Kings and catapults: A cardio game

NOTE - This post was originally written for our 'weekly warble' segment in a few Facebook groups for the community local to our gym.


Welcome to the weekly warble here at Ideanthro Movement!

In this week's warble I'm going to share with you a fitness game that you can play to get a bit of a cardio workout without really realising it (at least not until the game ends and you're huffing and puffing!).

This game is called kings and catapults. You can see a picture of us playing it in the gym on a couple of the photos in the attached post. It was inspired by a game that one of the children in our Youth Program showed us. That original game wasn't at all fitness related, but collectively we modified it and 'ta-da' we have a fun fitness game.

You need at least two people to play kings and catapults. A few more is better. We've played it with up to five because that's all we have space for in our gym, but six or seven probably wouldn't hurt if you have enough space.

To set up, everyone gets 6 jenga blocks and one foam ball (you'll be able to find substitutes around the house once you know how the game works). Each player arranges their jenga blocks at one end of the room (everyone at the same end). Blocks are arranged as upside down T-shapes (i.e. 3 T-shapes per person from their 6 blocks). A start line is marked at the other end of the room (at our gym that's about 5m away). A throwing line is marked between the start line and the blocks (about 1m from the blocks).

Here's how you play. On 3-2-1-GO everyone runs from the start line to the throwing line and attempts to throw their foam ball at someone else's jenga blocks. The aim is to be the last person with a jenga block standing. Once you have thrown, you run to collect your ball and then run back to the start line to begin again. You do not have to wait for anyone else. Run fast and you'll get more throws. If, when you come to start your turn, one or two of your jenga blocks have been knocked over, you may choose not to throw and instead run up to your blocks and rebuild one of them. You then run back to the start to earn to earn another go. When all three of a player's T's are knocked over, they are out. Play continues until one person remains. Occasionally people are too good at rebuilding and the game drags on. In that instance, someone calls "no rebuilds" and from that point on no-one is allowed to rebuild their pieces. The game usually ends soon after this.

And that's the game. It turns out to be surprisingly good cardio because there is a lot of starting and stopping running and changing directions.

Now, there are a few considerations to make this game run smoothly

1) The major one is that the way that we have described it, hitting the jenga blocks can be quite hard. It's not unusual to miss a few throws in a row. For some people (particularly children, but sometimes adults as well), that can be emotionally challenging. Before playing this game, ask yourself if the level of difficulty presented by the jenga blocks and foam ball combination is the right difficulty for the people playing. If it's not, consider different targets. For example a jenga block standing on a plastic cup presents a bigger target and hence is easier for everyone to hit. You could even mix targets based on their throwing accuracy. The most accurate throwers could be given large targets to offset their throwing ability and so on. Alternatively, draw multiple throwing lines so that more accurate throwers must throw from further away from the targets and vice versa.

2) Another consideration is space. With so many people running back and forth there is risk of running into other people, particularly when someone bends down to pick up a ball and turns blindly to run back. Be sure to take care.

3) A final consideration is equipment. Understandably, not everyone has access to the exact equipment that we use, but there are alternatives. You could, for example, play this game with plastic cups and rolled up socks.

And that's it. It takes a bit of explaining when you write it out, but in truth it's quite a simple game once you've played it once and see how it works.

Enjoy!


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Jack Mullaly