Some Gyms Open Their Doors to a Younger Set

Inside the Green Valley YMCA in Frederick County, the television-equipped treadmills were humming. A tall, lanky dude was running to the rhythm of CNN. An older couple sauntered on side-by-side machines, taking in a home garden show.

Suddenly, girly giggles erupted. Two 11-year-olds, my daughter Elise and her friend Ali, were watching "SpongeBob SquarePants" as they broke into a brisk jog.

Preteens in the grown-ups' gym? Yes, and it was my daughter's idea. A few months ago, when our Y lowered the gym's age minimum from 13 to 11, Elise asked if she could come along on my workout. After a moment, I told her to throw on her basketball shorts. I figured, why not? She might as well watch TV from a treadmill as from our living room floor.

A Y-certified trainer showed Elise the gadgetry of the weight machines and cardio equipment. Elise and I started going once a week after school, and we try squeezing in a few weekends when her basketball season ends. "Look, Mom, watch," she squealed, learning to use the leg press. She pushed, and her calf muscles bulged; she relaxed, and they shrank. "Cool," she said, grinning.

Some parents might be wary of this scene. Most health clubs and training gyms are designed for adults, they figure. And shouldn't kids be getting exercise outdoors with their friends or kicking the soccer ball around the field with kids their own age?

Well, yes. But the idea of kids in the gym is gaining support among pediatricians and fitness experts. Many of them echo something that has proved true for our family and friends: Gym workouts are a healthy, entertaining opportunity for some parent-and-child togetherness.

For starters, it supplements playtime; it doesn't replace it. Elise plays basketball in one of our county leagues. Ali is a committed member of a boy-girl soccer team that competes year-round. We swim all summer long and live in a neighborhood where kids have room to play outside; flashlight tag is one of their favorite games. Like her friends, Elise likes to "do things" -- and now going to the gym with me is one of the things she likes to do.

Bringing the Kids

As long as a workout is something the child enjoys, it's a great activity to do with parents, says Teri McCambridge, chairwoman of the council of sports medicine of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She emphasizes the importance of adults' accompanying and supervising children and says that gym equipment can provide a counterbalance to outdoor play and extracurricular sports. "We want kids to be well-rounded, to try multiple activities," she says.

"I wouldn't say that all kids need to be in the gym, but I have a home gym and my kids love it," says Seth Blee, a physical therapist who is clinic director at the Inova Physical Therapy Center in Alexandria. "If the parents are exercising to be healthy, they can be great role models."

Kathleen McHale, a pediatric orthopedist at Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children, notes that parent-child exercise "is a little bit like eating dinner together as a family."

A former Army physician, McHale toted her three sons everywhere when they were small, shuttling baby strollers onto trains in foreign countries. Exercise time was no exception. When her family attended a church that had a small gym next door, she says, a new weekly routine evolved: church, Sunday school, workout.

It's true that children's growing bodies, specifically the open growth plates in children's bones, make them vulnerable to injury. But experts agree that most injuries are the result of inadequate training and a lack of adult supervision.