A lot of parents say they’d die for their kids but won’t live healthy for them. At Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby, near Brentwood, coaches Josko and Brandon — both parents themselves — see the difference between families who treat fitness as a schedule item and families who live it. The kids who excel at swimming, sports, and physical activity almost always have parents who are in the water with them, on the mat with them, or stretching in the living room beside them.
Watch: Family Fitness
In this episode of the Kraken Power Podcast, Josko and Brandon discuss building a fitness culture in your family — why modeling beats mandating, how to start small, and why exercise should never be punishment.
The Lifeguard Lesson: Engaged Parents Make Better Swimmers
Josko and Brandon both grew up as lifeguards, teaching kids to swim. That experience gave them a front-row seat to one pattern that repeated itself constantly: the kids who excelled at swimming had engaged parents, and the kids who struggled had parents sitting on the bleachers scrolling their phones.
One of Brandon’s students was having a harder time learning to swim. She missed a week of lessons. When she came back, she could swim. What happened? Her family went to Hawaii, and the parents were in the pool with the kids every day. The environment did what the swimming lessons couldn’t — because her parents were actively participating, not just dropping her off.
Josko sees the same pattern at jiu-jitsu schools. The kids who excel often have parents who started training jiu-jitsu too. Not because the parents are great at it — some are white belts while their kids are nearly blue belts — but because after class, they go home and practice the moves together on mats in the living room. The practice sessions aren’t forced. The kids want to do them because they see their parents doing it.
This isn’t about being a helicopter parent. Josko gets it — 30 minutes of swim lessons is also 30 minutes of peace for a parent who’s been in decision-fatigue mode all day. But the data from years of lifeguarding is clear: participation beats observation.
Model It, Don’t Mandate It
Parents who put their kids in soccer, jiu-jitsu, and dance classes but don’t do any physical activity themselves are sending a mixed message. The kids see that fitness is something you do when you’re young and stop when you’re an adult.
Josko’s friend growing up was incredible at soccer. Why? Because his dad took him to the pitch every single day and they practiced juggling, shooting, and passing together. The dad wasn’t even good at soccer. He was just there. That presence and participation made the difference.
At Kraken Fitness in Burnaby, the coaching team works with parents who are trying to get back into fitness after years of prioritizing their kids’ activities over their own health. The irony: the best thing those parents can do for their kids’ fitness is to get fit themselves.
Josko is already implementing this with his own kids, who are four years old. The family does evening stretching sessions in the living room — Josko does his mobility work, his wife does hers, and the kids just kind of do whatever they want alongside them. They’re barely paying attention. But they see dad stretching. They know it’s a thing that happens at this time. That’s the seed.
Could Josko get a more effective stretch in a room by himself? Sure. But the point isn’t the stretch. The point is the modeling.
Never Use Exercise as Punishment
Some parents make their kids do pushups when they misbehave. “Hit your sister? Ten pushups right now.” That approach turns exercise into a negative association — something that happens when you do something wrong.
Brandon sees this play out in martial arts. The traditional wrestling culture built fitness as punishment — do something wrong, run laps, do burpees. Compare that to the jiu-jitsu schools in the Burnaby area where there’s no punishment framework. Kids make mistakes, learn from them, and try again. The drilling isn’t forced. Nobody’s running laps as punishment.
The result: kids in those jiu-jitsu programs actually want to drill. They’ll do the same move a thousand times voluntarily because nobody turned that repetition into a punishment. They do it because they want to get better, not because someone is making them.
That’s the culture to build at home. Movement should be associated with fun, family time, and self-improvement — not consequences for bad behavior.
Simple Things Families Can Start Today
You don’t need a garage gym or a structured program to build a family fitness culture. Kraken’s coaches recommend starting with the simplest possible actions:
Family walks after dinner. This is Josko’s number one recommendation. It’s free, it’s easy, it requires zero equipment, and it includes everyone. Walk around the block. Look at trees. Hold the kids’ hands. Brandon does the same thing with his daughter — he literally just grabs her, walks around the block, and comes back. Progressive overload built in: she gets heavier every week.
Evening stretching as a family. Josko’s family dims the lights, and everyone stretches or does mobility work in the living room. The kids don’t follow a program. They just see their parents on the floor moving and they participate however they want.
