Margie Weiss: My name is Margie Weiss. I have been in fitness all my life. As a national champion in gymnastics as a child, through to an adult, where I have been teaching children, athletes, and regular kids, sports conditioning, personal training, ways to get them better at the sports that they do, and to get better fitness in children. Its a passion of mine teaching kids, making them happy when they are doing sports.

What I am going to do today, involves a cardio fitness for children. Its trying to keep their heart rate up, trying to get them to move. When my kids were little, I got three international level athletes because we trained outside of their sports in strength, flexibility and cardio work, to make them better athletes, not only for their safety, but for the expertise in their sports. My son Michael Weiss made it to Olympic teams in figure skating because partly, due to the fact of the exercises that we did, off the ice with him to keep him strong and flexible.

So, today what we are going to do with the rates of obesity in children and diabetes becoming a ramp into the United States, and the lifestyle is becoming slower and more sedentary, we need to find ways that children can do cardio workout that are fun, safe and effective that they can do at home, with mom and dad, they can do with their friends, and something that theyll enjoy doing, not only now, but because it becomes a part of their lifestyle, theyll be able to do that all through life.

So, were going to do its called kids cardio fitness. Were going to raise the heart rate safely. Were going to make sure that we have clothes that are good for the type of activity, good pair of tennis shoes, with a good support, clothes that are loose fitting but not so floppy that youre going to get caught in them. Were going to have a few different pieces of apparatus. If youve got few hand weights, which you can get at a local store, thats great, if not, you can use tin cans from the kitchen. Were also going to use some other pieces of equipment that you can buy if you want. One is called the Bosu ball. Its a new fitness craze. They are really fun, the kids love them. You can buy those at local sport stores, as well as resist-a-balls, which are the huge balls that kids love to just play with, sit on, to do home work on. You can also use some slides, but if you dont have a slide, which we are going to show you later, you can use paper plate.

So, theres always a way that you can do fitness. There are no excuses. Moms and dads can do it with the kids; you want to make sure that the child is safe because they may have some injuries; they may have some issues that you want to deal with ahead of time. Once they are cleared for take off, you want to do this fitness programme, cardio work for their heart and for their mind and body for the rest of their life.