to the challenge by having them sit on a pillow.
For the older children, flip the box over. Draw a line dissecting the centre of the box. Have your little hold on to the box with two hands, then try to jump side to side over the line. Start the lateral box jumps early!
For the little ones, depending on the size of the box or laundry basket, this can be an early push toy for those who are 10 months+ and learning to take first steps. Just remember to weigh it down or provide resistance yourself so it doesn’t get carried away from them.
This blog post was written by wellbe’s pediatric physiotherapist Casey O’Dwyer.