Oliver
HELLO
Oliver
In 1995, I took Adele Munisteri's spinning class at the Reebok Sports Club. More...
Member Of...
I Heart These...
Feats Completed
- The Love Challenge:
- Love Belly
- Love Body
- Love Soul
See all feats for The Love Challenge- Social Workout Challenge: New Years Edition:
- Stand Up
- Sleep Log
- Pimp Your Bed
- Sun Salutes
- Take A Bath
- Jan Plan Plus
- Go Fish
- Home Food
- See all feats for Social Workout Challenge: New Years Edition
- Emergency Holiday Challenge:
- Family Oriented
- Reindeer Gaming
- Walking on Christmas
- See all feats for Emergency Holiday Challenge
- Eat. Sweat. Blog.:
- Flog
- No-moo
- Caffeine free
- Brightly Colored
- Just Water
- Raw food day
- Localvore
- Unsweetened
- Soda Free
- Go Veggie
- See all feats for Eat. Sweat. Blog.
- Other Feats:
- Cartwheel
- Wheel Pose
- Handstand by 20
- Jump Rope - One Minute with Five Crossies
- Moonwalk
- Juggle
- Sing
- Headstand
- Spot Turn
- Chinups
- 2009 Feats of Summer 50 Workout Challenge
- Recover from H1N1 Virus
- Commuting Meditation
- Mile Run
- Half Mile Swim
- Free Throws
- Group Fitness Class Sampler
- Situps
- See all feats
Oh Boy!
Lift Off!
Somebody flipped the switch, and things are rattling and shaking at Social Workout HQ. Suddenly the page you are looking at is no longer the "home" page. That thing above is the new home page. it's all very exciting and disorienting. Hang in there.
Site News
Social Workout 2.0 Cleared for Take Off
Fasten your seatbelts, and hold on to your login credentials, we're about to flip the big switch here in Social Workout headquarters: Beginning tomorrow, this "blog" will live at a slightly new address. Actually, it already lives there. If you move your eyes to the address bar at the top of your browser window — easy now — you'll notice that the site you are looking at is actually "blog.socialworkout.com."
Oh snap!
This might make you wonder: Where exactly is SocialWorkout.com at this very moment? Well, SocialWorkout.com, the "page," is currently in the garage getting re-tooled. Around high noon tomorrow, post switch flipping, that URL/page will reappear, but redesigned as a front door to BOTH this blog and to our new challenge site, a.k.a. Social Workout 2.0.
Huh? Could you go over that again?
Yes. As many of you know, we've been working away on a new and improved version of this site. Well, it's high time to push our baby out into the daylight. If you haven't already checked it out, the new site is less blog, and more personal activity tracker and communal challenge site....
Treadmill Tips
A. J. Jacobs, Healthiest Human, Listens to NPR on Doublespeed
"I listen to NPR podcasts when I work out," said A. J. Jacobs. You may recall A. J. from our interview with him last year. An editor-at-Large for Esquire and bestselling author of Know It All and The Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs is now working on a book (unofficially) called The Healthiest Human Being in the World. The book is due to his publisher February 1st, and so we went out to lunch to compare notes on fitness culture. He was coming from a Cross Fit workout that morning, and had a Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato-and-Egg sandwich, sans the "B," or the bread. "I wasn't taking it seriously enough," he explained. "But I've only got five months, so I'm getting pretty hardcore."
Jacobs' books are a trilogy. First came mind, then spirit, and now he's on body. The range of his research seems to have led to some astute observations. "Those Cross Fit people are just as evangelical as Southern Baptists," he said. I nodded vigorously. I'm always ranting about the similarity between group fitness culture and religion. Anyway, that's how we got on to treadmill habits, and he made me laugh....
"Yeah, I like to listen to NPR's Your Health podcast," he said. "But I listen to it on doublespeed. It's great. The only problem is that when you talk to people, they seem to be talking really slow. But if you listen to William Hurt on doublespeed, he's still slow. William Hurt needs triple speed."
