You can bring the kids
This isn’t the typical scenario found at a gym: A 13-year-old boy and his mother pass a medicine ball back and forth while doing squats and leg lifts. “This is hard,” says 50-year-old Donna Wolff as her son Sam, slightly out of breath, nods in agreement as he pats his now-sore glutes.
The two continue their exercise routine, often laughing and occasionally exchanging sympathetic glances when their coach asks them to do another five crunches.
Although the concept of family fitness has been around for some time, the practice of it seems rare. Some gyms allow older children if they’re supervised by a parent, and many communities offer exercise classes for parents and babies or toddlers. But more often, the scenario is that parents schlep to a gym while their kids play sports or take lessons, the two meeting up for the occasional bike ride or game of catch.
That’s not the case at Family Fitness Express, which has circuit training gyms in La Canada Flintridge and Burbank where parents and children 11 and older are encouraged to work out together, even if their exercise goals are poles apart.
The concept came to owner Zachary Kidd when he decided to take over the business soon after his mother opened a circuit training gym about a year and a half ago. The 28-year-old was well aware of climbing obesity rates for adults and children, and knew that parents could be powerful role models when it came to their kids’ interest in fitness. “I also believe that there are fewer and fewer social connections and experiences exchanged between people, families, neighbors,” he says. “Across the board you’re finding that people are spending more time with themselves or strangers.”
Wolff joined with her son more than a year ago “because he’s always been interested in working out and I didn’t know how to help him,” she says. “We wanted a place where we could do something together and someone who knew what he was doing could tell us what to do.”
“It’s pretty cool that a kid my age can work out here,” says Sam, adding that the workouts have helped his stamina in baseball and lessened the severity of his asthma.
Research studies have shown that parents can have enormous influence on their children’s interest in athletics. A four-year study that followed 180 girls from ages 5 to 9 found that 30% were involved in high levels of physical activity when neither parent provided a great deal of encouragement, but that number rose to 56% when one parent expressed interest, and to 70% when both parents showed support.
“Kids are motivated by a number of things -- friends, images they see on TV -- but it’s always been felt that parents probably have the most influence on a child,” says Michael Bergeron, assistant professor in the Allied Health Sciences School at the Medical College of Georgia.
Judy Sherif joined Family Fitness Express last December with her 12-year-old daughter, Natalie. The 48-year-old pediatric nurse from La Canada Flintridge wanted to show her daughter that fitness is a priority. “I believe the values you instill in your kids are going to carry them through adulthood,” she says, “and the sooner you can introduce health and fitness, the better.”
Although Family Fitness Express may look similar to the Curves chain of women-only gyms, there are differences. It’s based on the same circuit training model, a series of hydraulic resistance machines interspersed with cardio stations. But Kidd adds functional fitness into the mix, with push-ups, leg lifts, light dumbbells, crunches and lots of balance work on stability balls.
With this scenario he’s able to coach each workout and tailor the tasks. Adults usually have general goals of losing weight and getting in shape, but kids can have a variety of objectives, including wanting to try out for football, shedding pounds or increasing their daily activity.
There’s a concern among some fitness experts that children might find circuit training boring after a while, especially compared with the sports and games many are used to.
The fun factor is important in keeping kids interested in physical activity, says Russ Pate, professor of exercise science in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. Though he applauds the idea of families working out together, he cautions that “the fact that the family is doing it together will only get you so far. In the end, if the activity itself isn’t fun and successful for the kids, they’re going to get tired of it pretty quickly.”
Experts say parents should be careful not to load too much exercise on their kids, and children, as well as adults, should engage in a variety of activities to stimulate motivation and stave off boredom.
Kidd grew up in Southern California and holds a master’s in economics from Harvard University. His lifelong interest in sports and fitness started with Boy Scout hikes and continued with soccer and water polo. He still backpacks and has certification from the American Council on Exercise. Not all of his employees have certifications, but he does require a solid athletic background; one is a runner, another a personal trainer.
Already Kidd has seen families continue exercising outside the gym. “Everything is self-enforcing,” he says. “If a family enjoys a 30-minute session pushing themselves here, they might enjoy a Saturday afternoon bike ride.”
