Lift 50kg? No Sweat For Boy

The Sunday Age

Sunday August 12, 2007

Renee Switzer

THE Schachna brothers, Eitan, 8, and Yaacov, 11, probably don't know how cool they are. As they prepare to work their muscles in their weights session at East St Kilda's Body World gym, the boys are reaffirming their membership of the newly popular kids-in-gyms club.

"I can lift 50 kilos," Yaacov says proudly, adding that his thrice-weekly sessions with instructor John Distefano have already helped him shed 15 kilograms.

"It keeps me fit and it gives me more muscle," Yaacov says. "I used to be really crap at shot put at school but after these classes I came first (in shot put) and I'm better at other things, I can run faster."

Mr Distefano started kids' classes at the gym a year ago after parents approached him with concerns about their children's fitness.

He says as long as children are supervised and taught correct technique, weight training is a beneficial, healthy form of exercise.

One of his first students had been bullied at school. "Two or three months down the track his mother wrote me an amazing letter saying how appreciative she was that she had a happy kid, excelling in swimming, playing football and becoming really confident."

© 2007 The Sunday Age

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