It was a fun lunch, and now we all have an important workout tip.
Wake Up Call
You Are You
Accept everything about yourself--I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end--no apologies, no regrets.
Wake Up Call
Play Like You Play
It's the way you play that makes it . . . Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you're going to get it. And whatever you get, that's you, so that's your story.
Image: CvH Stafford Road Club (cyclists!) vs. Stafford Athletic Club (runners!) in 1976.
Wake Up Call
Greet the Bold Youth Within
Come on now all you young men, all over the world. … You have not an hour to lose. … Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Don’t be content with things as they are. ‘The earth is yours and the fulness thereof.’ Enter upon your inheritance, accept your responsibilities. … Don’t take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth.
Wake Up Call
On Beauty
Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.
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Workout
A Yoga Affair in Little Italy
I arrive on the yoga mat with bones, body, and soul frazzled. I.AM.YOU Yoga is on the sixth floor of a building deep in the heart of Little Italy. It's my first visit. Outside: Waiters in white coats, wives in Juicy Couture, and husbands scarfing canolis in Sopranos tees. Inside (by way of stainless steel elevator): Lauren, remarkably toned former investment banker in skintight, black short shorts, a dozen black yoga mats laid out in tight rows on the polished hardwood, and twin turntables at the ready. Mister Bob Dalbolina kicks off a tremendously physical yoga series to soothe the tightly wound souls of the very fit mostly female class. All good, but on this night, in these very close quarters, I realize to my horror that caffeine and stress are rising from me in pungent form. Oh god, I'm stinky.
Place:
I.AM.YOU. studio
Workout
Jump Rope and Misc.
Jumped for 20 minutes, avoiding the elliptical, and then did pushups, situps, pullups, dips, etc.
Place:
Equinox - Soho
Workout
Late Rope Jumping
Didn't get to the gym until ten-after-nine. PEA. EM. That's late to start sweating, and I blame my compulsive, procrastinatory inability to separate from desk at the end of the day in hopes that I'll suddenly be granted divine clarity and complete all of the outstanding things on my To Do lists. But whatever.
Place:
Equinox - Soho
Workout
On Pilates and Hip Circles
My question: How many situps, if any, is a Pilates class worth toward's one's Feralicious goals? (Can one even count situps done in a class towards one's feat goals?) My answer: You can count situps (or pushups) from a class, but they must be real, identifiable situps. No "situp equivalents," as in: "30 seconds of Pilates teasers is equivalent to 10 situps." No, that's a slippery slope.
Place:
Equinox - Soho
Workout
Friday Evening Yogaworks
Several of the sales guys from Flavorpill, with whom we share offices, had decided to go to Yogaworks Soho. S. is a big yogi, of couse, and it was to be the first class for T., who once played football. I tagged along. Keith was teaching, and the room was crowded. It was a beginners class, and Keith seems particularly good with beginners.
Place:
YogaWorks - SoHo
Workout
Shameless Use of Leisurely Bike Ride
As my Saturday workout. Truth is, however, it was time set aside for de-stressing, and we rolled down to the bottom of Manhattan and then back up again. More sightseeing than sweating, but physical nonetheless. Especially if you count the feeling of warm and cool spring air on face, and the smell of new bar-b-ques. And also the getting home early and going to bed.
Place:
Outside
Workout
Lunchtime Pilates
Kristen McGee and Equinox Soho. I found the last spot in the corner, and it was all very graceful, not excruciatingly hard, and ideal for the midday time slot. While we were doing some form of core clenching exercise, a woman behind me let out a significant fart. This caused the tatoo'd man in tights next to me to start giggling uncontrollably, along with his neighbor.
Class(es) Taken:
Pilates Mat - Kristen McGee
Place:
Equinox - Soho
Date:
Thu, 03/18/2010 (All day)
Workout
YTTP Late Night
I sweat hot tears, or I cried hot sweat, or something. It was classic YTTP: With a slightly certain-of-herself teacher prodding us to work on our "vibrational breathing," and a guy a few rows over groaning at high volume.
