Dynamic Aerobic Resistance Exercise
A little bit of everything – with attitude
Tuesday, February 10, 20091
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Last Sunday, at a time when I am usually relaxing on the couch, sipping coffee, reading the Times and tuning in to the morning political gabfests on TV, I was instead driving to the Hampshire Athletic Club in Amherst.
I was headed there for an intense aerobics class led by personal trainer James Fitzgerald. I checked in and noticed a sign about the class on the front desk that read "For Those Who Dare." I asked the woman working there where the class was. She pointed me down a hallway.
"You'll hear his voice," she said.
Full throttle
"You guys ready? Are you REALLY ready?"
Booming and powerful, Fitzgerald's voice is a force to be reckoned with. It's a survival skill, he tells me later. Fitzgerald, 43, grew up in Buffalo in a military family in which he was the next to youngest of seven children. He had to speak up, he says.
At full throttle, Fitzgerald sounds like a drill sergeant, though he's really more like a cheerleader. He challenges his students, but with humor and praise. After one set of ab crunches, he scans the room with a glint in his eye. "The good news," he says, "is we're going to do it ... AGAIN!" Or, during a brief respite between sets, while several students are mopping their brows with towels, he asks, "Ever had the feeling you're being set up for something bigger?"
Fast clip
Fitzgerald calls his class DARE, which stands for Dynamic Aerobic Resistance Exercise. In simplest terms, it's an hour and 15 minutes of nearly constant motion in which one segment flows into the next. The hour goes along at a fast clip that slows down now and then, but never lollygags. Fitzgerald puts his students through their paces, doing step routines on and off the bench, plus a wide range of other moves, including lunges, squats, crunches, push-ups and arm exercises. The final 15 minutes are used for what he describes as a slower, "yogaesque" series of balance and stretching exercises.
"I just kind of went - wow!" recalls Maggie Hodges of Amherst of her first Fitzgerald class. At 48, Hodges says she's a longtime fitness enthusiast. In addition to liking the content of the class and Fitzgerald's boisterous energy, Hodges was impressed by his effort to acknowledge those who show up.
"He remembers names," she says, "and he goes out of his way to make a personal connection with each person."
Fitzgerald does not pretend that the content of his class is original. "I didn't reinvent the exercise wheel," he says. What he does, he says, is pull from everything he has studied, including aerobics, muscle conditioning, strength training, yoga and Pilates.
"It's intense, but that's what I wanted," says Shalini Milne of Shutesbury, 40, who's become a regular in Fitzgerald's classes. "I wanted someone to challenge me."
Teachers like Fitzgerald have an ability to motivate people, says Milne - in her case, making her want to go to class instead of feeling like she's dragging herself over to the club. "He clearly loves what he's doing," she says, adding that people pick up on that authenticity. "He's there to maximize your well-being," she says, not to show off his own.
Milne says her next challenge is to get her husband to try the class, too, though that might be a steep climb. Though his class attracts a smattering of men, Fitzgerald says nearly 80 percent of his students are women. He believes that the lopsided gender imbalance in so many fitness classes is a holdover from the 1980s when aerobics was popularized by Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons, who both focused on women. "I also think that men are more afraid of not being able to do it," he says, referring to the moves used in many classes.
Iris Berkman, 47, says she checked out Fitzgerald's workout because she was looking for more cardio exercise. Her first love is creative dance, says Berkman, with most exercise classes a distant second. But Berkman, who teaches with the Valley Dance Project in Amherst, says that the variety and challenge within Fitzgerald's class "has changed my whole attitude." She especially appreciates his inclusion of yoga and Pilates-inspired moves that many male teachers might spurn. "He's not afraid to go there," she says.
'BIG inhale!'
The room is a medium-sized space with a wall of mirrors at one end. On the Sunday I went to observe, it was filled with at least 25 people; the Monday class that I took was smaller.
People come prepared. Many, knowing they'll sweat plenty, have brought towels and are wearing cropped pants or shorts and short-sleeved tops. They've parked their water bottles on the window sills or on the floor. They've set up their step benches. Against one wall are stored the dumbbells, large exercise balls and jump ropes they'll use later.
Fitzgerald, dressed in dark shorts and a T-shirt, wears a patterned bandanna wrapped around his head. He prefers to face his classes, rather than lead by looking into a mirror with the students behind him. "I can engage with them better if I face them," he says.
As we jog and jump, pump and push our way through the hour, Fitzgerald offers up a steady stream of encouragement and instruction: "Make your big muscles do the work, that's why they're there ... Abdominals nice and tight ... Really squeeze the glutes... Stay nice and low ... BIG reach! ... One more set! ... Countdown, 4,3,2,1 and DONE! OK, jog it out... BIG inhale!"
An only moderately in shape newcomer might wonder, as I did, whether Fitzgerald's class would be too rigorous. The thought crossed my mind along about the time that Fitzgerald - he was joking, wasn't he? - said we'd completed the warm-up. But I did survive and felt great afterward. I was a little achy the next morning, but in the way that feels good, not painful.
That I didn't overdo it owes much to Fitzgerald's practice of showing modified, low-impact versions of many of the movements throughout the class. Fitzgerald's moves, whether low- or high-impact, are easy to pick up - a conscious decision, he says, reflecting his own total inability to dance. He also repeatedly reminds his students to do what they can, not what they think they should do. For example, the class I attended included two segments of fast-paced jumping rope. Several participants, including me, opted simply to jog in place instead.
"I never ask the same thing out of everybody," he says.
In his case, that's more than lip service. Though he trains hard himself, and has the muscles to show for it, Fitzgerald's other gig is at the senior centers in Amherst and Northampton. At both places, he teaches classes designed to help older people stay and maintain their balance.
As over the top as it might sound, Fitzgerald says he operates from the premise that those who exercise will always get a healthy return on their investment, no matter their age. He says he believes that all of us, somewhere deep down, have an inner athlete waiting to get out - and he's trying to tap into that desire to be more fit.
"They work so hard," he says of his students and the best part of teaching is seeing the progress they make. After the last long stretch, when the class is over, Fitzgerald applauds his students. "Nicely done," he tells them. "Whatever you want to do the rest of the day, you've earned it." As he talks, he walks from student to student exchanging high fives.
Dynamic Aerobic Resistance Exercise classes are held Sundays and Mondays at 9 a.m. at the Hampshire Athletic Club on Gatehouse Road in Amherst. The fee for drop-ins is $12. For more information go to www.hampshireac.com or call 256-6446.
This column appears monthly. To suggest future workout classes or related topics please contact Suzanne Wilson at swilson@gazettenet.com.
Comments
Let's hear it for James
... and for being a force for people to 'DARE' to invest in Quality Long Living!
Robert V.Gallant