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Posted by on Sep 23, 2018 in Games for Large Groups, Games for Small Groups, Single Player Games | 0 comments

Bounce and Balance

Bounce and Balance

It’s never good to lose control of your balls!

Players: 2+

Equipment: Tennis balls, cones, hard surface

Game: This warm-up game race is played individually, featuring 3 sequential trips out to a 50m cone and back, with the first person to finish all 3 laps winning.  Each lap, the player will need to balance or bounce two tennis balls in different ways, stopping to do 10 jumping jacks each time they lose control of their balls (AKA it hits the ground).  For the first lap, players will need to balance the the balls on the tops of their pointer and middle fingers as they run, like so:

Balance and Bounce at GamesFitness.com

Lap 1: Balance and Run. 10 jacks for every drop!

As a modification, players can use more fingers as needed, or can flip over and hold the balls in their outstretched palms, but they are never allowed to grasp or squeeze the balls, as that would remove the balance element from the run.  Many players may not be able to do much more than a quick walk this way, but, that’s OK – it’s only a warm-up.  And, remember, whenever a player loses control of the ball and it hits the ground they must stop and do 10 jumping jacks before continuing.

Once a player is back from the first lap, they start the second lap, in which the player will successively bounce each hand’s ball, like so:

Balance and Bounce at GamesFitness.com

Lap 2: Alternative hand bounces

Try to encourage players to bounce each ball as the other ball is arriving back, to really challenge their coordination.

Lastly, the third lap requires the players to bounce both balls simultaneously as they run:

Balance and Bounce at GamesFitness.com

Lap 3: Simultaneously bouncing both balls.

First player done all 3 laps wins!

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