American (Toddler) Gladiator

Remember American Gladiators where contestants would battle gladiators named Storm on obstacle courses? Well, they have them for toddlers now. They’re called bounce arenas.

I recently took two back-to-back business trips with only a few days in between. Brayden needed a big dose of Mommy so I planned some quality time enjoying a new, fun adventure—a local bounce arena called Pump It Up.

If you’re thinking a standard fare inflatable castle or whatnot (as I was), then you are wrong, wrong, wrong. These places are kiddie gladiator training grounds. We walked into a massive building with ginormous bounce structures, and I was in awe. Brayden took off like a bullet from a gun and (literally) jumped in feet first.

First we tackled the monstrosity above. You can’t tell in this picture but the climbing wall is pretty steep so I had to hoist little b up. Yeah, do that, like, 15 times and tell me how you feel after.

Once at the top, we came flying down on the steep, slick vinyl super slides at about Mach 1. And, yes, it was as fun as Brayden is making it look.

Then we moved on to the obstacle course which was a cross between Navy Seal training and a circus act. I was half expecting an actual gladiator to come out and whack me with a blow up bat or something.

I tried to get a good depth/length shot but it was really hard to accurately capture exactly how big and involved this thing was. Here’s a short video (less than 1 minute) showing Brayden and me bouncing and trouncing our way through the gauntlet. Please forgive my heavy breathing around the 24 second mark…

In addition to both these structures, there was also a big, bouncy basketball court. Forty minutes in, I was spent. Then something crazy happened…they opened the door into ANOTHER room. Ding! Ding! Time for round two!

This area had a whole new set of adventures in it, including a giant slide, fun zone and other things.

Brayden and I were running low on energy but we put in a good final effort and jumped, ran and slid our way through many of them.

This little adventure was more than a week ago and I get tired just looking at these pictures. Forget Zumba…want a workout? Take your kid to one of these and join in! Brayden and I both had a blast, and we’ll certainly be back soon.