Outdoor gym now open at Shakespeare Park

Kids and adults in Stratford now have another option for getting their exercise after the urban gym opened on Tuesday at Shakespeare Park.

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Situated adjacent to the skate park at the intersection of Downie and Shakespeare streets, the gym is the brainchild of Bruce Whitaker, an Avon Maitland District school board trustee who aimed to bring a little more life to the area.

“It’s another reason to get people outdoors that is really key. It’s free, it’s physical fitness, and it’s in nature,” said Whitaker, who led the building of the skate park in 2016.

The gym has three structures – the main has parallel bars, pull-up bars and monkey bars, while the other two are a dip station and floor bars. The park’s aim is to help users do calisthenics, which is a form of strength training that utilizes an individual’s body weight as resistance to do exercises such push-ups, sit-ups, squats and burpees. To plan the park, Whitaker enlisted the help of Cole Johnson, who owns Pursuit Climbing. Calisthenics is on the rise as a fitness option among youth, Johnson said.

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“In bigger cities like Montreal, they have one of these at every single park, and there’s a park in almost every single community,” he said. “So the fact that this is in Stratford kind of means we’re keeping up with the Joneses, as it were. It just shows that Stratford is a forward-thinking place to live.”

The gym isn’t just for those with experience in calisthenics. There is a sign with suggestions for exercises that people can do on the structures.

“I think any child with zero experience would come to this park, look at a bar and know how to hang from it,” Johnson said. “I think that we get stuck up on the idea of ​​needing to know what something is before we use it.”

Built at a cost of nearly $120,000, the gym received support from several community organizations that pitched in $60,000. This includes the YMCA, the Kiwanis Club and the Kinsmen Club. Being a community-led and community-funded project means they did not have to go to the city for funding, Whitaker noted.

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“With all these organizations, I didn’t have to really talk to them much,” he said. “They got it right away. I think there’s a lot of expectation that the city should be paying for certain things, and I think we’re now in a world where we can be active ourselves, and we can make projects come alive ourselves. We just have to get the people together to do it.”

Tom Edge, president of the Kiwanis Club of Stratford, said this gym “checks” all the boxes for their organization.

“Our focus is children and youth. We wanted to be involved with kids who need to be outside, out of the basement and away from screens and having fun and exercising and finding out about being healthy and strong.”

The gym will be a great option for youth who are in between their sports, said local teenager Nell McIntosh. She’s also excited about the social aspect of her location.

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“A lot of my friends come to the skate park. It’s really easy because you just come here, go there, go play tennis or something.”

The gym has an accessible sidewalk and a surface that is made of recycled rubber that will prevent water pooling, Whitaker added.

“It goes down and it stays in the park to replenish the trees,” he added. “Especially in drought conditions, we want to make sure the water is kept in our park.

“This gym is for everyone. It’s for adults. It’s for young kids.”

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