Gold Medalist launches kids fitness initiative

Olympic gold medallist Darren Campbell has joined forces with children’s fitness specialist Gymkids as chief ambassador for the company’s new children’s fitness initiative – Fit Crew.

The launch of the new initiative, which took place at Tyssen community primary school in Hackney today, saw Campbell taking key stage 1 and key stage 2 children through a range of fun and energetic programmes on the specially designed children’s fitness equipment as part of the newly developed Fit Crew sessions.

The initiative is works on many levels and will seek to facilitate communities to launch fitness clubs for children in local schools, community centres or gyms throughout the country, starting in ten of the most socially deprived areas in the UK. Campbell will help to oversee a series of launches, educating, inspiring and taking children through the Gymkids programme as well as meeting local sports co-ordinators and development officers.

The initiative also offers children free membership to the Fit Crew club where they can access a range of educational & fun resources via a safe online community, such as healthy eating recipes, simple exercising tips, games and blogs to reinforce key healthy living messages and to give parents helpful guidance.

Gymkids, which also works with primary schools and health centres on the creation of fitness suites, the integration of the equipment into structured PE lessons and in the introduction of Gymkids Fun & Fitness after school clubs, has developed the Fit Crew project to further expand the availability of its programmes and ethos to a broader reach of children and their parents.

"Fit Crew is a fantastic project" says Darren Campbell, "not only do I support what Gymkids is trying to achieve, but more importantly, I’ve seen the kids on the equipment and they absolutely love it - which in trying to instil healthy habits that will last them a lifetime, is so important for them. The Fit Crew clubs will create a safe and enjoyable environment for kids to exercise and to learn about the importance of their health and I was more than happy to become involved with and support such a worthwhile project."

Rick Dalton, Director of Gymkids comments: "It’s great to have someone of Darren’s calibre on board, not only as an ambassador of the brand, but from the wealth of knowledge he is able to bring to the project in terms of fitness and coaching. Darren is someone who we hope will not only inspire the kids, but their parents too as they have such an important role in children’s attitudes toward fitness and more specifically to this project, the actual running and continued success of the clubs themselves."

The clubs will be based around the Gymkids range, which includes steppers, treadmills and cycling machines and has been designed to make fitness more fun for children. The equipment is grouped for suitability for the nursery (under 5s), Key Stage One (5-7 years) and Key Stage Two (7 – 11 years) age group.

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