Variety’s the Spice of Hybrid Aerobics

In Mandeville, La., they jump on platforms and punch. In New York City, they do yoga that looks like ‘70s disco, or sing while they cycle.

The latest hot trend in aerobics--a trend-conscious field to begin with--is to mix stuff that usually doesn’t belong together. In a one-hour class, an exerciser can try diverse activities--sometimes wildly diverse.

Clubs and instructors concede this stripes-with-plaids approach won’t remake the industry. But they hope it will provide a burst of excitement that will attract new people and keep fickle participants from getting bored and moving on.

“The boredom factor is high in group exercise classes, only because we created so many different kinds of classes in the past 10 years that consumers expect new classes on a continual basis,” said Kathie Davis, executive director of IDEA Health and Fitness Assn., a San Diego-based instructors’ group.

The same old song and dance gets wearying, so exercisers keep looking for “the most trendy, the most all that,” Davis said. Hybrid classes of varying types have been growing for a year, Davis said.

The trend shows up around the country. At Franco’s Athletic Club in Mandeville, La., co-manager and aerobics instructor Joe Diemert teaches a combination of step aerobics and Tae-Bo-style aerobic kickboxing.

Half of the class is standard aerobics; in the other half, participants go from the floor to the step while they do shadow-boxing punches and kicks. He calls it Step-Beaux--”I spell ‘Bo’ the Cajun way.”

Of 160 classes at Franco’s, about 25%, including Step-Beaux, are hybrids, Diemert said. “It’s grown to be a growth market.”

Previous industry attempts to fight the boredom problem have made things too difficult for some beginners, Diemert said. Dance-style aerobics have gotten so complex--”There are so many mambos and cha-chas and sashays”--that it daunts beginners, he said.

Not so with kickboxing, Diemert said. In Tae-Bo, “it’s ‘shuffle, shuffle, kick; shuffle, shuffle, punch.’ ”

The 19-club Crunch Fitness national chain, which is considered an industry trendsetter, also promotes combined activities in classes. “Crunch’s foundation is in fusing exercise and entertainment,” said spokeswoman Dayna Crawford. “You can smile while you’re working out.”

Crunch tries out many of its new programs in trend-a-minute New York City, where classes range from circus acrobatics to Cycle Karaoke and Disco Yoga.

In Cycle Karaoke, indoor bike riders sing from their seats, as a group or solo. In Disco Yoga, the music is more Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley, but instructor Dana Flynn says the look can be more like John Travolta in 1977, dancing in “Saturday Night Fever.”

Disco Yoga may attract people who are daunted by the labored seriousness that yoga classes emanate, Flynn said. “Let’s make it accessible,” she said. “If music can help you have that soulful connection, then mazel tov.”

Just the same, yoga with a disco beat is still yoga, and the poses and moves would be familiar to a yogi who turned down the sound, Flynn said. Yoga still fosters a peaceful spirit and a supple body, she said.

The type of class varies with the instructor. In some classes, instructors create new programs with moves from several older ones. In others, the class does one type of exercise, then switches to another. An article in the American Council on Exercise magazine, fitnessmatters, referred to programs being “stacked, blended or just tossed together willy-nilly.”

With this much variation, the participant should make sure the instructor thoroughly understands all the elements being used in the program, the article said. Some yoga moves or exercise steps may be beyond the beginner or too hard on the joints, it said.

How much growth there will be in programs such as Step-Beaux or Disco Yoga remains to be seen. People in the industry think hybrid has bred-in limits.

“You will be seeing more of it in Podunk,” Crawford said. But she doubted hybrid will become aerobics’ next big thing. One reason is that hybridization involves programs, not products--there’s no single piece of equipment, such as a stepping platform, on which to key promotions and sales.

And even in hybrids, boredom can set in, Diemert said. “I have to keep re-creating part of the class,” he said. “Step-Beaux is taught once a week, and I don’t use the same choreography from week to week.”

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IDEA site: www.ideafit.com

American Council on Exercise advice site: www.acefitness.org/fitfacts/fitfacts_list.cfm

Franco’s: www.francosnet.com

Crunch: www.crunch.com