What Is BabyGains Play? The Fitness App I Built Because My Kids Wouldn't Stop Copying My Workouts

Last spring I caught my 5-year-old doing snatches with a broom handle in the kitchen. Not a stick. A snatch. Same hip drive, same overhead lockout I'd done in the garage forty minutes earlier.

That was the moment.

I'd already been making kids fitness gear for two years. But the gear is only half the story. Kids don't just want the tools their parents use — they want the *programming* their parents follow. They want to know what comes next. They want to feel like they're "doing the workout" too.

So I built one for them. It's called BabyGains Play, and this is what it is.

What BabyGains Play actually is

It's a movement app for kids aged 2-8 designed for one specific household: the one where Mom or Dad already trains. Garage-gym parents. CrossFit parents. The kind of parent who knows what a snatch is and would rather their kid mimic that than mimic an iPad.

The app has three things:

• 47 short routines organized by age band (2-4, 4-6, 6-8) and energy level — Strong Start, Power Up, Big Movers
• 200+ illustrated exercises — every movement drawn in a four-panel storyboard so kids can read it without needing to read
• A parent dashboard that tracks streaks, badges earned, and what your kid actually did this week — not what an algorithm thinks they did

Sessions run 5 to 15 minutes. That's not because kids can't handle more — it's because that's the window where a 4-year-old is bought in and a 7-year-old hasn't started negotiating. Past that, you're babysitting, not training.

Why I built it

The wooden barbell sells well. The Kids Elite Barbell Kit, the Starter Kettlebell Set, the Complete Rack & Bell Bundle — parents buy them, kids love them. But every customer email eventually asked the same question:

"What do I actually do with my kid once we have it?"

Fair question. The answer used to be "let them play and copy you." Which is real advice — but not enough advice. Most parents want a starting point. A first routine. A way to know if their 3-year-old should do the same thing as their 6-year-old. (They shouldn't.)

So the app is the answer to that question. Buy the gear, open the app, run the routine. That's the loop.

What it isn't

A few things I want to be clear about, because the kids-fitness space is full of products pretending to be something they aren't.

It isn't a video babysitter. There's no "watch this 20-minute show" mode. Sessions are guided, but they require you or your kid to actually move. Put the phone down and the timer keeps going.

It isn't a Peloton for toddlers. No live classes. No instructors yelling. No subscription that funds 40 different on-screen personalities. Just routines, illustrations, and a clear next step.

It isn't for elite kid athletes. If your 9-year-old is in a competitive gymnastics program, this app is too easy for them. It's built for the developmental window where kids form their relationship with movement — not their first PR.

The four rules I wrote it under

Before any code, I wrote four design rules on the whiteboard in my garage. They're still pinned there.

1. No session over 15 minutes. If a 4-year-old can't finish it in the time it takes to make coffee, it's too long.
2. Every exercise illustrated. Kids can't read instructions. They can read pictures. So we drew every single movement as a four-panel story.
3. Parent voice, not announcer voice. When the app talks, it sounds like a parent. Calm, specific, supportive. Not a Disney Channel host.
4. The kid sets the pace. Pause, repeat, skip, end early. Nothing locks. No punishment for stopping. Movement is a reward, not a chore.

Who actually uses it

The early users break down into three groups, roughly:

• Garage-gym parents. They already have the gear. They want their kids to have a structured version of "what Dad is doing." This is the biggest group.
• Box parents. Their kid is at the CrossFit gym four times a week anyway. The app gives them their own program at home so the box visit feels like a graduation.
• Movement-curious parents. They don't train themselves, but they watched their kid get glued to a screen and want something to interrupt that. The app is short enough to feel like a break, not a workout.

I designed it for group one. Groups two and three were a surprise.

How it fits with the gear

The app works without any gear. About a third of the routines are bodyweight-only — animal walks, jumps, balance holds, mimicry sets. You can run those in a living room with a yoga mat.

But the app gets meaningfully better with one piece of real gear. A kettlebell set. A starter barbell. A pair of dumbbells. Something physical that makes a kid feel like the routine is real.

If you want the all-in-one, the Total Gym Kit is the package. But honestly — start with one piece. A kettlebell and the app gets a 3-year-old further than a full rack and no plan.

For the gear-and-setup side of this, the Gym Playbook covers room layout, safety, and how to integrate kids equipment with your existing gym. It's the companion document to the app.

What's next

Right now: routines, illustrations, badges, parent dashboard. That's the launch.

Coming over the summer: a few things I'm not announcing yet, but the broad shape is more routines, a "do it together" mode for parent and kid, and a way to upload your own video to share with the BabyGains community. I'm taking it slow. Kids' apps that ship features faster than parents can absorb them end up being deleted within a month.

The whole project comes down to one belief I keep coming back to: kids are already moving. The job isn't to teach them. The job is to stop getting in the way, hand them the right tools, and watch what they do with the next 12 years.

That's what BabyGains Play is for. If you've got the gear and want a starting point, the app is here. If you're brand new, the Gym Playbook is the right first read.