Back in stride -- with baby in tow

This is what strikes fear in the hearts of mothers-to-be: that your post-birth body will never return to the shape it was before.

My baby is a year old now, and I don’t look like a deflated beach ball. In the year since my son’s birth, I have walked, done yoga, even swum occasionally. But exercise requires child care, something that is not always available. And as a working mother, I don’t want to be away from my son during the time I have off. As a result, I, a former fitness junkie, just don’t break a sweat much anymore.

The problem seemed without solution until I heard of a program called Stroller Strides, a nationwide service. It sounded more like a social event than a workout, but I decided to check it out. Turned out it was more like boot camp for mamas.

Nine mamas and their babies (ranging in age from 5 months to 3 1/2 years) met near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena at 9:15 on a recent Thursday morning. It was a beautiful day with a perfect winter blue sky. The instructor, Susan Lile, recommended that I bring a jogging stroller, water and sun protection for me and my son, Theo.

Lile was tall and peppy like a former high school cheerleader, with a long ponytail. She looked trim and fit, the way some of us feared we never would again. Although she has three children (a 13-year-old and two 6-year-olds, for today she was our single-minded drill sergeant. We signed in and she handed out bells for the babies and rubber exercise tubes for us.

Lile gathered mothers and children -- now strapped into their strollers -- in a semi-circle around her for five minutes of warmup stretches. Would 10 babies let their mothers work out for an hour, I wondered? One toddler stretched. Another boy looked at a book. The babies just watched the wacky dance before their eyes.

Then we were off, a caravan of race-walking mamas, striding through the park with our strollers. Lile dropped back to show me and another first-timer the proper walking posture -- shoulders back, chest up, back straight, hands lightly on the stroller handle. Turns out a stretched-out midsection isn’t the only body distortion new mothers face. Many mothers end up with rounded shoulders because we are constantly hunched forward to breast-feed or cradle our babies. Proper walking posture helps counteract that.

Mothers can work out as hard or as easily as they wish. Old-timers walked briskly ahead, while newcomers lagged behind. Station one was a grassy lawn. Each station has two options: the high-impact, airborne option or the low-impact, no-bounce option for nursing mothers.

The tribe of mamas began hopping in the air like marching soldiers with springs in their shoes. It looked silly (good for the babies), but we became winded fast. We followed with some arm exercises, then we were back on the path.

“OK, ladies, you aren’t stopping,” Lile said. Next stop: picnic tables. We used the benches to do stepping exercises, then did four sets of push-ups against the tables. I had to admit, long-stagnant sweat glands were kicking into action.

“Keep it up, ladies,” Lile shouted out. “Remember the talking test: If you are chitchatting, you are not working hard enough!”

Along the path, we stepped to pull out crying babies, to bounce or feed them. Babies are always first, Lile emphasized. Mothers can catch up later.

We pulled over at a baseball field backstop, threaded our green tubing through the fence and faced our babies. We did a series of arm exercises to work our biceps and triceps, singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” as we pulled. It felt goofy, but singing while lifting is real aerobic exercise, if you’ve never tried it.

Later, we lined up against a restroom wall and lowered ourselves into position for thigh stretches while we sang “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

Then came backward push-ups on the baseball bleachers, jumping jacks under the arbor, squats and lunges by the tennis courts, flash dance steps by the trash cans.

Our panting tribe of moms and kids looped and crisscrossed the park trails. Toward the end of the 50-minute workout, just as the babies seemed to be reaching a universal meltdown, we plucked them from their strollers and brought them down on the grass with us, while we did our final minutes of ab work: 100 sit-ups for our saggy stomachs. It was the last of five exercise stations on our 2 1/2-mile trek.

I couldn’t believe how good the babies had been. Every mother who started completed the circuit. Many mothers stuck around afterward to chat with their babies on the grass.

Jessica Wadle, mother of 22-month-old Jacob Rowland, said a friend in San Diego told her a year ago about Stroller Strides, which offers classes led by certified instructors for a fee, according to its website, (www.strollerstrides.com). Wadle had been waiting for a program in Pasadena, and this was her first one. “I’ve done lots of walking, but it is lonely, for him and for me,” she said. “It was a good workout. I could keep up, and it was great for Jacob to see us looking silly.”

Rina Nurdjaya and Tricia Galloway both have 5-month-olds and gym memberships but find it’s hard to make everything work. Galloway hates to be away from her daughter, and Nurdjaya said her gym had child care but she spent her workouts worrying about whether her infant was getting sufficient attention.

“I used to go [to the gym] every day,” Nurdjaya said. “It’s frustrating not to be in shape. And I can’t diet because I am breast-feeding.”

I felt fantastic. It was so much fun. To be outside. To be with other moms. To be with our little ones. If only weekend or evening classes were available for stressed-out working mothers like me, who probably need it the most.

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Hilary MacGregor can be reached by e-mail at hilary.macgregor@latimes.com.