Enumclaw unveils public “Fitness Court”

Run, jump and push at Washington’s first entry into the outdoor gym system.

By Alex Bruell • August 17, 2021 9:30 am

Tags: Enumclaw

Starting now, Plateau residents searching for a free place to workout in the sun won’t have to look far.

Enumclaw this month became the first city in Washington to open a Fitness Court, an outdoor public gym supported by grant money from a national pro-fitness organization.

National Fitness Campaign was founded in San Francisco in 1979, the same year it built the first Fitness Court. Around 200 fitness courts have opened across more than 150 cities around the country.

The fitness courts feature 1225 square feet of flexible body weight exercise stations, along with a phone app designed to provide workout ideas and ways to compete against friends.

Members of The Claw Crossfit demonstrated the facilities during a ribbon cutting for the court the afternoon of Wednesday, Aug. 11.

The court uses several stations to facilitate body weight exercises: Raised platforms for core work, squats, lunges and other exercises, and bars and chains for pull ups, push ups and other upper body work.

The Fitness Court phone app, meanwhile, offers a library of exercises that can be performed on the court, free classes, and a leaderboard system to compete against other users.

Francisco Pons, a cycling instructor at Enumclaw’s Plateau Athletic Club, gave the facility a ringing endorsement.

“I think it is fantastic,” Pons said. “With this kind of investment, or place, people have less excuses to (not) be healthy. … This is for free, it’s open, and people can come and do something. And the best part of an exercise or a sport is, when you start doing it, your body (starts) asking for more.”

Located just before the Cooper Lane / Warner Avenue East intersection that leads into the Suntop Farms housing development, Enumclaw’s court is a roughly one-mile jaunt from the Foothills trail.

It was funded through a $30,000 grant from the National Fitness Campaign, with the rest of the $100,000 cost coming from City Park Impact Fees. The city’s side paid for equipment, installation and dirt and concrete work, Enumclaw Parks and Recreation Director Michelle Larson said.

Watterson Excavating performed the dirt work and grading as an in-kind donation to the project.

The court is the first step of what will eventually be the Elk Meadows Park, Enumclaw Park Board chairperson Kelly O’Kelly said. That’ll include building a parking lot, improving the landscaping, a perimeter trail, open spaces for running and possibly a playground for kids.

“The hope is that it will be complete by 2024,” Larson said.

Photo by Alex Bruell Members of The Claw Crossfit take the new Fitness Court out for a spin.

Photo by Alex Bruell Enumclaw Park Board chairperson Kelly O’Kelly cuts the proverbial ribbon at Enumclaw’s new Fitness Court, a free public outdoor mini-gymnasium.