Boston Mania - Get your move on!

So Boston Mania was this past weekend. This is a fitness conference held by SCW fitness in several cities throughout the year (Philadelphia, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, Orlando, Atlanta, Boston). The conference is Friday-Sunday, with pre-conference workshops on Wednesday and Thursday (pre-con can be anything from personal training to tai chi, yoga to gliding). This was my schedule (I was volunteering for free admission):

Wednesday 5p-9p - volunteer shift, stuffing binders
Thursday 7a-1:30p - volunteer shift, stuffing binders
Thursday 6p-7p - volunteer meeting
Friday 8a-6p
9a-11a - Dynamic Sport Warm-Up for Strength and Power (bosu)
11a - turnaround
12p-1:30p - Schwinn Cycling Class Design in No Time
1:30p - turnaround
2p-3:45p - Bosu Skills and Drills
3:45p - turnaround
4p-5:30p - The Step in Between (step aerobics)
5:30p - turnaround
Saturday 6:15a-6p
6:15a - turnaround
7a-8:45a - Get to the Core with Circuit Training
8:45a - turnaround
9a-11a - Never Mind Aerobics Here's Punk Rope (jump rope)
11a - turnaround
12p-1:30p - Bosu Complete Total Bosu Sculpt
1:30p - turnaround
2p-3:45p - Sports Performance Boot Camp 2
3:45p - turnaround
4p-5:30p - Step by Numbers (step aerobics)
5:30p - turnaround
Sunday 6:15a-2p
6:15a - turnaround
7a-8:45a - Group Xtreme (boot camp)
8:45a - turnaround
9a-11a - Cardio Crazy (medicine ball, gliders, step circuit)
11a - turnaround
12p-1:30p - Peace Love and Step
1:30p - turnaround

Ok, so what's all this turnaround business, you ask? Basically, there are different workshops going on all the time. So at the same time that step class was happening, there's bosu in another room, spin in another, yoga in another, etc etc. But what's in that room one hour might be different the next. So we're the muscle that goes in and takes those benches away and puts out all the handweights or sets up the circuit. We put the chairs out for a chair-striptease class (yes, that was on the schedule), and we carry all the stability balls from one end of the conference to the other, trying not to knock people out of the way as we go (when you have a ball under each armpit, you're a LOT wider than normal). It's hard work, but the awesome thing is that once you're done with turnaround, you can attend whatever workshop you want without having to have registered for it.

I took soooo many notes, it's rather daunting to have to go through them and decipher them now. Some of them I was writing them so fast, that when I go back and look, I either have trouble deciphering what I've written, or I look at something like "jump flick feet pivot twist" and wonder how the hell I thought that would make sense to me later. But the majority of my notes are great, and I added tons of new choreography to my repertoire. Plus, I bought a bunch of new equipment!

Ladder: This cool circuit training (or personal training) device is great for cardio. You can run through it laterally (like in the picture), run front, hop front, hop side, hopscotch, jump in and out with both feet (like a snake). My gym has hardwood floors, and the ladder slides, so I just mounted it on a couple yoga mats and it was good to go.

Jump ropes: jump roping is the cardio exercise you can really get the biggest bang for your buck. Jump for 30 seconds and your heart rate is already starting to spike. Even if you keep catching it on your feet, what jumping time you get is still going to help. And the more you do it, the better you'll get at it, until you'll be saying "that was 2 minutes already, really?" (side note: at the present moment, I suck at jumping rope).

Resistance tubing: the great thing about these tubes is that they stretch, so the more you pull on them, the harder it gets. Unlike regular handweights, which are the same all the way up and down, the tubes increase the resistance the higher you pull. So they are damn hard. I've heard that body builders use them to pump up their muscles right before a competition (not that we're going all hard core like that in class). We used to have these at the gym, but they up and took themselves out somewhere else.

Cones: The best deal at the whole conference! Power Systems was offering a conference special of $1 per cone (they're little ones, but hey, I don't need anything fancy). So I can use these for running and changing direction drills. One thing we don't train often is ankle strength, we either run forward, or move laterally, but unless we play basketball, we don't often stop and start and move at angles. So one option with the cones is to set them up in two columns of four cones, then run zig zag between them, with a full stop on the outside foot at each cone before changing direction. Lots of other options, too, must brainstorm.

