Taking fitness in stride

Sitting at my local Starbucks in Santa Clarita, California, I see a gaggle of women walk in with children in tow. Their cheeks are rosy and drops of sweat cling to their skin; some grab bottles of water, others stand in line, and they all chat with each other energetically. They've just come from a Stroller Strides class, a total fitness program for moms that, in a unique yet simple way, involves their children in the workout.

This upscale suburban enclave of Los Angeles isn't the only location you'd find this scenario playing out. In fact, Stroller Strides is one of the fastest-growing franchises in the United States — ranked No. 17 — with new outposts cropping up on a regular basis.

But the idea wasn't born out of the marketing department of a sprawling health club chain or from the business plan of a corporate behemoth. Nope, it was the brainchild of fitness professional Lisa Druxman, who went on maternity leave in August 2001 and soon found herself in a very foreign situation: wondering how to keep fit with a baby in tow.

When I speak to Druxman by phone in January 2008, she's in her home office, recounting a career spanning everything fitness, from group exercise to personal training to fitness management. "I loved working in this industry, but was totally distraught throughout my pregnancy because I didn't want to live only to work or have someone else raise my son," Druxman says. "Living here in San Diego, we needed two incomes. I really had no idea what I was going to do after my maternity leave was up."

BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT

Druxman knew she wanted to get back into shape, because it had been such a big part of her life before baby and is a passion she knew wouldn't dissipate even with the responsibilities of a family. So she created a workout that she could do with her son Jacob. After a lot of trial and error, she crafted something that she found worked for both of them.

"I would run or walk and stop every few minutes to do what I call a 'body toning station,'" she explains. "I'd use the environment, doing wall sits and push-ups and triceps dips at benches. I brought exercise tubing along and found that if I sang to Jacob and interacted with him during my workout, it was one of our best hours of the day. He was happy, and I was getting a workout in. It was a total win-win."

Then came her "aha" moment. One day during her workout, Druxman realized her inventive training could be more than just her workout — she could share it with others. "Every mom I know wants to get back in shape after having a baby, and if they're like me, they probably want to meet other new moms, and have questions about sleep deprivation and nursing and all the other things that go along with new motherhood," she says. So Druxman decided to start a class with just a few moms in her neighborhood, even though she still had every intention of going back to work. "I was just kind of doing it selfishly, and thought it would be a nice extra for my life," she explains.

In short order, a great opportunity fell into her lap. A local news station called Druxman asking her to fill an open segment, so even though she wasn't quite ready to promote her neighborhood fitness group, she did. "I gave my home phone number and e-mail address on-air and announced we were going to do a big grand-opening class at Mission Bay — I just picked a location and date," she says.

Sure enough, when she got home there were 75 e-mails waiting. "It knocked me out of my chair, because I had done segments for [the local news] for years and never got more than three e-mails on a segment," she recalls. When Druxman arrived at the grand-opening class, there were 40 moms and two news crews there, and at that moment she knew. "I asked my husband to take this leap of faith with me, because we just had one of those very lucky breaks and came upon something amazing. And that's what it has really been for these last six years — something amazing."

There were 228 Stroller Strides franchises in January 2008, but by the time you read this there will surely be more, as an average of 6—10 franchisees a month join the mommy fitness movement. And it is a movement.

Druxman has created a fitness business that supports motherhood. For one, her home office has five workstations with computers and is open to the 11 members of the Stroller Strides corporate team. "They all have keys here so they can come and go," she said. "We built the office so they'd have everything they need to get things done as in a traditional office, but at the same time we have a nanny who watches the kids. It's very nontraditional." The average franchisee owner reports she works an average of 3—4 hours a day at a job that is, as Druxman describes, "incredibly rewarding, incredibly stimulating, and they get to bring their kids to work every day. It's pretty cool."





















MOMMY ROLE MODELS

All in all, such success isn't bad for a woman who "never ever ever" imagined that her life would go in this direction.

