Hey HB, hoping to find some people here who feel the same way.
I've trained calisthenics for years and I really wish we had a proper area for it at Central Park (or really any other park in HB). I started a petition to gauge community interest and harness support for the initiative. I plan to attend the Parks and Library Services Commission meeting to propose the idea in September and I also will go to Council meetings to push for this as a project on the Capital Improvement Program for the future.
If you've used the workout equipment on the library side, you know the deal: it's scattered all over the park, half of it is gimmicky, and the pull-up bars are made of thin diameter tubing. You end up walking laps just to do pull ups and dips.
Meanwhile most of the world treats proper outdoor calisthenics parks as normal neighborhood infrastructure, and somehow all of OC has none that are actually good. We've got the year-round weather for it and a huge fitness community. Feels like a no-brainer.
So I'm trying to get one built at Central Park: a single consolidated calisthenics park, no weird cardio-machine junk (which we thankfully don't have at Central), just simple, solid equipment anyone at any level can use for free.
Like I mentioned above, this isn't a petition and pray situation. I'm also putting together an actual proposal (cost estimates, vendor quotes, research on the community benefits) and working out how to bring it to the city's parks commission and city council. The petition is just to show the city there's real local demand behind it.
If you'd use a spot like this, or just think HB should have one, I'd really appreciate a signature: petition link here. If you disagree, I'd love to know why. If there's something you'd want to add, I'd also love to know what it would be!
Side notes: I found some old threads talking about this and found it funny how one comment perfectly called out some of the goofy workout equipment seen around our area. Clearly I'm not alone here.
Let's make the change happen and get a proper calisthenics park in our area.
Thanks for reading.
tl;dr: HB Central Park's workout equipment is scattered and not built for real training, and OC hardly has any proper calisthenics parks despite perfect weather. Trying to change that. Signature link above, and I'd love your ideas.