This is a blog about Austin and little Sal and Ellie and Ava and Jacqueline. This is a blog about the youngest recruits in the Badass Army. This is a blog about "Bad Donkeys" on their way to "Badass."
Some of them are still too small to fit on an indoor cycling bike or hold a Resist-a-Ball. But they're proving the power of fitness and health at any age.
This month, I watched little Sal work his way through my entire 45-minute TRX class. I watched Ava turn the TRX into a rope climb and use Bosus as an obstacle course of little trampolines. Later that day, she told the ladies at the nail salon that she just got done "working out." Jacqueline, not even old enough for preschool, pulled on the IndoRow alongside her mom. Austin, 9, did the same - for 30 minutes, right beside his mom and grandmother.
Ellie, spunky daughter of a training client, showed my Badass Boot Camp students how to do a pike pushup. The next week, she came to class and rowed. She showed me how to use a hula hoop - one of the best core workouts around. Before she left the studio that morning, she had a studio T-shirt, business cards and a new title: KidFit Coordinator.
She and the other little Badasses....er...BadDonkeys... all had fun. And it didn't involve sitting on their butts in front of a Playstation or a television. It didn't involve eating junk food or drinking soda. It was healthy fun, fitness fun. It was something they did with their parents and grandparents.
I hope it planted a seed that will, in the years to come, prevent them from becoming yet another statistic of childhood (and then teen and adult) obesity. If you're an adult trying to make exercise part of your life after years of inactivity, you know how challenging that is. So why not involve your children, nieces and nephews now? Why not make exercise a part of their daily routine today, so that they don't have to be 50 pounds overweight and 35 years old before they get on the road to Badass?
Childhood obesity, and the diabetes and other health complications that come with it, are a huge epidemic. Children should not need cholesterol medication or be so overweight that they have knee problems. They should not struggle to walk up a few flights of stairs.
So as a new week begins and you start thinking about how to make 2011 better than 2010, this is my challenge to you and the little ones in your life: Get moving. And bring them along with you.
Coming this week: From the Badass Bookshelf - a self-described 'Fatty' finds both pain and humor during a yearlong struggle to lose 50 pounds.
