Gyrating and vibrating to fitness

Fancy getting fit but can't face the gym or jogging?
How about pole dancing or vibrating?
By Katie Newton

Low impact, weight-bearing, aerobic, anaerobic? There's such a bewildering array of exercise types to choose from it's a wonder any of us get off the couch to do anything at all. Typically, experts advise people to do a mixture of different kinds, in a structure that suits your lifestyle and is easy and enjoyable to maintain. But what about when you feel like you've already OD'd on gymming, jogging and Pilates? What's next to try on the fitness front?

Pole Fitness
Peals of laughter are drifting down the street outside Casey Green's Pole Fitness studio when I arrive. Four women are finishing their final exercises for the evening, and she's got them in hysterics. It's a nice change from the crushingly sombre mood at evening yoga classes, or the enforced joviality of the gym.
Welcoming me in, Green cuts a lithe, sporty figure. In the centre of the studio are two removable stainless steel poles she imported especially from Australia so she could teach New Zealand women pole dancing moves, for fitness rather than titillation. "I lived with a dancer in Tokyo and being the fitness nut that I am, used to beg her to teach me the moves," she says. "And I've been hooked ever since." Putting her fitness training degree at AUT on hold for a year, she now runs popular group classes, one-on-one sessions, and has even taught some new recruits from a prominent Auckland strip club.
Even though I can barely hold my own body weight off the ground for more than a few seconds, Green shows me a series of complicated-looking manoeuvres involving sliding, swinging and spiralling down the pole. As she effortlessly glides around, kicking her legs out sexily and landing lightly on the floor, I grunt and sweat and careen around like a baby elephant. It takes an enormous effort to hoist yourself up, and even more to stop yourself from gaining too much momentum and spinning off into the ether. But it's also hugely satisfying to complete a move without skinning your knees on the carpet.
By the end of the hour, I can do a "fireman's swing", a "goddess swing" and a "backwards swing". I definitely haven't mastered the "cartwheel around the pole", or shimmying to the top and holding myself up there using just my thighs like Green can. I'm aching, sweating and smiling a lot. And despite my arms being jelly for days, I can't wait to go back and learn more tricks.

Power Plate
According to the Power Plate brochure, all it takes to burn fat and tone up is three 10-minute sessions per week of posing on a vibrating plate. And according to the print ads that feature Lorraine Downes grinning like a Cheshire, you can even do it in a beaded evening gown and strappy sandals. But when I ring to make an appointment, the instructor quickly puts me straight. Power Plate is a replacement for resistance training only, so if you want to drop the kilos, you've still got do your cardio. And you actually have to arrive properly hydrated, fed and wearing workout gear.
Stepping gingerly onto the Power Plate that generates between 30-50 vibrations per second, I am surprised at how pleasant the sensation is. Although it's strong enough to chatter my teeth and blur my peripheral vision, it feels really rather soothing. It apparently causes the muscles to contract, stretching tendons, stimulating blood circulation and strengthening even difficult-to-tone areas. The purported benefits are many and varied - from increasing metabolic rate, fitness, strength and flexibility, to improving your mood, aches and pains, and even the appearance of cellulite.
Over the next 10 minutes I perform a series of squats, bends, press-ups and sit-ups, each requiring a moderate to quite intense amount of effort. Before long, the workout is over and I get to lie on the plate, which is covered with sandbags to encourage the vibrations to massage deep into the muscle tissue. I leave feeling energised, oddly lightheaded, and only very slightly fatigued. Apparently this is because my muscles worked involuntarily and my brain had not yet registered that I'd done a workout. If only it could be kept in the dark about how much wine I drink, then maybe hangovers would be a thing of the past.
The next day I still have no soreness or fatigue, and am definitely considering signing up for a month, to really see if it can live up to its claims.

Balletomania
As a former ballerina, I had often thought about giving ballet another go as a far less flexible but just as keen adult. When I spotted a class on the Les Mills' website, intriguingly called "Balletomania" and purporting to beautify both body and soul, I had to go along to try it out.
The class is taught by Felicity Molloy and Susan Trainor, who used to dance as part of the Limbs Dance Company. Worried that working out had become a soulless pursuit, they approached the central Auckland branch of Les Mills to offer a trial run of 12 dance/fitness classes, which they liken to a blend of ballet and yoga. The emphasis is on fun, improving grace and indulging any latent dreams you may harbour of being a dancer.
Our smallish group range from 18 years old to mid-40s, and there is but one lone gentleman in our midst. We warm up slowly, running through combinations of the leg and arm positions from first to fifth. The music is an oddball mix of twiddly piano, Justin Timberlake and Kanye West. I'm concentrating so hard on keeping myself pulled up tall, abs tight and shoulders back that I hardly notice my arms are aching with the effort.
Far from barking orders at us like the stereotypical scary ballet mistress, Molloy and Trainor are sweet and encouraging, alternating banter with hilarious instructions like "toss the raindrops over your shoulder!" and "stroke the carpet with your toes!" Instead of coming across weird, this creates an environment that banishes any self-consciousness anyone might have. Before we know it we are leaping and galloping around the studio with abandon. Some move gracefully, others less so, but nobody notices or cares. As the steps become more complicated I realise I can't keep up so I just wave my arms madly in the air and toss in a few pirouettes where I can. By the end, even the fittest among us are gasping for breath.

For more info on Balletomania, see Les Mills' site

For pole fitness classes, go here for more information.

For Power Plate nationwide, go to Power Plate

Original Article Courtesy of www.stuff.co.nz