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Here are some good ways to include heavy work in your daily routines:

Play Activities

Heavy work activities can actually be a lot of fun! Many playtime activities use the major muscle groups, both in coordination and separately. Remember to combine weight with movement to reap the most organizing, calming benefits from the deep pressure stimulation. As you plan playtime for your child, keep these kinds of movements in mind:

• Jumping and Crashing. Any kind of jumping activity engages the lower body and activates proprioceptive input in the leg muscles and joints, while “crashing” activities engage the entire body. Try jump rope, hopscotch, bouncing on trampolines, or jumping and crashing into bed mattresses, piles of couch cushions, or large pillows. This may drive you crazy—but it’s so good for the kids! If you don’t want to put your furniture at risk, go to a trampoline park that includes foam pits and obstacle courses, which combine a lot of different heavy work activities in one place. Older kids may also enjoy wrestling, kickboxing, and organized sports activities.

• Digging and Pouring. Playing in a sandbox or at a water table, searching for treasure in the backyard, or building a snowman all provide excellent heavy work for the upper body while also improving hand-eye coordination. Make sure your child has plenty of little shovels, scoopers, and buckets and encourage lots of pouring from one container to another. Choose larger containers for more heavy work. Consider burying trinkets and toys in the sand and see how many your child can find. For a good rainy day activity, fill a large bin with rice or dry beans and bury toys for your child to find. Swimming or any kind of water play also uses the digging muscles.

• Climbing and Hanging. Playgrounds are a great place to go for climbing and hanging equipment. Jungle gyms, monkey bars, climbing walls, and ladders use all of your child’s major muscle groups in coordination and provide wonderful proprioceptive input, while hanging by the arms or the legs stretches out the muscles and engages the joints and ligaments. At home, you can encourage your child to try climbing a tree, playing in a treehouse, playing on a rope swing, or climbing in and out of a bunk bed.

• Pushing, Pulling, and Throwing. Try tug-of-war games, sledding, pulling a wagon, pushing a friend or sibling on a swing, or push-ups. Playing catch is also an ideal way to warm up the arms and shoulders. If your child doesn’t have the hand-eye coordination to play catch with a glove and baseball, that’s alright. Try bean bags, medicine balls (carefully!), water balloons, a basketball, or any large, soft object like a big pillow or stuffed animal. The goal is for your child to encounter some resistance while catching and have to heave some weight while throwing. Ask your child to throw stuffed animals or pillows into a laundry basket to improve hand-eye coordination and gross motor skills while doing heavy work.

• Running, Crawling, and Pedaling. While not all children enjoy running for its own sake, this activity stimulates every muscle group and does some heavy proprioceptive work in the legs. If your child doesn’t naturally like to run while playing, start small with short, fun foot races. Race your kid to the car after grocery shopping, for example. You can also do funny walks and crawls with your child, such as stomping in place, wheelbarrow walks, animal walks like crab walks and bear walks, snake slithers, and army crawls. Finally, riding bikes is an excellent heavy work activity. If your child can’t ride a bike yet or is afraid to try, start out with scooters, balance bikes, or other self-propelled riding toys. You can even use a large skateboard that your child sits or lies down on while scooting forward with his feet or hands.