Tread carefully: Seven ways to stay safe with kids and exercise equipment |

Warning: This guy is a professional dancer and choreographer so DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

We know many of you Gmappers are from northern climes (thanks, Google Analytics!), and because you are fitness-minded health nerds like us, you often use a treadmill or other equipment when it’s cold and crummy outside. To keep your kids safe around these things, we want to pass on a few tips we recently learned the hard way here at Gmaps World Headquarters.

Don’t worry, everyone’s OK now, but there was an unfortunate incident a couple of months ago in which our energetic little boy snuck into the garage and decided to see how fast he could go on the treadmill. One tumble later and he had a pretty big piece of skin scraped off his neck.

During our trip to the doctor, we were surprised to learn that many children are hurt when they try to play on exercise equipment. So now, we take precautions and make sure the kids know that the treadmill is not a toy.

Here’s some other things you can do.

Put a mirror in front of your equipment so that you can see whether one of your children is coming up behind you while you’re exercising. Turns out many injuries happen when children are attracted by the movement of the machine, try to touch it and their fingers or hands get caught.
Unplug machines when you’re not using them.
Remove the safety key and hide it from your kids.
Buy a cover and put it over the equipment so kids aren’t tempted to play on it.
Lock the door to your exercise room or use a childproof gate.
Keep the cords on safety keys looped out of the way. Do the same with blind cords that are near the equipment so kids aren’t tempted to climb on the equipment and grab them.
If you’re in the market for a machine, look for one with safety features, such as locks on elliptical steps that must be removed before you can use the machine.