Talk about food. Josko already talks about healthy vs. unhealthy foods with his four-year-olds. “Can I have a chocolate?” “No, that’s unhealthy.” Do they fully understand? Not yet. But he’s caught his daughter Sophia telling Amelia: “No, that’s unhealthy.” The language is sinking in.
Be in the activity with them. If your kid does swimming, get in the pool with them sometimes. If they do jiu-jitsu, try a class yourself. If they play soccer, kick the ball around in the backyard. You don’t have to be good at it. You just have to be present and active.
The key insight: none of these things are extreme. They don’t require an hour or special equipment. They’re just small behaviors that, over time, build a household where fitness is normal — not a scheduled activity that gets inserted into the calendar and resented.
Fitness Should Be Lived, Not Scheduled
Josko’s closing philosophy: fitness should be something your family lives, not just a line item on the weekly schedule. Not “soccer practice at 3 PM” or “dance class at 4 PM” or forcing kids to eat foods they hate. It should be a lifestyle — stretching together, walking as a family, eating protein-rich foods that everyone actually enjoys, and being active because that’s what the family does.
This doesn’t mean you need to go from zero to training every day as a family. Start small. A walk after dinner. Some stretches in the living room. Talking about food choices in a way that’s educational, not punishing.
And don’t feel guilty if you’re not at the extreme end. Brandon’s jiu-jitsu coach Jason Gagnon works out in his garage at 4 AM, and his kid Deacon does burpees and box jumps alongside him because he associates exercise with something his dad loves. That’s one end of the spectrum. The other end is just going for a 10-minute walk together. Both work.
The pattern is the same: kids follow what they see, not what they’re told. If they see you sitting on the couch, that’s what they’ll do. If they see you moving, stretching, and choosing healthy food, they’ll grow up thinking that’s just what people do. And that’s the whole point.
FAQ
How do I get my kids interested in fitness?
Don’t try to get them interested — model it yourself. Kids follow what they see their parents doing. At Kraken Fitness in Burnaby, coaches see the same pattern: kids who are active have parents who are active. Start with family walks, evening stretching, or trying your child’s sport alongside them.
What’s the best age to start teaching kids about fitness?
You can start modeling fitness behaviors as soon as your kids can observe you. Josko started evening stretching routines and food conversations with his four-year-olds. The kids don’t need to “understand” fitness. They just need to see it as a normal part of daily life.
Should I use exercise as punishment for my kids?
No. Using pushups or running as punishment creates a negative association with physical activity. Instead, build exercise into family routines as something positive and enjoyable. Kids who voluntarily drill jiu-jitsu moves a thousand times do it because nobody turned it into punishment.
What if I’m not fit myself?
That’s the perfect place to start. Your kids don’t need you to be an athlete. They need to see you trying. Brandon’s friend’s dad wasn’t good at soccer — he just showed up to the pitch every day. Start with a walk, some stretches, or one gym session per week. Your effort is the model.
How do I build a fitness culture without being extreme?
Start with one simple habit: a family walk after dinner, stretching in the living room, or talking about food choices at meals. Don’t overhaul everything at once. Small, consistent behaviors create culture over time. The goal is to make movement feel normal, not mandatory.
Ready to Start?
If you want to build your own fitness foundation so your family has someone to follow, Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby near Brentwood offers a free trial week. The coaching team works with busy parents to build sustainable habits that fit real life.
Listen on Your Favorite Platform
- YouTube – https://youtu.be/5_sCC-7fDYQ
- Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ekioKiDRHQjLHoCv1Vj5X?si=tBf4Feo1QFylSXed8leoaQ
- Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/why-your-kids-wont-exercise/id1769000945?i=1000753053687
About the Author
Josko Kraken is the founder of Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby near Brentwood, and a father of three. He and co-owner Brandon — also a parent — built Kraken for non-gym people who want to build sustainable health habits. Both hosts of the Kraken Power Podcast, they bring over a decade of combined coaching experience and a lifeguarding background that taught them early on how much parental modeling matters.
[Josko]
What’s going on everyone. Welcome back to the Kraken Power podcast. We’re your hosts, Josko and Brandon.
