New Gym Member

My girl has been wanting to go to my gym for awhile now and today was her lucky day. The gym allowed the membership because she is not far away from turning 11, and I agreed that she would not use the weight machines until she is older. She mentioned that her goal is to build endurance and add core muscle strength to help her grow as a dancer.

We started with a 15 minute walk on the treadmill. Skipping over all the calorie info and focusing on the distance, I taught her how to program the machine. I was sure to go over and over the automatic stop button and reinforce to move the speed up slowly. Sometimes it can take a huge leap in speed if your fingers are too fast; I found that out the hard way one day.

It was so cute to watch her walk and get the hang of the floor moving under her feet. It took some time for her to be confident in letting go and every so often she would look over to me, shine a huge grin, give me the thumbs up sign, and keep going. Eventually she felt confident enough to let go.

Not wanting to watch any kid's TV (she felt pretty grown up at "Momma's Gym") she listened to her MP3. I could tell when she found her favorite Hannah Montana song on her MP3 ... her walk had a little groove to it. It was adorable and I tried to keep my eyes off of her and let her do her own thing, but it was too cute not to notice.

We also did stretching and ball work on the floor mats. She knows a lot of good warm up moves from jazz that she was doing and I was trying to copy; and then I just went back to my normal, safe moves. I am not flexible like my girl, so she had me beat.

Not wanting to leave, she asked to jump back on the treadmill for another 15 minutes. That is when we saw her Uncle show up and join the machine next to us. Her eyes got wide with surprise, she was excited to see him. I think my girl will do well with this exercise thing and hopefully add it to her long list of "must dos" as she continues to grow. It will help her in her current motivation of dance while at the same time hopefully build into a life long habit.

She has already asked to go back tomorrow, a good sign that I will honor, but that will also be day 7 straight for me and that is more than I am used to! HA ~ she will whip me into shape. She's my favorite workout partner!!