Place:
Yoga to the People
Workout
Salsa with Jose
Just catching up around here, on my workout posts AND on my salsa classes. Monday was the first class in two weeks. It wasn't high impact, and Jose fell back into his nasty habit of demo-ing the move about 1,000 times before letting us try. But it was dancing, and very good for my heart and soul.
Class(es) Taken:
Advanced Salsa - Jose Rosario
Place:
Sandra Cameron Dance Center
Date:
Mon, 03/15/2010 (All day)
Workout
Late Night Jivamukti with Nan
Deja vu: It's Thursday night, and it had been nearly a week since the last exercise. Travel got in the way, and work. At the company happy hour, I confessed that I was a miserable hypocrite. You can't run a site dedicated to wellness, and not take care of yourself. I was miles from Feralicious. So I finished my Guinness and bicycled to Jivamukti for the 8:30PM installment.
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Deets
Cool two story, triangular building on 13th street. Apparently 7,000 square feet. First time drop ins are $20. After that, it's $40 for a drop in or you can join on a monthly basis. The initiation is $500, and monthly is $160. There's a also a month-to-month option for $250. And, of course, they want you to stop by and discuss your options.
Calvin is the bomb!
I've never taken Body Architect class, but Calvin is a true fitness pioneer and original. He's been teaching dance and step aerobics for-ev-ah, and yet is still the youngest guy in the room with the most energy. Seriously. This is way too positive of a review for the actual publisher of this site, (that's me), BUT Calvin was one of the inspirations for this site.
PIlates Life
re:AB is a Hub for the Pilates Nation
A journalist friend worked for a while for a Pilates website that went bust. Why didn't it make it, I asked. "Pilates is not a lifestyle," she said. I understood what she meant. Yoga has several thousand years of Hindu religion and Indian culture behind it. The music, the food, the clothing. Even Capoeira has Brazilian music and history. Pilates doesn't have a national culture, it's got a German-American fitness visionary and a tribe of loyal dancers and midtown media women with excellent posture.
If Joseph Pilates had had a TV show, things would be ..." More comments...
Notable Trainers
Clive McIntosh Saved My Life
What: Notable Trainer
Where: Crunch Fitness and Private
At Flavorpill HQ in Soho on Friday afternoons, the CEO's personal trainer comes in and runs a half hour boot camp for anyone willing to step away from their desk. It's sort of an experimental thing, and a testament to how much Flavorpill CEO, Mark Mangan, digs Clive McIntosh.
New York
so jealous!
" More comments...Review and Deal Alert
David Barton Astor Place Sexier than The Box and Cheaper
Last night, pre-martinis at Temple Bar with Lululemon (herself), we stopped in for overdue tour of the new David Barton Gym at Astor Place. Everone must go take a look, if only to see the next step in the evolution of gym to nightclub: DJ booth in the shape of giant mirrored ball, thumping music, outsized Phillipe Starck-style mirrors leaning against exposed steel and brick. Purple backlighting everywhere. Lovely juxtaposition of candle-lit wooden floors and futuristic cardio machinery (each unit with its own TV). All the energy does make you want to work out -- the way a hopping club makes you want to dance. Everyone beautiful in that lighting: The ripped man of color with dreds and tattoos; the Nicole Kidman knock-off doing pelvic lifts with pesonal trainer. And that's the further surprise: It's not all gay. The mix of men and women, in fact, roughly balanced. "David has a wife and a kid and lives on the Upper East Side," said our tour guide. "The Chelsea thing just sort of took off." My thought: It could easily have been Equinox Greenwich Avenue or any other Hot New Club, just re-themed, like a Windows desktop, to something between The Standard and the Delano. So, other than mandatory tourist visit, should you join?
New York
On first storefront glimpse I thought the Halloween store had moved. ..." More comments...
