Social Workout

Steroidal Teenagers

Back Away from the Tren Xtreme

It would have otherwise been a calm day in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood last Wednesday: Buff men staring down on Market Street from second story cafes, the giant rainbow flag, the vintage marquis of the Castro Theater announcing Errol Flynn in the Adventures of Robin Hood.... But the calm was shattered when federal agents busted into the local Max Muscle emporium armed with search warrants. For what were they looking? Tren Xtreme, a "designer steroid" that is the scourge of gay men and high school football players across the nation. Behind the raid, somewhere in an office in Washington, D.C., was Jeff Novitzky, special agent for the FDA, the Elliot Ness of the anti-doping movement. Novtizky is the man that took down BALCO (Barry Bonds) and Marion Jones, and now he's got his sights set on your local GNC and Vitamin Shoppe.  We're way into the Novitzky-supplement story, which the Times' Michael Schmidt has been diligently following for the last few years. Beyond the wonderfulness of humble onetime IRS bureacrat turned steroid avenger, we're sickly intrigued by the baroque expertise of the black market supplement crowd -- and we do feel sorry for the 17-year old linebacker desperate to make varsity. The child doesn't stand a chance! Just get a load of the sorts of exchanges going down righ now on bodybuilding message boards....

FIterati

Tracy Anderson in Fake Lashes on Today

Tracy Anderson visited the Today show this morning, and demo'd her super special workout Method. (Recall that Madonna swears by T.A., as does Gwyneth, with whom she has partnered to open an uber premium gym in Tribeca.) We watched the video -- embedded below, complete with annoying Pledge ad -- and came away thinking The Method looks a lot like Pilates done up against a kitchen counter. Also, that Tracy is wearing fake lashes and looks like she's had lip injections. Not that we're judging.

Scientific

The Better Shape You're In, The More You Sweat

Better athletes sweat more, reports the Palo Alto Daily News. You may think your sweaty wrists or the rivers of perspiration on your shins are a sign simply that you're working hard or are really hot, but there's more to it than that, say scientists. Bigger, faster, better sweating is a sign that you're becoming a more efficient machine. "As you get more in shape, you'll sweat more in your extremities, so your arms and legs get sweaty, helping to dissipate that heat much quicker," say Dr. Beth Stover Mooradian, a senior scientist with Gatorade. I feel so much better about my un-dainty sweat situation now! 

My Body

Starlee Kine On Fruit And The Landmark Forum

Starlee Kine is an American public radio producer and writer. Her work has been featured on "This American Life" and "Marketplace." Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine. She is currently working on a book about self-help titled, "It IS Your Fault".

Health stresses me out. I don’t feel very healthy, and I don’t have health insurance. It seems like it’s hard to get healthy. My sister is obsessed with health and nutrition. She endlessly works out. She wakes up at five in the morning and goes to Starbucks. Then she goes to the gym and does boot camp. She’s gluten free, dairy free and soy free. She really obsesses. But I don’t regularly do anything healthy. I mean, I don’t eat unhealthily. I don’t eat fast food. But I don’t eat anything nutritious. I don’t eat greens every day. I’m afraid of fruit. I don’t like pulpy, sticky kinds of fruit. I don’t like to have them on my plate. If I’m sitting at a table and someone’s eating fruit, I have to position my glass so I don’t see it.

New York

Celebrity Fitness

Kourtney Kardashian Works Out Naked

Kourtney of the Khloe and Kim Kardashian Clan recently told Popsugar she likes to work out naked. Not because she's a free spirit. Not so she can revel in her naked glory. Because that way she can get a better look at her fat:

"Sometimes I will do them [her workouts] naked because I have mirrored end tables and mirrored furniture in my room. So I can see how gross, like when your lift up your leg, you can see all the jiggle and everything and it makes you work out harder..."

I'm usually of the whatever-works-for-you-honey school of thought.  But to this, I say No No No!

My Body

Kelly Morris on Drugs, Yoga, George Soros, and Long Term Happiness

Kelly Morris, one of the only five Senior Jivamukti teachers in the world, has a devoted following of hungry yogis eager to hear her urban-Buddhist-badass take on the world. In the middle of a calling out a pose, she’ll suddenly scream wildly about self-obsession and pimples and Facebook and meditation—all without blinking an eye. A former Sarah Lawrence gal turned spiritual warrior, she’s a blonde bombshell with a gravely baritone who swears and eats bacon and has a tattoo behind her left ear. Sort of like Buddha Barbie meets G.I. Jane.... 

A long time ago I was dating a hedge fund guy in L.A. who invited me to come to his yoga class. I kept resisting, but finally I went and loved it. I said, that’s what I’m going to do, and I came back to NY and went to Jivamukti, and within two minutes of walking in I knew that’s where I needed to be. I was in graduate school for sculpture, but I applied for teacher training, and then I dropped out of grad school. I was excommunicated from my family. My dad came over and thought I was in a cult. There were sculptures everywhere —Shiva and Ganesh — and paintings and incense and candles, and Krishna Das was playing. I was probably wearing a bindi. My family was concerned! I had been through so many transformations, and they were gearing up for another one. I was all over the place, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. They were worried about me. I was 27 or 28.

Scenes

Best and Worst ECA Fitness Class Names

Today on the fitness class agenda at the ECA Conference in Times Square, approximately 50 classes. Some sound grand, others, well, you'll see. 

Best Sounding Classes:

• Beam-lates. Gymnastics plus Pilates? Potentially awesome.
• 7-Layer Step. Sounds like 7-Layer Dip! 
• Hip Hop Theater. Jazz hands meet fly girls, everyone wins.

Classes That Makes Us Want to Run for the Hills:

• Monday Morning Moves. A laxative tea or a workout?
• Periodizing in the Real World. Mysterious and vaguely menstrual sounding.
• Four Dimensional Step. Time travel? Back to the 90s? 

Sadly, what seems to be missing are the explicit class names a la Equinox. Climb-Max, where are you?