Lifetime Fitness: anti-family fitness center?

 Although you’d expect a large fitness center like Lifetime Fitness to be pro-family, the opposite sure seems to be true. Sure, the facilities have childcare centers but that’s because they operate under the assumption that children should be kept away from the grown-ups. For a place that advocates for fitness, Lifetime Fitness offers very little for kids, and almost nothing for young children.

The Coon Rapids Lifetime has the largest and tallest indoor play maze, but you can't play in it until you are three or older. My daughter was one week from her birthday and they turned her away. Other play mazes are open only when there is enough staff and are often closed abruptly when the staff to child ratio changes.

On weekends, when the child care center is packed, they often spread out into other rooms. In Eagen, they open up this inflatable jumping toy for kids.

Pregnant with my second child, I joined a few months ago. In the middle of winter, I certainly wasn’t getting any exercise but needed an opportunity for it. I planned to take advantage of the Lifetime pool as swimming is such a fantastic, low-impact activity for preggos. I knew it would not only be good for me, but also my 3-year-old daughter. I looked forward to being able to do something active with her. 

The problem we’ve run into is that the various Lifetime Fitnesses in the Twin Cities area offer few family swim hours during the day. Instead, they offer adult-only open swim slots. With a young child, I can’t make it to family swim hours in the afternoons or evenings.  She takes an afternoon nap. When she wakes we eat dinner, and not too long after that, she goes down for the night. That’s life with a small child. 

There are a number of Lifetime Fitnesses in the Twin Cities area, but none with a pool close to our home in southeast Minneapolis. There is a pool at the Target Center downtown but parking is a chore and the water is very chilly. Regretably, the Highland Park location is super close, but has no pool. So, we have to drive out to a suburb: Plymouth, Eagen, Bloomington, Fridley or Woodbury.  Each excursion takes 3 hours, minimum. It’s rather inconvenient and means that we spend plenty of time in the car to get our swimming in.That also affects when we head out, as I’m not going to join the rush hour crowd to get to a pool.

Several of the Lifetime Fitness locations have both a lap pool and a zero-depth entry pool with waterslides and splash features, including Plymouth. However, weekday hours are limited, and the waterslides are only open in the evenings and weekends.

These are the two pools in Lakeville. As with Plymouth and Maple Grove, there are some fun features in the leisure pool, but the hours are quite limited and difficult to take advantage of when you need to get your kids into bed at night.

Each Lifetime Fitness has its own rules and hours, which can be rather confusing. I pay more to be able to go to any Lifetime Fitness location, but the various rules and hours are tough to keep track of. The folks at Bloomington South are always friendly, both the fellow swimmers and staff members, and don’t mind sharing a lap lane during the adult swim hours with a mom and child. However, Eagen strictly forbides it, even when the pool isn’t occupied by others, and they don’t hesitate to kick you out despite having an otherwise empty pool.

Lifetime Fitness offers great programs for adults, but seem to think kids only belong in the childcare center, being inactive. Many of the facilities throughout the Twin Cities have been built in partnerships with cities, such as this location in Lakeville.

I know other (homeschool) moms who are members at Lifetime who want to get exercise for both themselves and their children. They’ve got older kids, around 10. They’re not allowed to use the exercise equipment until they are 12 at Lifetime. That leaves the pool (and the hours for swimming are pretty limited), or the child care center. While it is a great deal at only $5 a month for childcare, the kids aren’t getting any exercise in there. For older kids the only option is to sit at a computer; although some facilities have a play maze (such as Coon Rapids), Lifetime often doesn’t have the staff to keep it open. For those times when the kids are scheduled to hit the gym, adult activities take precendence, and often the kids end up back in the childcare center, being inactive. 

How are we going to raise kids who value staying active and incorporate physical activity into their daily lives if we don’t give them the opportunity to do so at a exercise facility?

I’m curious to hear about other people’s experiences with various fitness centers. How does it work for you? What do you think of the YMCA? LA Fitness? Etc.?