Not Just For The Playground Anymore
In what our kids call “The Olden Days” the only fitness equipment for children was found in the playgrounds that used to abound in any city or town. Parallel bars, swings, monkey-bars and other assorted steel-pipe-set-in-the-ground-in-concrete apparatuses were there to facilitate fitness in children by encouraging them to climb and swing like monkeys. Concerns about safety and in an effort to prevent our children from getting any bumps, bruises and scrapes (none of which harmed their parents or grandparents in any permanent way), much of this playground equipment is gone. It has been replaced by plastic devices with no sharp edges or exposed fasteners, all designed like boxes and pipes, but without much to challenge those little bodies into developing any muscles.
Sensing the large gap in the marketplace, coupled with the growing concern about child obesity, gym equipment manufacturers have all come out with “child-sized” equipment that are downsized versions of that found in the adult area of the health club. There are often areas in fitness centers set aside for children fitness equipment, supervised by a competent adult trainer to show the kids how to get the most out of the equipment and develop their bodies. Just like in the adult programs, there are also available nutritional recommendations.
Under good supervision, children are encouraged to use the equipment in a regular program designed to help their developing bodies produce muscle that will promote their good health and prepare them properly for any athletic endeavor, whether it is formal school athletics or sandlot pick-up games. The lessons learned on children fitness equipment will go a long way towards establishing what could be the good habit of a lifetime of fitness training.
Children fitness equipment includes: Pint-sized treadmills and elliptical machines, downsized weight-loaded devices to work arms, legs, backs, and torsos. The weights are lighter and are raised in smaller increments, but they accomplish the same results as the full-sized equipment. Moving into the free-weight area, there are no downsized bars or plates, but these may be use (under supervision, of course) by children by just using smaller weights and the lower positions on the racks.
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