"I was a little girl who had lots of different dreams and never stuck to one thing," Druxman says. "I have a degree in psychology, so I certainly thought I would work more specifically in that. Throughout college and in my master's program, I worked in the fitness industry because I loved it. I felt I could help more people through that than through psychology. It was a good fit for me." While in graduate school, Druxman became a fitness director, then eventually a general manager at a multimillion-dollar health club, where she credits learning the business.

Yet it wasn't until Druxman started Stroller Strides that she was able to touch a population that often stumps fitness professionals. "What shocked me was that my clients weren't those who I saw in the gym over the last 10 years," she says. "These aren't necessarily people who would typically join gyms — not all of them, but most. After going to [fitness] conferences where I heard that 80% of the population doesn't exercise, I realized that I'm tapping into that population."

One thing she has noticed about Stroller Strides members: their reasons for training differ from the typical gym rat. "One reason why I didn't like the traditional gym industry is because I felt people were there for the aesthetic, to look better," Druxman explains. "I understand that, but that was their main goal. Most of my clients — yes, they want to get their bodies back and we help them do that — really want to be healthy role models for their kids. They don't want their kids to grow up hearing about dieting and weight loss and all the negative things people may say about their bodies."

It's those values that Stroller Strides instructors try to instill during each class. Anytime a participant starts talking about weight loss or dieting or engages in negative body comments, the instructors call her on it, and show how those ideas can be turned into positive self-talk.

FAMILY FIRST

"I think the reason why Stroller Strides has worked is because I stay true to my own personal mission: to have a career that's supportive of motherhood," Drux-man says. "Even though I certainly work more than full time, I don't work traditional hours in any way, so I can be the one to take my kids to school and pick them up, or take the day off and spend it with them if that's what I choose to do."

And when she discusses how she spends time with her family, whether it's riding bikes or playing soccer or cooking, it becomes clear that she walks the walk. But it's not something that came naturally. "I grew up with my mom saying, 'On Monday the diet starts.' That's because she would indulge and indulge. She was obviously eating with guilt, with that feeling that on Monday everything could change. I heard that every week of my life, and I also saw that nothing really happened on Monday. I realized that I don't want to eat with guilt; I want to eat so I enjoy the choices I make. It's a different mentality."

Just as she teaches her Stroller Strides clients, Druxman's own family loves food, but in a healthy way. Her 6 1⁄2-year-old son Jacob, her nearly 3-year-old daughter Rachel and husband Jason love to cook and eat together as a family. "We really enjoy food, but it's about good food and good-quality food," she says. "We try to stay away from processed and sugary foods, hydrogenated oils, all that kind of stuff." In fact, Druxman and her children plant a fruit, vegetable and herb garden every spring.

Later that week, when I see the moms having their postworkout coffee, I think of Lisa Druxman and how she created an organization that not only gets women in shape but creates an environment that helps them be healthy, accept their bodies and teach their children to do the same. If that isn't a fitness role model, I'm not sure what is.

BONUS!

LISA ON...

>> BALANCE. "I'm a lot better than I was because I've learned a lot. I have committed to balance. I work on the fringe hours of the day. For years now, I've been waking up at 4:30 or 5 a.m. to get in an hour or two of work before my family wakes up. It's not that I enjoy getting up at [that time], it's because I'm so committed to having an extra hour or two with my kids."

>> ALONE TIME. "I book it just as I would any other appointment. If you look at my crazy calendar with arrows and crosses all over, it's clear that both personal and work time have to be scheduled. But that's a good thing, too, because I think most people wait for time to appear to do their own personal things — and that strategy never works out."

>> EXERCISE. "My favorite day of the week is Tuesday, when I go running with a girlfriend. I won't bump that for other appointments. I try to get into yoga one day a week and run once a week and then maybe get a gym day in between. I still teach Stroller Strides a few days a week, which some people are surprised by, but I very much enjoy it."

>> CHANGING WOMEN'S SELF-TALK. "It's a really big paradigm shift for moms. What I'm finding is that we don't [make the change] necessarily for ourselves. We do it for our children."

Lisa Druxman, M.A., the creator of Stroller Strides has been in the fitness industry since 1990. For more information, visit www.strollerstrides.com or e-mail info@strollerstrides.com.