BODY WATCH : Sweaty Encounters of an Aerobic Kind : It takes all kinds to make an exercise class. There are the mirror foggers, chatty Cathies . . .even the (gasp!)occasional male.
When Jane Fonda stopped going for the burn (Ted, apparently, proved hotter), the national fever for aerobic dance cooled. Or so it seems.
According to a recent Roper poll, the percentage of Americans who consider aerobics “in” has fallen to an all-time low today at 75%, down from 86% in 1986.
Then again, that post-holiday 25-yard line--as in your waist --isn’t exactly “in” either.
The truth is, says Jon Berry, editor of Roper’s the Public Pulse Newsletter, which published the poll, people are doing aerobics as much as ever. It’s just that the sport has become “regular” rather than rad.
But who, who could bear with any regularity to watch themselves in the mirror prancing hyperactively to Chipmunk-ized music, going nowhere fast? Well, possibly people who don’t want to spend lots of money for 25 yards of belt.
In any case, should you find yourself in an aerobics class, here’s who you might encounter.
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The Mirror Fogger: She’s always in the front row glommed onto the mirror, hogging the reflection the way some bedmates steal the covers. Like mist on the windshield, she can’t be peeled away. Should you actually eke out a space, she wafts in front of you again, clouding the view.
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Mighty Endorphin Power Rangers: Judging by their jackhammer gusto, they feed on plutonium. While other students run and jump, these aerobic warriors charge --doing a simple arm circle with the kind of adrenaline rush one might use to, say, hurl a TV at a spouse who’s just announced he’s having an affair. One aerobics instructor calls them her “5 o’clock piranhas.”
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Cardio Surfers: Quite the opposite of the above, this group just wants to ride to the shores of cool-down with as little effort as possible. If the Mighty Endorphins stomp on the beat, our Cardio Surfers catch it piggyback, flailing their limbs around like silk scarves in surrender.
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I’m too sexy for my ‘tard-ers: There’s always one, especially in Hollywood. While everyone else is sartorially correct in leotards and leggings, she is busting out of something fishnetty that looks as if it came from the Pleasure Chest. Then there’s the makeup. Don’t get me wrong. She’s one of the most valuable players in terms of morale: How better to meet a classmate in the locker room than to talk about her ?
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Kamikaze Kate: Desperately dressed for coverage in a tent-sized T-shirt and death-grip support tights, she’s the one sweating out of nervousness rather than exertion. Poor K-K-K-Katie. Somehow, every time the class whooshes by in one direction, she’s just taken off for the other. Completely out of sync and always a half beat behind everyone else, even when she does the right step, the mere knobbiness of her knees makes it look wrong. Oh, her muscles get sore, but that’s from smacking into everything in sight: walls, speakers, poles, instructors. She knows she’s a klutz and stands in the last row, so imagine her horror when the instructor turns the class around to face the back of the room.
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Beautius Maximus: She must be an actress or model. With genes of steel, it’s quite obvious she does not need this class. She belongs to that rare breed of woman who can lounge on her butt all day and never gain a quark of cellulite, damn her. Often ignoring the teacher in favor of her own exercises, she doesn’t care what anybody thinks of her. She doesn’t even show off her incredible body, making no excuses in a pair of baggy boxers--Calvins, to be sure. Why does she come? Simply to torment you.
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RU486ers: This is the morning-after crowd who have come to cancel out a caloric “miscalculation”--as in, somehow eating a whole pecan pie the night before in the process of “just having one more bite.” They’re the ones who keep running when everyone else has stopped, do extra sit-ups and grab the heaviest weights from the box as they frantically try to sweat out the guilt.
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Chatty Cathies: Working their jaw muscles harder than other body parts, they go for the gossip rather than the burn. No doubt they consider the “grapevine” something you “hear it through” rather than a staple aerobics step. These women usually travel in a pack, gabbing throughout the entire class, sitting out when the pace makes it difficult to talk. They may not exercise hard enough to get slim, but they can give you the skinny on whose thong has been where--in the gym and beyond.
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The Stepford Stepmeister: She’s always in class--rain, shine or Nordie’s sale--toting her Evian bottle and grim determination. Has she been cloned off the instructor? She’s got the same outfit, haircut, buns of kryptonite, even that aerobic coffee-grounds-in-the-throat voice. Indeed, the Stepford Stepmeister knows every move before it happens and were this class graded, she’d get an A. One thing: She hates change. Dare to stand in her spot and she’ll evil-eye you till you have a traffic accident on the grapevine.
“This is the type that will always point out when you did more reps on one side than on the other,” says Linda Shelton, who teaches at L.A. Workout in Camarillo and travels around the world giving instructor workshops--one of which is on the very subject of different personalities you’ll find in aerobics students.
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The Male: One of a kind, he’s among the small settlement of Aerobicsmen on Planet Female. But he’s not in a bad place if he’s interested in meeting a lean body mass or finding a pecan pie recipe that’s out of this world.