This past Monday, I let loose, house-party style.
This past Monday, I let loose, house-party style. Wait, I should clarify. (Hi, mom!) I didn’t exactly go to a full-fledged, out-of-control house party, but I did go to House Party Fitness at Philly Dance Fitness—and that’s practically the same thing, right?
Nerd that I am, I haven’t had much experience raging out on a regular basis, so I did a little research to find out what to expect. The thing I saw on PDF’s website was this: “You know the type of party where the music is pumpin’, the base is pounding, and you don’t want the party to end?” Um, sure. “Well that’s what this class feels like.” Still a bit unsure about what exactly I was getting myself into, I convinced myself that I could totally do this. I mean, I am an avid Zumba-goer, so how different could this be?
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The brand new trampoline park in Oaks debuted some bounce-tastic fitness classes. I got to try one out!
Before last Friday, I hadn’t jumped on a trampoline since I was a kid. Our neighbors growing up had one in their backyard, and I remember spending many post-school-day hours on that thing seeing how high we could “popcorn” each other. Ahh, those were the days.
Barring the occasional drunken Fourth of July party, when do we adults ever get to bounce on a trampoline for an hour, just because? Even better: How often do we get to do bounce our little hearts out and call it a work out?
This is where Sky Zone comes in—more specifically, Sky Zone’s newly minted fitness classes. The brand new trampoline park in Oaks (yes, there is such a thing as a trampoline park) just debuted a pair of new fitness classes, and I got to try one out last week. SkyRobics, which is the class I took, focuses on aerobics (duh) and keeping your heart rate up for an hour with some conditioning thrown in to mix it up. I’m told the other class, SkyFit, does the opposite: it focuses mainly on conditioning, with the help of resistance bands, and mixes in some cardio here and there.
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Because who doesn't want to feel like a circus acrobat every once in a while?
 Coordination has, um, never been my thing. I can hardly make it through the day without tripping at least once, so I don’t know what I was thinking when I asked the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts if I could tag along for their “Intro to Aerials” workshop last Sunday.
Maybe it was the beginner-friendly description on the website or the fantastic reviews that I found online, but as I hoped on the 23 bus en route to Mount Airy, I was actually feeling more excited than nervous.
I checked in with the receptionist and was guided up into a watching room located above the main gym to wait for my instructor. That’s when, while watching the instructors below effortlessly climb the ropes while twisting their bodies in every direction, I realized something important: This was going to require a good deal of upper-body strength, something I don’t exactly have in spades, to put it nicely. I suddenly had flashbacks of failing the pull-up test in high school P.E., and couldn’t remember the last time I banged out 10 push-ups in a row—much less, 10 push-ups ever.
Hmm. This would be … interesting.
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A lesson in how dancing is harder than it looks in the movies.
As I watched the always-lovely Jennifer Lawrence sweep down the red carpet at Sunday’s Golden Globe awards, I couldn’t help but wonder: How long did it take her to master the box step?
Two days before, I’d dragged my husband, Chris, to Society Hill Dance Academy for a waltz lesson, a first for both of us. Owner Shana Vitoff-Heidorn had told me that since Silver Linings Playbook hit theaters—the same film for which Lawrence took home Best Actress at the Globes—inquiries for waltz lessons were up 50 percent.
“But wait, isn’t that movie about, like, mental illness?” I asked. Sure it is, but it turns out that movies like Silver Linings, in which dance is more of a footnote than a title theme, tend to drive more wannabe dancers out of the woodwork than hardcore dance movies (Black Swan, Dirty Dancing). It could also be that people get all warm and fuzzy—and want to replicate the feeling—when they watch an on-screen couple fall in love while learning how to dance (how romantic!). Whatever the case, the dance de rigueur is the waltz, and we have Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence to thank.
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I learned the ropes of a super fun, super competitive sport—and my feet never even touched the floor.
Of the four sports I played in high school, basketball was by far my favorite. (Track, softball and field hockey were the others, in case you’re wondering.) Our team was never that great (sorry, fellow former Lady Knights, it’s true), but that didn’t really matter. We had our plays, our cheers, our inside jokes, our nicknames (Lil Ems in the hoouuuuse!), and an awesome coach who also happened to be the school’s second-in-command, which meant we could weasel our way out of detentions pretty darn easily.
I didn’t play in college, so my glory days were in high school. Yes, I’m one of those—and I don’t care one bit. It was fun. Basketball was fun. And every winter around this time, I miss it dearly.
When Kimberly Shrack from Magee Rehabilitation contacted me last week about trying out wheelchair basketball with the Magee Sixers (as the name indicates, the team is sponsored by Magee and the Philadelphia 76ers), I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited—or answered an email so quickly. I was in, just name the place and time.
Of course, as soon as I agreed, I had questions—lots of questions. Like: Is it outdoors? (No.) Is it co-ed? (Technically, yes, but the team right now happens to be all men.) Would we use a men’s-size ball? (Probably, yes.) And the nets would be lowered since we’re playing sitting down, right? (Nope.)
