Skating With a Stroller: It Can Be Done!

Most of my workouts lately are more about play and less about getting to the gym and sweating it up. My weekdays have been filled up with daycare/my work and kid exchanges, so I haven’t had the free blocks of time like I used to to get to the gym with the kids. And when I do have free time? It seems like someone is dripping profusely from the nose and I avoid taking them to gym daycare so as not to infect everyone else.

Because of all the chaos around the house lately, my traditional workouts have taken a back seat for a moment. But I’m still managing to move a lot because as it is finally nice, we’re getting outside a ton lately. We’re hitting the park and going for walks and playing outside. Plus, I recently got a fun new toy that I’ve been testing out—some K2 inline skates. I’ll review in detail in the future, but let me tell you how fun it was to pull out my inner kid and get my skate on.

As a kid, I spent hours upon hours in my roller skates skating around the garage and driveway. They were white with hot pink wheels, and they were awesome. Skating parties? What could be more fun than a skating party when you’re 10? Limbo? I totally rocked the limbo on wheels. I would, of course, pretend to be Kate Moseley from The Cutting Edge. It didn’t feel like exercise because it was just so fun.

The moment my skates arrived, my daughter was captivated. She freaked out when I put them on inside—because she wanted to put them on instead. She loved trying to put them on in the house, and because she was so obsessed—and because I was so worried she’d roll an ankle playing around with them—I later got her her own pair of Fisher Price skates.

So the other day I threw on my skates to do my first test run. I packed up the family, kids in the stroller, and the hubby even brought his inline skates along, too. We went to a nearby parking lot that was newly paved—so smooth and perfect for a test drive. We took turns pushing the kids in the stroller and skating laps around the lot. First, pushing a stroller on skates seriously ups the workout intensity. Second, even without a stroller, I don’t remember it burning the glutes as much as it did! But it was seriously fun.

The kids had a lot of fun watching us skate around. I have a feeling next time we hit the parking lot, my daughter will be decked out in her helmet and skates, just like us, shuffling around as fast as a 2-year-old can go!

Do you get the entire family involved in fitness? Do your kids want to copy your activities? —Erin