Spin City
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday May 26, 2004
Finding the motivation to continue an exercise regime in winter can be difficult. Keith Austin discovers novel ways to burn energy indoors.
Here comes the winter of our discontent. As the rain falls, as the winds blow and crack your lips, it can get pretty difficult to get out there and pound the pavements, can't it?
Somehow, the tai chi class that was so much fun through the warm summer months doesn't feel quite as good in a light drizzle. And the run along the beach? With cold, steel-grey water lapping at your ankles? Yeah, sure. And isn't it about now that the bicycle gets relegated to the shed? Be honest; it won't see sunlight again until November, when the seat will disappear between the vast cheeks of blubber you've acquired during the long, dark months of inertia.
Avoid the call of the couch by joining an indoor exercise class. Take that big old butt inside and shake your bountiful booty where the cold don't reach and rain don't fall.
The question is, which class? A plain old aerobics class clearly won't do. So old hat. They went out with Jane Fonda and Jamie Lee Curtis in the 1980s. These days we have Swiss balls, boxing circuits, kickboxing, step, spin classes, aquafitness, yoga and pilates.
According to the latest figures more than one million Australians regularly take fitness classes. Given our growing (literally) problem of obesity, a regular exercise class is no longer a luxury but essential to every routine.
If you are still waivering, the following selection might provide the inspiration you need. Just remember - the secret to all exercise is discipline, repetition and wearing the right gear. Your time begins now. Kick start Boxing Works - looking patched and scratched and deliciously down-at-heel - is something of an anachronism in the modern world of air-conditioned gyms that look like spaceships and smell, somehow, of ... nothing.
This is because it's a real gym where sweaty boxers, kickboxers, wrestlers, ju-jitsu exponents and weightlifters come to train seriously. It is Brad Pitt in Fight Club as opposed to Nikki Webster in Lycra. Luckily, you don't have to be a budding Mike Tyson to take advantage of the place because it also caters for people who just want to get in shape and have fun. As 31-year-old kickboxing newcomer Kevin Chen-Chow said after the class: "I'm just doing it to maintain some fitness and also learn some self-defence. I like the gym because it's easygoing and everyone's really friendly."
The two fully equipped training areas have punching bags, speed balls, floor-to-ceiling balls and wall-mounted bags. They also have several boxes of plastic surgical gloves scattered around the place and a poster on the wall that advises on the "blood rules". Surgical gloves? Blood rules? It was Tuesday lunchtime, for crying out loud. Aren't these items for the weekend?
Jokes aside, the 40-minute foundation class is an introduction to basic boxing and kickboxing techniques. It begins with instructor Rodney Ellis, 26, teaching a few of the absolute basics to our barefoot class of three men and three women. These include how to stand, how to jab and how to punch. He also emphasises how important it is to keep your guard up. Standing there with your elbows tucked in to your ribs and fists clenched up next to your chin (go on, try it now) you can feel like a right lemon. Throw a quick jab or two and it's tempting to let the arm drop a little.
This is what Ellis did in his first fight, aged 18, and got his jaw broken for his trouble. Luckily, the bags that we get stuck into later in the session do not fight back.
The class is over all too soon. I have only just sorted out my stance and put together a few combinations on the evil punching bag (jab, cross, hook, uppercut) when it's finished. I'm breathing heavily, sweating a little but could probably still do more.
Ellis reckons that two or three of the foundation lessons will have you ready for the evening kick-start cardio classes - these attract up to 60 people; three-quarters are women. And those surgical gloves? You slip into those before pulling on the gloves supplied by the gym. Why? Kevin Chen-Chow, who bought a pair of $50 sparring gloves for his classes, explains with a grimace: "Have you smelled the gym's gloves?" A Spin class "I'm spinning around, move out of my way, I know you're feelin' me cos you like it like this ..." This is the class for me! A room full of Kylie Minogue wannabes spinning their booties around in gold hotpants. Honestly, the sacrifices I make for this magazine.
Sadly, spinning isn't like that at all. Spinning, according to my Fitness for Dummies book, is pedalling a stationary bike: "An intense workout popular among people who want to be pushed very hard." Too bad I didn't read that before I went. At the ultra-modern Fitness First gym complex, in the Galeries Victoria, the spin class consists of about 20 exercise bicycles populating a smallish, darkened room. On a dozen of them are a mix of men and women pedalling furiously.
Earth, Wind and Fire are booming Boogie Wonderland when I arrive a few minutes late and clamber onto a bicycle at the back of the class. Through the loudspeakers instructor Alan Segal is exhorting people to stand up in the pedals and do double time. The ultraviolet lights above pick out both the white in everyone's gym gear and the dayglo colours of the night-time cityscape mural on the wall to our right. This, I think, struggling to adjust the seat height and get my feet into the toe clips, is ludicrous. Pedalling away furiously in the dark? Going nowhere in a disco?
Spin was once so dominant in the US gym scene that clubs were turning people away. That was after aerobics and step classes, of course. Segal, who began taking spin classes nine years ago, says the craze first came to Australia about six years ago and has remained big. It's not for the faint-hearted, that's for sure, but it has one big advantage over other types of exercise classes: you can tailor it to your needs without looking like a wuss in front of your fellow exercisers. This is because between your legs there is a little knob that acts as a brake, increasing the wheel's friction to simulate hills. So while Segal's up the front shouting for us to make things even harder by moving our knob to the right, who's going to know if you move it only a bit? Well you, for one. But that's between you and your knob.
Within 10 minutes I am covered in sweat. It's dripping off me and onto my spectacles. From my side of them it looks like it's raining. And I've left my water on the floor, out of reach.
The whole thing feels ridiculous, until I begin to concentrate on the rhythm of the music and keep my feet pedalling in time. Suddenly I am in a "zone" and it all makes enormous and enjoyable sense. Finally, imagine a jellyfish climbing off a bicycle. Got the image? Good. A few more of these and Kylie Minogue's butt will be out of business. Pilates According to Fitness for Dummies, pilates was originally designed by Joseph Pilates 80 years ago to give dancers strength without bulk. It's perfect for improving posture, strength, flexibility and body awareness. Since then, pilates has taken over the world and, to listen to its adherents (actor Georgie Parker is a self-confessed "fanatic"), is close to becoming a religion. This is probably because it's one of the few exercise regimes you can do lying down. The classes at Fitness First's Bondi Junction gym seem pretty popular - there are more than 20 of us scattered over the vast top floor. But instructor Vicky Erber reckons numbers are down a little, possibly due to the school holidays.
After grabbing a mat and discarding shoes and socks, we lie on our backs and begin "imprinting" the small of our back on the floor while inhaling and exhaling. There's some other stuff about pelvic floors and ribcages and shoulders, but you've got to love a class that begins with the instruction to lie down and breathe in and out.
Then it begins: legs are raised while exhaling, bums are clenched while inhaling, one leg is lowered while inhaling, the other brought up to it while inhaling - or was that while exhaling? Very quickly I am lost. And gasping for breath. "Just eight more!" cries Erber. "Imprint, inhale while bringing your head off the mat and exhale up through ..." Is the woman joking? I have inhaled four times on the trot and am about to pass out. We're on our backs, both legs sticking straight out at the ceiling at 45 degrees, arms over our heads, and she wants us to inhale, raise our heads and exhale while sitting up so that we're balanced on our bums, arms straight ahead? Strangely, we do it. Even stranger, so do I. Though I'm still not sure what to do with my pelvic floor..
Suddenly, the hour is almost up. Erber asks us to try one last position, known as "the seal", which requires you to sit up straight, placing the soles of your feet together. The arms then go in through the legs and around the outside to grasp the top of the feet. It could also be called the "get knotted". Then you tip backwards to balance on your bottom again before clapping your feet three times, rolling onto your back, clapping three more times and rolling up to balance again. Then someone throws you a fish (just kidding). This is easier said than done. Worth it? I had abdominal muscle aches in places I didn't even know I had abdomen, let alone muscles. A Deep water aquafitness The healthy effects of exercising in water, says instructor John Benigni, have been known for more than 50 years, with aquafitness classes going back about two decades. Benigni has been running classes for the past year, and often gets up to 35 people in his deep-water fitness class at Sydney Olympic Park. "The centre's been running them since it opened in 2000," he says, "and they're still really very popular." That's all well and good, but look at these people! I was tempted to slink away or perhaps just watch. I mean, they're old! Well, older than me. There wasn't a full head of hair or a waist in sight. Nobody said anything about working out with 20 oldies. I had a sneaking suspicion that this might be the case, but the girl on reception didn't bat an eyelid when I bought the ticket.
We click thick yellow buoyancy aids around our midriffs and slip gently into the deep end of the training pool as Benigni places his "Zimmer frame" poolside and spins a selection of old, up-tempo music.
Over the next 50 minutes we went through every contortion of the body possible without actually drowning. At one point Benigni, who also runs a boxing circuit class at the centre, distributed white polystyrene dumb-bells. With one of these in each hand he had us doing leg exercises, more running, arm exercises, and yet more running.
Benigni's Zimmer frame, by the way, is nothing of the sort. It's a frame with which he supports himself while he demonstrates the type of leg exercises he wants us to do. The good thing about aquafitness is that you can work as hard or as softly as you like. As Benigni says after the class, some of the older members (the evening classes attract a younger clientele) who can't move their joints freely can take it easier but still get plenty of low-impact exercise. So, while the rest of the pool area is gently rippled by the graceful submarine movements of legs and arms, I am thrashing around.
After 50 minutes there isn't a centimetre of my body that isn't feeling that pleasant hum of slight overuse. Of all the classes, this feels the most comprehensive, like I've been lightly pummelled by leprechauns with rubber shillelaghs. And I am more respectful of my fellow exercisers. A Easy step While step classes may not be as popular today as they were in the late 1980s - boxing, kickboxing, stability balls, yoga and pilates have all made inroads - they remain an important staple of most gyms' exercise classes. And guess what? I hated it.
From the first missed basic step, clap, corkscrew, rocking horse, twist, gallop, triple-salko with reverse-pike combination I felt like an idiot, a failure exhibiting all the grace of a giraffe with epilepsy. And this was the easy class. The thing is, it all happens so fast. One minute you're trying to get the hang of the basic step pattern on your little plastic platform and the next the instructor is asking you to raise your arms as well. And somehow, even for an old soul boy who could shake his booty with the best of them in his heyday, this seems impossible to co-ordinate. Forget the arms, says a small, embarrassed voice in my head, and concentrate on not making a complete dick of yourself with your legs. Too late! There is a bloke in the mirror behind the instructor who looks like me but moves like Mr Bean. The seven other people in the class - four women and three men - are bouncing around and clapping in rhythm while I can only stand and shake my head in shame.
It is 5.25pm. We have only been at it for 10 minutes and I want it to finish. I worked up a bit of a sweat but didn't really get the lungs or the legs going. Not because step classes don't do that - it's obvious that, done properly, they are terrific all-round workouts - but because they are hell on earth for the rhythmically challenged. Here's a thing, though. News is filtering through from the home of these crazes that ramping is going to be the next big thing. Ramping, says the Las Vegas Review Journal, resembles step exercises. Except the step is tilted, instead of parallel to the floor. God help us.
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald