Hall of Tame

Hey, wanna see something kinda sad? Or maybe not sad, but yes kinda sad and also like something out of a lost Christopher Guest movie?

This, readers, is the National Fitness Hall of Fame & Museum. "There's a National Fitness Hall of Fame & Museum?" you say. Yes! Sort of! The museum, captured so well above, was established in 2005 in the fair and fit city of Minooka, Illinois. Somewhere between then and now, though, the bricks-and-mortar location bit the dust.

Tragic. Could it have been the aerobicizer troll doll? The Thighmaster-box-but-not-actual-Thightmaster? The topical circa-1987 issue of People magazine? 

What a shame. A fitness museum is a great idea. I would go to one. Obviously. But alas, this one wasn't meant to be, so the museum must exist in the hearts and minds and modems of random Google-searchers everywhere. 

There's a Hall of Fame page with a bunch of people you've never heard of who have amazing mugshots. There's a "Fitness through the Ages" section that's pretty astoundingly half-assed. Of typos there are multitudes. Informational gaps galore. 

Still, it's an easy way to kill 10 minutes. Plus their flash into on the homepage is nice.

Gilad to meet ya!

VIDEO: "Gilad Fat Burning Workout" (just going off of the YouTube title below; can't trace it to an actual DVD title)
STYLE: Aerobics
INTENSITY: Moderate to high for beginners; low to moderate for more advanced folks
STRUCTURE: Warm-up, 7 min.; low-impact aerobics, 15 min.; high-impact aerobics, 15 mins.; 5-min. cool-down
GIST: Uncomplicated classic aerobics with a nice studly instructor, inoffensive music and a compact but quality duration. Perfect for beginners; great light cardio for more advanced peeps.

No one in my family was much of a televised-sports fanatic, so we ESPN was never on much in our house. Which explains why I never heard of Gilad, a Harlequin cover-ready studmuffin with nice manners, until really recently. His TV fitness show, "Bodies in Motion," ran on ESPN from 1985 to 1996, and has hopped around various cable channels ever since. He's a muscle-bound man from Israel, beautiful and bland, who wants to bring you into his beach world of better personal fitness. It's really that simple.

That looks uncomfortable, does it not?

After doing this workout a couple times, I think it's perfect for beginners or more experienced worker-outers who want a light cardio day. All the moves are textbook '80s aerobics steps -- leg curls, knee raises, jumping jacks, lunges -- with the exception of a regrettable air guitar triceps thing he tries to make happen. I looked the other way for that bit, but the rest was totally pleasant, occasionally corny as hell and, overall, not requiring much thought. The first 15 minutes of cardio are mostly low-impact, so whiny whiners people who don't like jumpy/hoppy aerobics (or, of course, folks with knee or ankle issues) will have plenty to go on. 

There's a lot of marching in place, which isn't my favorite base step because it looks sooooooo earnest, but a) I typically like earnestness, and b) you can jazz it up however you wanna march. I went full-on Book of Mormon/Army of the Church to entertain myself. 

I wish I had more to say about this video, but Gilad is just sort of boringly competent, nice and professional. His instruction is clear. His moves are easy to follow. His hair is perfect. He's gracious in his pacing and attention to technique. The music is not bad, for being muzak. I enjoyed myself. You can't really mess with the guy that much. 

Well, there's this:

Thrusts of glory

And we're back! With John Travolta's nutsack and Jamie Lee Curtis' lady lycra strip alllll up in your face. In the spirit of renewal, I thought I'd share this totally nuts but ultimately disappointing video: bits of the horrible 1985 aerobics drama Perfect set to the opening movement of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. When my buddy Darren posted this on my Facebook wall, gullible me got really excited thinking that somewhere, somehow, a bunch of people are down to work out to early 20th century orchestral dissonance. That is not the case, at least not as far as this video is concerned. But now that the idea's in my head, I have some protracted googling to do.

Jillian is not here to make friends.

VIDEO: "Jillian Michaels: 30 Day Shred," (Lionsgate, 2008)
STYLE: Circuit training
INTENSITY: 3 workouts, 3 levels: mild, moderate and difficult
STRUCTURE: Each workout has a warm-up; three 7-minute circuits that alternate toning exercises with 2-minute bursts of cardio; and cool-down.
GIST: Good for folks who need a regimen to hitch their wagon to, but pretty weak as a stand-alone workout. Jillian is great technically, but she's no-nonsense almost to a fault. She doesn't sync the moves with the music at all, which is annoying.

Jillian Michaels has built an empire as the current face of at-home fitness. Richard Simmons may have put obese people in his videos, but Jillian, with her guru status on "The Biggest Loser" and no-nonsense gym teacher swagger, is Richard Simmons for the obesity age. They both have high media saturation and a distinct motivational style, but whereas Simmons was warm and cuddly, Jillian is...not. She believes in you and wants you to be healthy, but she does not want to hear about your bullshit and she certainly doesn't want to hug you. (I haven't watched "The Biggest Loser," so maybe she hugs people on that show but I'm pretty sure she doesn't enjoy it. Lady does not seem like a hugger.)

