Brain Warm-Up Exercises for Kids with ADHD

• What exercises help kids with ADHD focus better before school or homework?
• Are there brain warm-up activities that improve attention in children with ADHD?

By Dr. Douglas Cowan, Psy.D., MFT

A baseball coach doesn’t let his players walk off the bus and onto the field. There’s a warm-up first — stretching, throwing, fielding grounders — movements that prepare the body and the mind for what’s about to be asked of them. I spent years coaching baseball before I spent years in clinical practice, and one of the things that bridges those two worlds for me is this: preparation matters. You perform better when you’ve done the work to get ready.

Children with ADHD are athletes who need to warm up before learning. The science behind this is increasingly solid. What I want to give you here is both the research and the actual exercises — simple, five-to-ten-minute routines that activate the brain, coordinate both hemispheres, and prepare the attention system for the demands of a school day or a homework session.

My nephew Casey Fien pitched in Major League Baseball after coming up through the Detroit Tigers organization and moving on to the Minnesota Twins. What got him there wasn’t just talent. It was years of consistent, focused preparation — physical routines that became second nature long before the game started. The same principle applies to a child with ADHD sitting down to do long division.

What’s Happening in the Brain

Physical movement is not separate from brain function. It is brain function.

The cerebellum — historically thought of as the brain’s motor coordinator — has extensive connections to the prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for attention, working memory, and executive function. Research has increasingly shown that the cerebellum plays a significant role in cognitive processes, not just physical coordination. Movement that requires bilateral coordination (crossing the midline, balancing, sequencing) activates and integrates these systems.

For children with ADHD, aerobic movement and cross-lateral activities do something measurable: they increase dopamine and norepinephrine in the prefrontal cortex — the same neurotransmitters that ADHD medications also target. A 2011 study by Jeffrey Halperin at CUNY demonstrated that movement-based interventions, including childhood games that require physical coordination and focus, can improve executive functioning, working memory, and self-control in children with ADHD. His TEAMS program (Training Executive Attention and Motor Skills) showed that physical play with family-level engagement produced significant gains in attention regulation.

More recent research confirms that even ten to fifteen minutes of aerobic movement before a learning task can improve sustained attention for up to forty minutes afterward. This is not recreational — it is neurological preparation.

Summer is particularly well-suited for building these habits. The school-year schedule is relentless, and there’s rarely time to introduce new routines without adding to the pressure. Summer gives you the window to practice until the routine is automatic — so that by fall, the brain warm-up is just part of what your child does before learning begins.

Now You Understand Why

Physical activity prepares the ADHD brain for cognitive work in ways that no pep talk, reminder, or punishment can replicate.

Why do cross-lateral movements help? Because they require the two hemispheres of the brain to coordinate in real time. The left brain manages the right side of the body; the right brain manages the left side. When a child touches their right elbow to their left knee repeatedly, they are not just exercising — they are building the neural coordination between hemispheres that supports language processing, reading fluency, and sustained attention.

Why does balance work improve attention? Because balance requires the brain to integrate sensory information from the inner ear, the visual system, and the proprioceptive system (the body’s position sense) simultaneously. This kind of multi-system integration exercises the same attentional networks that academic learning depends on.

Why does movement before learning beat movement after? Because the neurochemical effects of exercise — the dopamine and norepinephrine boost — peak in the window right after activity and sustain for forty or more minutes. Timing matters. A brisk walk or five minutes of cross-crawls before sitting down to work is preparation. A walk after homework is reward. Both have value, but they do different things.

What Wisdom Looks Like Here

The practical wisdom here is simple: these exercises work best when they become routine, not when they’re added on as an afterthought.

Five to ten minutes every morning before school. Five minutes before homework in the afternoon. Not every single day has to be perfect — but consistency across a week, a month, a summer, builds something real. Athletes call it muscle memory. Neurologically, it’s the formation of stable neural pathways through repetition.

Keep the exercises simple enough that your child can eventually lead them. When children internalize the routine, they also internalize the message that they have tools for managing their own brain. That is a gift that lasts longer than any individual exercise.

What To Do Starting Today

• Cross-Crawls. March in place while touching your right elbow to your left knee, then your left elbow to your right knee, alternating rhythmically. Do this for sixty to ninety seconds. This cross-lateral movement activates both brain hemispheres simultaneously and supports the coordination between them that reading and focused attention require. Start slow and increase pace as coordination improves.

• Lazy 8s (Infinity Loops). Extend one arm and use your thumb as a drawing point. Trace a sideways figure eight — a lying-down infinity symbol — slowly and steadily in the air, starting from the midpoint and going left first. Follow with the other hand, then with both hands clasped together. This exercise tracks the eyes across the visual midline and supports the left-right integration that reading fluency and visual attention depend on. Do it twice through with each hand, slowly.

• Hook-Ups. Cross your ankles. Extend your arms with the backs of your hands facing each other, cross your wrists, interlace your fingers, and draw your hands in toward your chest. Hold the position, breathe slowly and deeply, and rest there for sixty seconds. This position — adapted from Brain Gym — activates integration across the corpus callosum and has a calming, organizing effect on the nervous system. It is particularly useful before a transition to demanding work, or when a child is anxious or dysregulated.

• Balance and Hold. Stand on one foot and count slowly to ten, then switch. Repeat twice on each side. For a more challenging version, close your eyes. Balance activities activate the vestibular system and require the attentional network to coordinate multiple sensory inputs simultaneously. They also build proprioceptive awareness — the body’s sense of its own position in space — which is often underdeveloped in children with ADHD. As balance improves, try heel-to-toe walking on a taped line.

• Neck and Shoulder Rolls. Slow, deliberate neck circles and shoulder shrugs release tension from the muscles most likely to hold stress in a child who has been working hard to manage their own behavior all day. Begin with shoulders: raise them toward the ears, hold for three counts, release. Then slow neck circles in each direction. This is a calming exercise, best used to transition out of stimulation and into focused work, or at the end of a challenging learning period.

• Jumping Jacks or Brief Aerobic Burst. Before a morning school day or a homework session, two minutes of vigorous jumping jacks, jumping rope, or any activity that elevates the heart rate produces the dopamine and norepinephrine surge that primes the prefrontal cortex for focused work. This doesn’t need to be structured or elegant. It needs to get the heart rate up. Even a quick run around the block or five minutes of shooting baskets accomplishes the same goal.

These exercises take five to ten minutes. Most parents who commit to them for two weeks report meaningful differences in how their child transitions into focused work. Some report changes within days.

The brain that has been prepared learns better than the brain that hasn’t. Start somewhere. Keep going. Summer is the perfect time to build the habit that serves your child all year.

References

1. Ratey, J. J., & Hagerman, E. (2008). Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. Little, Brown and Company.
2. Halperin, J. M., & Healey, D. M. (2011). The influences of environmental enrichment, cognitive enhancement, and physical exercise on brain development: Can we alter the developmental trajectory of ADHD? Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(3), 621–634.
3. Dennison, P. E., & Dennison, G. E. (1994). Brain Gym: Teacher’s Edition. Edu-Kinesthetics.
4. Pontifex, M. B., et al. (2013). Exercise improves behavioral, neurocognitive, and scholastic performance in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Pediatrics, 162(3), 543–551.
5. Barkley, R. A. (2015). Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment (4th ed.). Guilford Press.
6. Cermark, S. A. (1985). Developmental dyspraxia. In D. A. Royeen (Ed.), AOTA Self-Study Series: Cognitive Rehabilitation. American Occupational Therapy Association.