Sunday Cure
Being anywhere but bed or perhaps surfing on summer Sunday morning at 8 A.M. in the Hamptons would seem unwise. But if you can drag your butt to Newtown Lane, Jerry's thoughtful class is kind of a shockingly nice way way to wake up. It's not easy, but he spends alot of time setting up poses, so your body has a chance to acclimatize to the situation.
Review
Multi Intenso Yoga
In the New York yoga scene, there are certain hub studios, places with street cred that attract regulars with strong practices. (Compared to these places, gym yogis and Bikram fans are strictly bridge-and-tunnel.) Among the hubs, in Tribeca, is the Kula Yoga Project, a crunchy, well-run studio, up a long flight of rickety stairs, which packs them in nearly ten times a day. The teaching is generally above average, with certain standouts.
Among the latter is David Andre Regelin, a tall, dark-haired yoga Adonis with an evangelical following. "I used to be a spinning junkie," raved one petitie Italian woman to me, "and I never thought yoga could give me the same kind of high. Then I discovered David."
New York
Far Flung Correspondents
Triopetra Yoga Retreat
[This just in from Rebs Wilson, friend on extended jaunt around the world. A fragment from life with yogis on the island of Crete.... -The Eds.]
I arrived at Triopetra to help with computer stuff. My “bosses” are Ieva, a gypsy princess, who sings her Latvian folk songs while washing the dishes and cleaning the rooms; and George, often dressed in 70’s neon. In exchange for my work, I get to stay in yoga paradise for two months.
Each week a yoga teacher arrives with a new flock, car sick and terrorized from ride in, which features jaunty Cretan folk music, and narrow, winding roads attached by olive-tree roots to mountain faces poised to tumble into deep gorges.
Other Places
Outdoor Workouts
Bootcamp Republic Will Get You Up Early
Tip for those desperate to escape the gym, but requiring group energy to stay motivated: Bootcamp Republic. These guys claim to be the city's "largest bootcamp company," and they're now offering a regular supply of three week camps in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City. From the looks of their staff page, your drill seargant is likely to have done hard time at one New York gym or another, including David Barton and Equinox. Each camp includes two, hour-and-a-half classes per week, which begin either at 6 A.M. or 7 A.M. Need peer pressure to avoid the snooze button? Your "teammates" will be waiting for you at the meeting place....
We worry a little about the grab bag nature of your fellow campers, but seven out of seven Yelpers give B.R. five stars. Must be said, their website is nicely done, and we like the tongue-in-cheek name. Price is $250, but here's a coupon that gets you 76% off for the first week. Next camp starts June 22nd. Curious? Check the video after the jump, and let us know if you go....
New York
Fitness Video Test Lab
Ballroom Dance DVD That Doesn't Suck
[And now, once again, it's time for another Obscure Fitness DVD Review, with Kimberly Rae Miller. She puts her body on the line, plumbing the depths of her vast exercise video collection, so you don't have to waste your time, and your $8.99.... ~The Eds.]
Ballroom dance-based workouts are usually lame. Case in point: Dancing with the Stars-Cardio Dance. Don't get me started: Those people seem to assume you tour regularly with the Alvin Ailey company. They don't explain their moves, and you stand in your living room feeling pathetic and not sweating. So, I wasn't chomping at the bit to test Dance off the Inches: Dance it off Ballroom, but I popped it in. And, surprisingly, I liked it...a lot.
Online & Video
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Yay! Beautiful work.
Posted in response to: 4,000+, 2,000+, 3
Hello over there! Amazing. Yes, running is an ideal way to aclimatize. And to see the neighborhood. You'll feel at home much faster, in place and body....
Posted in response to: eurotrip, part 1
hilarious! triceps checking not vain, or at least not vain in a bad way. vain in a good way.
Posted in response to: I saw muscles!
Oh no! Gym renovation... Recommend emergency outdoor maneuvers.
Posted in response to: Still doin' them push-ups
Sending you a bit of summer from NYC!