Simmons was all about just getting people moving. Like, "Sugar pie, so you're 400 lbs -- I was too! Let's just put on some old gold and get goin'. You can wear what you already have on." Well, it's been 20 years since Simmons' heyday and the obesity rate has only grown. A lot. In 1990, no state had an obesity rate over 20%. The most recent info from the CDC puts the current national rate at 35.7%.

Jillian's whole style -- straightforward, no-frills and challenging -- is all about saying, THIS IS SERIOUS. GET OFF YOUR DUFF AND WORK. OUT. Yet she's nice! She's approachable...just as long as you're not approaching her with an excuse. Jillian combines tough love with a game plan, which is what so many folks desperately need when starting a fitness regimen.

"My idea of an ideal outdoor activity is lying down under a shade tree with a good book and a cool libation."

I'm dying. I can't stop dying.

Dixie Carter, aka Julia Sugarbaker from "Designing Women," aka arbiter of genteel fabulousness to an entire generation of Southern gays and their mothers, does not have a workout video. No. She has an unworkout video: "Dixie Carter's Unworkout." And whatever you're thinking upon reading that, double it.

To borrow from my roommate, whose concise reaction was: SQUEAL!

Here is a workout for women who still use the phrase, "Ladies don't sweat -- they glisten." Here is a workout for people who would be all too happy to exercise if it weren't for all that bothersome -- to quote Dixie herself -- "runnin',  hoppin', steppin', joggin,' jumpin' up n' down in one place." That is NOT the Sugarbaker way, hell to the no. Instead, she's going to sit in a Laura Ashley armchair on a set that looks straight out of a spread from Southern Living 1991, she's gonna wear her Eileen Fisher top and silk pajama pants, she's going to pour herself a cup of tea, and she's going to talk about how good she looks. And she's going to do it like it makes PERFECT SENSE. 

"You see, these days more and more people keep asking me how I have managed to maintain myself. So it turns out I'm holding up pretty well over the long haul." Advance warning, Dixie-in-heaven: Regardless of how I look in my late 40s, I will be stealing that. It's like she hired the ghost of Tennessee Williams to write her copy for the intro. She even quotes Mark Twain!

Anyway, the routine seems to be a lot of breathing exercises and yoga poses, including this gem, which got bandied about on the Ellen show recently. 

I love this, I love her, and if you don't, Dixie's just like:

Workout videos still around, New York Times reports

The Style section of the country's newspaper of record has bestowed its trend-spotting wand on what this here blog is all about: at-home fitness videos. But! They're not talking about ye olde workout videos from the likes of Jack LaLanne, no no. They're talking about new offerings such as the "Lord of the Abs" series pictured above, bowel-dropper P90X and an old favorite here at World of Sass, Hemalayaa's Bollywood series. Some interesting tidbits from the piece:

During the recession, the fitness DVD industry has thrived as consumers opted for $15 videos instead of gym memberships, according to the research firm IbisWorld, which says that fitness DVD production revenue jumped 12.6 percent in 2012, to $264.5 million.

The article also touches on the increasing trend of celebrity-driven videos, ranging from Kelly Rowland's ab workout to Tracy Anderon's ever-expanding empire. Also, there's the still-emerging trend of on-demand fitness videos online:

Industry executives are also beginning to offer live-streaming and on-demand subscription services. Bill Sondheim, president of Gaiam, one of the largest domestic producers and distributors of fitness DVDs, which is based in Louisville, Colo., last year introduced GaiamTV, costing $9.95 a month for unlimited access to more than 500 fitness videos.

The most popular genre, according to the article? Yoga. Funny, because that's the one genre of personal fitness I think can't effectively be substituted with a video -- except, like, running. Duh.

To read the full article, click here.

They don't even CARE about my SPECIAL DAY

Way to bungle a perfectly good gimmick, Women's Health. I came across "Women's Health: The Wedding Workout" while making the rounds on YouTube, and wow -- mega disappointment. Why? It's just a regular dang workout! And a boring-looking one, at that!

The main wedding-y feature is a customizable menu that changes up the workout based on your style of wedding dress -- like if you're going strapless, you can choose to work your arms and shoulders more, so you can look like this buff bride:

There are a couple references to one's "big day" and exercises that are good "if you're going to be wearing heels," but other than that this video TOTALLY squanders what could have been a landmark offering within the bridal-industrial complex. I'm talkin' bout:

Working your arms and back for that perfectly arched bouquet toss. And, for your bridesmaids, whom you can force to work out however you want because YOU'RE the BRIDE...

Grappling practice for getting that bouquet! It'll be a good show for the crowd, and besides, they don't want to be single the rest of their lives, do they? DO THEY??? It's not that big a deal -- just that their worth as women depends on it, is all. Remind them of that -- they'll thank you later. 

And what about the workoutfits in that video? Not bridal at all. This lady here's on the right track. How else are you going to test the full range of motion and sweat-absorbing capacity of your wedding dress than by takin 'er for a spin? Personally, I think the costume department at Women's Health should have looked to good old White Christmas for inspiration: