THE FIELD HOUSE AT CHELSEA PIERS
23rd St. at the Hudson River Park
212-336-6500; chelseapiers.com
Just because your children don’t have Jason Kidd’s or Mia Hamm’s dribbling skills doesn’t mean they can’t have fun staying fit. Chelsea Piers gets the not-so-coordinated and future couch potatoes in the game with a cutting-edge gym designed just for kids. It’s the first in the United States to install Panatta equipment, a set of Nautilus-style muscle-toning machines from Italy that’s made smaller to match little bodies. The gym is open to kids 5 to 12, and exercise routines are tailored to be age-appropriate. Try the 90-minute, supervised “Fun Fit” class ($540 for seventeen weeks), which includes a yoga warm-up, strength-training, spinning, and rock-climbing. “This is not about training for the Olympics,” says youth-fitness director Peter Kormann. “You don’t have to be a great athlete to enjoy a lifetime of physical fitness.”