And today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about building a culture of fitness in your family and why a lot of parents say that they would die for their kids, but they won’t live healthy for them. Let’s dive in.
[Brandon]
So if you haven’t heard before, Josko and I grew up being lifeguards. And part of being a lifeguard is you have to teach kids how to swim. And there was one very stark difference that I noticed between the parents of the kids that I used to teach.
Now, the kids who really enjoyed being at the pool and the ones who actually excelled in swimming were the parents who had engaging parents and the ones who were more afraid of getting into the water and the ones who were a little bit slower to learn were often the parents who were sitting on the bleachers on their phones during the swim lessons. Would you kind of agree with this?
[Josko]
Yeah, for sure. Exactly. And, uh, yeah, you’ll see the parents like leave the, like, just leave them.
They wouldn’t even be watching or anything.
[Brandon]
Yeah.
[Josko]
It’s like you drop them off and you’re like, okay, 30 minutes to myself. Yeah. Um, while my kid goes and picks up a new- I don’t blame parents for that.
Like I, I totally understand how hard it is. You don’t have time for yourself and everything. It’s like, oh, okay.
30 minutes just to like be on my phone for a bit. Yeah, I get it.
[Brandon]
But I remember talking to one of the moms of the kids that I was teaching and this one daughter was having a little bit of a harder time. And then out of one week away, like she missed a week of swimming lessons, she came back the following week. She knew how to swim.
And I was like, what did you guys do? She’s like, oh, we went to Hawaii. And the entire time we were in Hawaii, there was a pool.
My husband and I were in the pool. We’re swimming with the kids every day and now she can swim.
[Josko]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
That that’s, that’s a building a culture of fitness. You can do the exact same thing with fitness as well. So, you know, a lot of parents will say like, put their kids into jujitsu, put their, make their kids play sports and everything.
It’s like, but what are you doing? You know, you’re just sitting at home or just watching your kid do it. And then you’re yelling at them when they’re not doing well, or when you want, when you put, want to push them harder, but why don’t you push yourself as well, you know?
[Brandon]
Exactly. And I think it’s just like another time that you can take to spend with them and, you know, gain a skill. It shouldn’t be like I was saying earlier, just drop them off and like, okay, check.
My kid is going to acquire the skill of riding a bike.
[Josko]
Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I remember, uh, before one of the, this, my, one of my best friends when I was a kid, he was so good at soccer, but it’s because his dad would take him out onto the pitch every single day and they would practice like juggling balls and shooting and passing every single day.
And he obviously crushed, but it was because his dad was there pushing him all the time and his dad probably wasn’t like the best soccer player, but he was just, he was there. And we also have like some parents at jujitsu as well. Their kids go to jujitsu and then they go to jujitsu as well.
And obviously their kids are really good as a result.
[Brandon]
Yeah. And it’s the kids who I find that really excel at jujitsu. Aren’t the ones who had parents who are really good at jujitsu, you know, sometimes it’s the ones who, you know, start off jujitsu and then the parents are like, you know what, maybe I should start doing that too, because my kid’s doing it.
And then sure enough, like after jujitsu practice, like the dad will come. He’s like, oh yeah, we got mats at home. We’re practicing the moves that we did in class, even though I’m only like a white belt, but my kid’s like almost like a blue belt, like he still gets time to practice after it.
So obviously there’s tons of examples of this happening. What are some like actionable steps that parents or families can do to build this kind of culture in the household?
[Josko]
So for one thing that we, our kids are really little, they’re four years old. The oldest ones are four years old and we are already talking about healthy foods. You know, we say that’s unhealthy.
This is healthy, you know, like, oh dad, can I have a chocolate? No, that’s unhealthy. You know?
And like they, they maybe don’t fully understand that yet that it’s unhealthy, but I’ve had, I’ve caught them before saying, Amelia would say like, oh, can I have a chocolate? And then Sophia would be like, no, that’s unhealthy, you know? And so yeah, they do learn from those kinds of things.
And then also another thing that we started doing was a family nighttime stretching as well. So what we’ll do is in our living room, we’ll do like a little bit like a mobility circuit. I’m doing my own thing.
My wife’s doing her own thing as well. And then the kids, they’re just doing anything they want, you know? And most of the time they’re like barely even paying attention, but it’s like, I could go stretch by myself inside like a room and have probably a more effective stretch, but I want them to see that it’s like, oh, dad’s stretching, you know?
