Sweating their way to fitness

Elaine Miller and Narina Tatoussian like to make people sweat.

The two are trainers and co-owners of All About You Wellness Bootcamp. They coach dozens of people, most of them Glendale residents, in a spacious basketball gym where participants show up for hour-long exercise sessions beginning at 5:45 a.m.

The workout routines vary by design each week. Miller said that she and Tatoussian switch up the routine weekly so as to avoid repetitive workouts that breed content muscles.

On a recent Wednesday, 16 participants arrived for a 9 a.m. session. First they stretched, and then they ran warm-up laps around the gym to the beat of Lady Gaga.

This particular session was heavy on elastic exercise bands to strengthen arm and leg muscles.

Between band exercises, Tatoussian ordered the group to do 100-rep sets of jumping jacks. She counted into her microphone as they jumped.

Tatoussian instructed the group on how to achieve maximum results while using the exercise bands and not one minute went to waste.

“March in place as you’re watching,” she encouraged.

Tatoussian is also a nutritionist. She and Miller offer an elective nutritional program for each of their boot campers, and most recently, to any interested person, so long as they exercise five times a week.

One participant, Carol Albright of Toluca Lake, has surprised herself with what she has accomplished in the more than five years she has been exercising under Miller and Tatoussian’s instruction.

Albright, 72, met Miller when she was 67, after complying with her own daughter’s urgent request: “You need to do something, mom.”

Albright joined Glendale’s Total Woman Gym and Day Spa, where she was paired up with Miller. When Tatoussian and Miller opened the doors to their boot camp business in 2006, Albright followed, unsure if she would be able to keep up with it.

“When I was in high school, I worked very hard not to do P.E.,” Albright said. “I did nothing — I mean nothing — for years. I didn’t look at exercise until past 60.”

During boot camp, when Tatoussian and Miller command repetitions, Albright will modify by stopping short of the total repetitions, walk instead of run, or use the wall to complete push-ups, rather than the floor. Such modification is welcomed by the two trainers and it’s not uncommon for a handful of other participants to do the same.

“I think I’m in here with the 30-year-olds. I’m doing much of what they’re doing, just not quite as much of it, really, but I’m doing it,” she said.