Kirkland Lake’s Civic Park has a new attraction with the installation and opening of the outdoor fitness park.
According to Kirkland Lake’s Director of Community Services, Bonnie Sackrider, “the FitCore Extreme, geared for those 13+, is an innovative obstacle course inviting friendly competition and personal development as fitness warriors race to complete each mission.
She goes on to explain the park “includes quintuple steps where competitors leap across five angled steps, testing their agility, balance and lower body strength as they go, the high step which challenges individuals to use fancy footwork to jump through each square of the net, the globe grasp, angled to build intensity, racers challenge their upper body strength by climbing from the low side to the high side, the angled balance beams to test balance, agility and lower-body strength, the vertical cargo net obstacle where racers scale the cargo net, traverse over the top beam and navigate their way back down to the ground, the spiderwalk, where challengers navigate their way between two walls, using heir hands and feet to brace themselves without touching the ground, and the favourite ledge hanger, where participants work their way across the angled wall using three challenge levels indicated by colour.”
It should be noted that each obstacle has an individual instruction sign to clearly explain the goal.
Sackrider adds “the Outdoor fitness equipment at Civic Park is meant to encourage teens and adults to be active, improving the health of our community. Exercising outdoors (compared to indoor exercise) may contribute to increased energy as well as reduced tension and anxiety.
“Because outdoor exercise opportunities don’t require a gym membership, all community members receive a valuable opportunity to build their own personal exercise programs and improve their health. The park will be fabulous for dry land training for teams, group fitness classes, and individual challenges with friends, neighbours, or yourself.”
It is also note worthy that the park was funded through a grant received in 2022 from FedNor for numerous upgrades at Civic Park. Other projects supported by this grant included paving the walking trail, painting pickleball lines, obtaining a storage shed, enhancing the children’s play area with new pieces and a shade structure, and adding lighting to the ball field and surrounding parkland. The lighting project is ongoing with an intent to complete in the next few weeks.
