Wheel workouts – New mothers are joining exercise groups where the babies come along for the ride.
Fit body or happy baby?
For many new moms, the choice seems to shake out – and wobble and wiggle – that simply: Forgo time with your baby to get exercise or forgo exercise to spend time with your baby. It’s a choice that can pull a mother in 2 directions without doing anything for anyone’s flexibility or muscle tone.
But that choice is being left behind by women pushing strollers together in organized exercise programs.
Leading the fitness roll is Stroller Strides, a franchised network that allows moms to work out together while entertaining their babies.
Lisa Druxman, armed with a degree in psychology with a focus on ‘exercise adherence’ and fitness instruction training, started the program from her home in San Diego in 2001. Today, Druxman, who has 2 children, says there are more than 20,000 mothers in the program across the country. The enterprise was named the 17th-fastest-growing franchise in the United States by Franchise Times Magazine this year.
‘My original goal was to help moms get back in shape,’ Druxman wrote in an e-mail. ‘Now, that is just one part of this program.’
The groups tend to quickly flex into a mothers support group, baby play group and physical workout group rolled into one. They also are great places to brush up on the greatest hits of the toddler songbook.
On a weekday morning, five moms, with babies from 6 months to 2 years of age in their strollers, gather inside the Babies ‘R’ Us store in Roseville. (Another mom in the group arrived a bit later.)
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