Win a FREE Copy of the Hardback Book: Wallie Exercises

Kids books are a dime a dozen these days, full of cuddly bears and kids eating treats at picnics with rainbows and unicorns … but it’s not everyday that a fun, quality fitness book for kids is released by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. So when I was contacted by Steve Ettinger, a certified strength and conditioning coach, to review his book “Wallie Exercises,” I was excited and requested two copies: one to keep and one to give away to one lucky and blessed follower of this blog.

Here they are, fresh from the mail with a note from the author himself!

Wallie Exercises follows around a mutt named Wallie who was “loving and faithful from head to tail – but also quite a bit lazy” until he meets animals that don’t just sit back and let life pass them by. Edwin the Exercise Elephant becomes Wallie’s coach, but everything Edwin shows him just isn’t the right “fit” for Wallie. My favorite line in the whole book comes when Wallie finds his own groove …

Wallie Exercises is a book full of bright illustrations, good rhyming rhythm, and fun words and phrases. As children read it, they will see contrasts between sedentary couch-potato lifestyles and the active, fun they can have when they get moving and start exercising. You and your little one will also find out about hydration and warming up. However, the best part of the whole book is the back two pages that have ideas and exercise games to get kids and families motivated.

My girl wanted to take the exercise book outside. How could I say no?!!

My one beef with this book is that it tells kids to perform crunches during the “Lazy Tag” game in the back, and we are learning that crunches contribute to weakness in the connective tissue of the abs, making us more susceptible to abdominal injuries like diastasis recti and making it harder to recover from any abdominal surgery in the future. But that is brand new research that is just coming out, and Steve may not have even known at the time of publication, AND everything else is AMAZING!!! So just have your kids do something else besides crunches, and you’ll be good to go!

1. Comment after liking Wallie Exercises AND Fit to Be Us on Facebook (1 entry)

2. Visit the Wallie Exercises Website and comment something that you learned about the book (1 entry)

3. Follow Steve Ettinger with @ActiveSpudPress on Twitter and @Fit2b_Us on Twitter (1 entry)

4. Tweet the following up to five times (max: once per day) Please provide links to your tweets by clicking the timestamp of your tweet :: It was easy to enter this #giveaway of the kids book “Wallie Exercises” from @ActiveSpudPress via @fit2bmama http://tinyurl.com/6ydqlhz

Contest ends on Wednesday, June 1st, 2011 and the winner will be chosen randomly (by having my five year-old pick a random number between 1 and the number of comments made)  … The more entries the merrier! Good Luck! P.S. Winner will not pay shipping 🙂