I wanted to get some kettlebells, but can't see myself using them anytime soon in class (they'd be damn heavy to carry from my locker!), and I also really wanted these cute long cones (I can't find a picture of them on their website). Basically, picture one of those bright orange cones, but stretch it out so that it's the shape of a really thin tent, and either 6" or 12" tall. They were totally awesome. But being so much more expensive than cones, I figured I'd stick with what I had for now.

More to come tomorrow on the content of the workshops - some of the wackiest goings-on, or my favorite new stuff I've learned!

Boston Mania, here I come!

(Geez...this photo gives me nightmares of face planting on the floor...)

It's that time of year again! Every November (for the last three), I've attended Boston Mania, a fitness convention held by SCW Fitness. The first year (2006), I was a full-fledged attendee. In other words, I paid a boatload of money to get in, as well as bought fun goodies like music and clothes on top of that, and it was a pretty streamlined, easy experience.

The great thing about it that year in particular was that I was getting seriously burned out at the gym. I was teaching 2-3 step classes a week and was bored of my combos, my format, and was grasping for something, anything, different I could do. I thought about teaching double step (using two benches instead of one) as my regular class, and started creating combos for that. Then I went to Boston Mania 2006. Ooooh boy did my world turn upside down. Or rightside up. I discovered vertical step. Step is normally taught with the bench horizontal (long end to the front of the room), but vertical is when you turn the short end to the front of the room. And I don't know what it is about vertical, but I don't get bored of it. Granted, I'm always coming up with new combos, or I do get tired of the old ones. But I've now been teaching vertical longer than I taught horizontal regularly, and I'm still loving it. Whenever I do teach horizontal, it just doesn't seem the same. Kind of like when you eat when you're really hungry and everything tastes great (vertical), and when you're not feeling well and everything tastes like cardboard (horizontal).

I also discovered gliding, which is a super-awesome way of working all your muscles low impact, and not just the major muscles but all the supporting ones too. Especially legs and abs. Lots and lots of legs and abs. I was a major gliding convert for the longest time. Until I finally came to terms with the fact that I'd lost about 80% of the members in my class (it used to be weight lifting and I'd changed it to gliding). So now I teach boot camp. But I do occasionally throw in a gliding exercise with the boot camp.

Boston Mania 2007 I volunteered, so I didn't have to pay the attendee fee, but I did have to work the event. I set up all the equipment before and after each workshop, did setup on Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, and I got to attend all the workshops for free. It's awesome because I don't have to shell out the big bucks (except for new equipment, music, and such, but that's at a conference discount anyway), I get to attend all the workshops I want to, and I don't have to pack stuff up on Sunday. Because seriously, after four days of all that, the last thing I want to do with my Sunday afternoon is pack everything into trucks. Last year, I got a massive, body-shaking, throat-wrenching cold after the conference because I ran myself too ragged. So this year I'm going to go to sleep early, take my vitamin C, and take it easy (I'm there to learn new moves, not for the exercise).

Boston Mania 2008, I'm so looking forward to it! They have several boot camp workshops on the schedule, which I can't wait for. My boot camp cardio is getting pretty stale (how many different kinds of jacks and lunges and kicks and punches can you really do, if you only have 2 minutes at a time of cardio?), and I'm always looking for new step and weight lifting tips. I have a new combo for step that I can't figure out for the life of me how to teach. So I'll see some old friends I met last year and hopefully they can help me break it down.

Can I share with you the craziness of my schedule over the next few days?

Wednesday 5p-10p (last year they let us out at 6:30, and I'm really hoping the same this year because there's a French dinner I want to go to)
Thursday 6:30a-1:30p
Thursday meeting 6p-8p
Friday 8a-6p (or 7p if I want to go to the special workshop)
Saturday 6:15a-6p
Sunday 6:15a-1p

I'm so sleeping in on Monday. Expect me at work around 11a, 10:30 if I'm lucky. Next Wednesday I'll tell you guys about all the cool stuff I actually encountered at the conference! To warn you though, I'll probably still be hopped up on a massive conference high, so you might see bouncy happy faces flitting through my blog...