My wife and I just got back to the office after our workout at our local Y.M.C.A. If you need more support for your feet check out our Birko balance, Birko sport, Birko motion, and Blue heeled arch supports at www.lionfootweardirect.com. We have talked often about how wonderful it is to have the Y.M.C.A. in Red Oak, Iowa. The local Y.M.C.A. began operations in a rented building in 1996 and the new facility was opened in 2000. The local people including businesses donated money to build the wonderful facility we have here in Red Oak. The facility includes a kitchen and meeting room, gym, weight and exercise room, swimming pool with locker rooms and hot tub, tennis and racquet ball center. The weight and exercise room features Body Master workout machines, professional dumbbells through 100lbs. and Olympic weights and work out benches, 6 treadmills, 3 step machines, and three elipticals bikes. The Y staffs most of the summer sports programs that used to be run by the city and offers other programs like Yoga. The kitchen and meeting room is rented out for birthday parties and other local events. The first Y.M.C.A. began in London, England on June 6, 1844 and came to North America on Nov. 25, 1851 in Montreal, Canada. The Y.M.C.A. was instrumental in the founding of sports in the U.S. when in 1895 William Morgan invented Volleyball in Holyoke, Mass. and in 1881 James Nasmith invented the game of basketball at a Y.M.C.A. Training School. Joe Sobek invented the game of Racquet Ball in 1950 at the Greenwich, Conn. Y.M.C.A. The Y.M.C.A. runs camps, swimming and childcare programs. Camp Dudly is the oldest Y camp and it was opened at Lake Champlain, NY in 1886. The early Y’s had swimming pools but a big improvment came when in 1909, at a Y in Kansas City, Mo. a recirculator was added and then a filter system was added in 1910 to make the pool more sanitary. The director at our Y told me they are not putting any new Y.M.C.A.’s in towns of our size because of the cost to maintain and staff a facility like ours. We are sure glad we have the Y.M.C.A. in Red Oak and we will be back there tomorrow working out in the weight room. Check out our Dansko shoes, Dansko women’s Professional, Dansko men’s Cutter, Rockport men’s Encounter, Sandro Moscoloni, Rockport Allander, Super Birki, Birkenstock chef shoes, Nautilus 1621 safety shoes, and Ultimate Protein at our internet store www.lionfootweardirect.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.