And so then they know that it’s like, okay, when I get older, I’m going to be participating in this as well, you know?
[Brandon]
Yeah, totally. And what you’re doing is you’re being a good model for your kids. Uh, another good example of this is actually my jujitsu coach, Jason Gagnon.
This guy, I mean, he’s kind of a maniac, but he is one of those guys who’ll work out in his garage gym religiously. Like every morning he’s up at like 4 AM so he can get in like an assault bike or he’s like dead lifting, doing cleans and such. And if you see his like kid on Instagram, he’s hyped to get into this gym doing just like box jumps, burpees, he’ll just yell out to his kid, Hey Deacon, just do some burpees.
And he’s just going. And it’s not because it’s like a punishment. It’s like, he really enjoys that form of exercise as like an activity that he associates that his dad enjoys too.
[Josko]
Yeah, exactly. So that’s like one end on the extreme, right? Like if your kids are just going to be following whatever you do, right?
So then if you’re doing jujitsu and you’re working out all the time, they’re very likely going to do the exact same thing. But also just like, don’t think that you have to go all the way to that extreme, right? You don’t have to be working out all the time.
You can do very simple things like family stretching routine, you know, going for a walk after dinner every single day, you know, like this is what we do. We eat dinner and then we go for a walk. It’s very small things that you could just incorporate into your entire life and build that culture of fitness and health, you know, and you, you start off a start off small and work your way up.
Maybe eventually you get your garage gym and you’re just training with your kid every single day, but yeah, it’s the baby steps.
[Brandon]
Now, one thing I kind of very brought up very briefly earlier was like some parents will actually use exercise as a punishment, you know, like they do something bad and you’re like, Hey, do 10 pushups right now. Like in front of everyone, humiliate them in front of everyone at a restaurant. You’re like, Hey, you shouldn’t hit your sister like that.
Do 10 pushups right now on this dirty floor. And instead of pushing them into something as exercise is a positive thing that like reinforces it as a negative thing. Have you seen this before?
[Josko]
Yeah. Or like a, a very common would be like your kid doesn’t do well in soccer. So then you make them go practice soccer even more, run laps.
Um, and this was also brought up on like, like the problem with wrestling, right. Was that they built a culture of fitness as punishment in wrestling versus jujitsu. They don’t really have that.
Like, especially in schools here in Vancouver, there is no like form of punishment in jujitsu where you’re like doing laps around the gym, you’re doing pushups and burpees and all that stuff to like build your cardio, you know, you’re just doing jujitsu and you’re having fun with it, you know, and you make a mistake and then you just learn from that mistake and you try again, you know, and then what that creates in these jujitsu schools is that people actually want to go and drill.
You know, the most boring thing that you could do, they’re okay with like doing the same move a thousand times because, and that’s not a form of punishment. It’s like, Oh, I want to get good at this because, and nobody forced them to do it. They just do it themselves.
And that’s exactly what we want to build inside your family as well. Instead of like making them do it, it’s just like, you know, build that culture of like, Oh, we want to just get better. You know?
So what could be a philosophy that families model after that is almost like the Kraken way? The one thing that I really think that would benefit a lot of families, if you just look at fitness being something that should be lived, not just a part of your schedule and not something that you just insert into your schedule, 3 PM soccer class or 4 PM dance class, or, you know, like, Oh, like having some sort of diet restriction or something. It should be something that you live every single day, but don’t feel like overwhelmed, like you have to start exercising every single day as a family or anything, start small, work your way up.
[Brandon]
And you know what, that’s something we actually embody at Kraken all the time, isn’t it?
[Josko]
Yeah, for sure. You know, the one thing that I really want people to walk away with is that fitness should be something your family lives, not just a part of the schedule, not just, you know, soccer practice inserted at 3 PM or dance class inserted at 4 PM or forcing your kids to eat foods that they don’t like. It should be a whole lifestyle from stretching with your family, going for walks as a family and having foods that your kids enjoy and that you enjoy.
And just having that general healthy lifestyle together, not just forcing it on your kids. So that’s pretty much it. Hope you guys enjoyed that episode and we’ll see you in the next one.