Posted in response to: Winter and sore shoulders SUCK(!) my left toe
OMG! That's amazing. Thanks for the deep intel.
Posted in response to: Iowans Aim for Group Yoga Record
KDOOG! So glad to have you back, and thanks as always for keeping it real. Your criticisms are entirely valid. THe MMM was flawed, but it WAS kind of weirdly cool how the sheer longevity of it came to mean something. Anyhoo, we're on to new things, and more social workouts, and your presence vital and greatly appreciated. As is your feedback, which will be especially helpful as we slowly evolve to SW2.0.... Onward!
Posted in response to: Now that the million minute challenge is over. I'm back.
Um, I'm sure I missed something: What is Ditch Day?
Posted in response to: Waiting impatiently for Ditch Day.
bridesmade, remember what they said in school: there's no such thing as a dumb question. yours gave me an opportunity to post this cool video from lululemons recent "Salutation Nation" event. Should be self explanatory, but you can also look here for a how to... .
Posted in response to: Salute the Sun!
Yes, eventually. But may need to do a focus group, however, to determine what the priorities are....
Posted in response to: Doh! Time to Throw Away Your Fitbit?
Interesting! When we integrate SW 2.0 with Fitbit, you'll be able to use both!
Posted in response to: Doh! Time to Throw Away Your Fitbit?
Ha! OK non-yogis, here's the beauty of SW2.0: We can run more than one challenge at a time. SO, this is going to be like elementary school: Some people take French, and some Spanish. Some of us will dive deep into the sun, and for others it's brainstorm time: What challenge are you looking for to finish your summer in style? Do you want to pump iron, run sprints, juice kale, wake up early, or spend more time naked? Please submit your suggestions, and we will review and create your custom challenge.
Posted in response to: Salute the Sun!
Yay! I anticipate some confusion around the sign up. Don't panic. If you get lost navigating to SW 2.0, simply post a comment here, and we'll sort you out. Anyone who signs up, look for an invite to the test by 2 P.M. today, EST.
Posted in response to: Salute the Sun!
We're now at 99.9%!
Posted in response to: Ninety Nine Point Eight Percent Complete!
They're prepping the bottles of champagne in the locker room! The press is gathering!
Posted in response to: Ninety Nine Point Eight Percent Complete!
MEA CULPA! I've been preoccupied with, you know, SW2.0, but I feel strongly that the good old days of nonstop AM/PM fitness culture commentary will be back soon. I'm scheming a big happy collision of new functionality and editorial excellence and communal schmoozing for soon. We're determined to challenge and amuse you. Just FYI.
Posted in response to: MAJOR Gripe with SW :(
You're now offiially back on track! And we're offiially holding you accountable!
Posted in response to: Thank goodness I [m]log with pen and paper.
Mohawk! Welcome back, and thank you for injecting some contrarian energy and the whiff of scandal into the final minutes of the MMM. That is meant sincerely, by the way. (Also, FYI, meant to welcome you properly on your own return post, but got sidetracked by my own long journey in the land of SW 2.0 upgrades.)
I have two things to say on this debate. First, as msh258 points out elsewhere: This challenge is expansive, not limited to "workouts" of the sort that a professional athlete might do, and allows people to include all of their minutes of intential physical activity. Second, as FatBottomSlim points out above, this challenge is interminable (but epic), and so I am profoundly grateful for michlny and bwaytapper, and some of the other Super Mloggers for dragging my sorry ass to the finish line! Thank you!
And one third point: Today I will spend some substantial part of my day contemplating how we will properly celebrate One Million. Your suggestions welcome.
Posted in response to: The Final Sprinters!
Hey Fraidy,
Sorry for the trouble. How are you trying to post the link? You should be able to double click the little "chain" icon in the edit window, and than paste your URL. Lemme know where you're things are going awry.
Posted in response to: Why can't I ever post something with links?
Killer workout!
Posted in response to: All this family time means getting creative about exercise
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on 4 days 16 hours ago by Oliver