For a lot of people, a new year usually means a renewed interest in finding a exercise routine that lasts longer than the inforcommercial for the chosen DVD or equiment. When deciding on an exercise routine it’s important to consider all of your options. Will you go with a gym that will inevitably try to tie you up into contract that is harder to get out of than those spandex bicycle shorts you bought? Are you motivated enough to get up at the crack of dawn and run as if you were being chased by an early rising mugger? What about the latest fitness DVD? The instructor on the package is so toned and muscled, the only fat on them is probably in their wallet.
My advice, definitely go with the exercise DVD. I have tried a variety of exercise DVD’s and while I haven’t lost a lot of weight with the DVD’s, I have gotten a lot of laughs from them. After watching an endless series of spandex clad instructors barking out orders, it became clear to me that unlike the movies, there are no retakes in exercise DVD’s. I started noticing unintentionally funny things showing up throughout the various DVD’s. My favorite blunder is what I like to call the exercise student who marches to the beat of their own drummer, literally. While the instructor and the rest of the class is kicking out their left leg, this nonconformist is kicking out their right. While the instructor and the rest of the class coordinates their moves to the beat of the music, this rhythmless wonder, who couldn’t find the beat with a map and a compass, moves completely out of sync with the class, insisting on marching to their own beat, or lack their of.
Sometimes it’s the instructor who gets lost. In spite of the fact that the exercise steps are grouped in repetitions of only four or eight, the instructor sometimes loses track during the workout and has to ask someone in the class where they are at with the count. Clearly some of these muscle heads were not hired for their math skills.
Watch the facial expressions on some of the students during the workout. Sometimes you will see someone with a deer in the headlights look, as if they thought they were in the gentle yoga class and somehow got trapped in the cardiac arrest high powered aerobics class by mistake. Sometimes the facial expression is both comic and alarming. Like the slack jawed student with dead eyes and the “I’m gonna die right now!“ expression who look like they might drop right after the next squat. Of course it would be better for them if they collapsed to the floor close to the end of the workout since other students would probably just keep exercising around them, waiting until the workout was finished to call 911. Remember, there are no retakes in exercise DVD’s, the workout stops for nothing!
For that special blend of low budget production values and appalling fashion sense, you just can’t do any better (or worse depending on how you look at it) than a 1980’s exercise DVD featuring a no name instructor. The lighting is often uneven, the sets are so small the students sometimes bump into each other and the canned techno music is louder than the instructors. The only thing louder than the music is the color blocked leotards in neon shades reminiscent of cartoon heroes. The instructors prance around in like peacocks with overly styled, overly moused hair even more inflated that their egos. And the women look even worse. Heavy drag queen makeup is for Halloween ladies, not the gym.
So go ahead and invest in a variety of exercise DVD’s. Laughing your way through them has got to be good for your stomach muscles.
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