Wait, come again? Kimberly informed me that just like regular ball, the rims would tower 10 feet over our heads. Forget having to maneuver a wheelchair, something I’ve never done in my life—would I be able to shoot anything other than air balls all night? This is when I realized things could go very, very badly. I decided to spend the week leading up to my wheelchair-basketball debut preparing my pride to take yet another blow, having learned my lesson after that time I embarrassed myself in front of worked out with the Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders.
Here we go again.
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Not your typical Friday night in Philly
 That's me on the right with my friend, Mikaela, who came along for the ride (pun intended).
An ’80s ride? Sounds fun, right? It didn’t to me … at first. Let me clarify: Not only had I sworn myself off spinning after my butt ached for weeks after my first class (which was years ago, admittedly), but also I know nothing about the ’80s. I wasn’t alive. Aside from being able to sing along to a few Madonna songs, the ’80s just aren’t nostalgic memories for me.
So as you can imagine, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I walked into Center City’s fab Body Cycle Studio on a recent Friday night wearing high-waisted leggings, a neon orange crop top, knee-high socks and a fluorescent green headband (that’s totally everyone wore in the ’80s, right? Right?!). Having endured what felt like a million awkward stares from every SEPTA rider that evening, I felt pretty proud of my appropriately outrageous outfit.
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A Saturday morning jaunt around Fairmount wasn't all awesome—but at least there was bacon.
 Post-race glow. Pre-bacon. On Saturday, I ran my first race in three years. I finished it still running, but lost to a bull dog, a toddler, and 368 other runners. I’m calling it a success—even though I definitely hit some snags along the way.
In 2009, I impulsively signed up for the Philadelphia Half Marathon. I ran a couple of shorter races leading up to the big one and had a blast doing the actual half. I fully intended to be a runner for life, but then I just … didn’t keep running. Three years and 20 pounds later, I laced my sneaks back up and started hitting the sidewalk a couple of times a week.
I’ve resided in Fairmount for five years and can’t imagine living anywhere else so happily, which is why I decided the 15th Annual Great Eastern State Breakout 5K would be a good race for me. Plus, the poster promised an awesome breakfast catered by neighborhood restaurants. I figured I would run faster if I knew there was free bacon at the end. READ MORE
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Or, "What the Hell Is a Decathlon, and Why Would You Do One?"
 Decathloners performing the box jump // Photo courtesy Unite Fitness The hardest part of getting ready for the Unite Fitness Decathlon was explaining to all of my friends and family what the hell a decathlon was—or in this case, what Unite Fitness’s version of a decathlon was. The day before Saturday’s challenge, when I told my dad what I was doing, he yelled into the phone:
A what?
A de-CA-thlon, Dad.
A thon?
A DE-CA-thlon.
What’s that?
Dad, like Bruce Jenner, except different.
The next morning, I received a text from my dad’s wife wishing me “good luck in the marathon.”
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Our intrepid deputy editor got poked and pricked in the name of research. Alleviating her muscle pain was a bonus.
It came as a surprise to me how many of my colleagues are nervous about acupuncture: When I mentioned to them I was trying it for the first time, the reactions ranged from shudders to “yikes” faces to full freak-outs at the idea of needles going into one’s face.
It never really occurred to me to be nervous about acupuncture. Haven’t I seen it a hundred times on TV? And there, everybody always looks perfectly contented, even as they lay there stuck through like life-size voodoo dolls. In fact, I was excited about the possibilities here. Could acupuncture fix maladies for which nothing else seemed to work? Like my tight—aching, knotted, miserably tight—shoulder and neck muscles? My dry eye condition? My bad knees? (Do I sound like I’m 90 years old? I’m 33.) Science seems to think so: The most recent word in medical journals suggests that acupuncture does help relieve chronic pain. I was ready to believe.
And anyway, I really just wanted to know what it felt like to have a bunch of tiny needles stuck in me at once.
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In which I planked and planked and planked with celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels.
I’ll admit I was a tad nervous going in to Jillian Michaels’s boot camp class on Saturday morning at the Sweat AC fitness festival in Atlantic City. If you followed the blog last week, you know my pride took a serious beating at the Eagles Cheerleaders’ workout on Wednesday night, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle. I mean, all that any of us Biggest Loser fans ever really saw on the show was five-foot-two-inch Jillian Michaels crouching over tearful, sweat-soaked contestants and screaming at them to work through the pain—all before making them do 7,000 more push-ups.
One of the women I took the class with told me beforehand that her entire goal was to get yelled at by Jillian Michaels. She said she thought it would be “fun.” I told her that we had two very different ideas of a good time, and that my (completely serious) goal was to fly as far under the radar as I possibly could and get out with my pride intact. A good workout would be a fringe benefit.
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