A drum machine thumps as 20 pairs of high-top white sneakers lift and squeak, driven on by encouragement from Missy Magnuson, the founder of the Right Babe Body Club in Omaha.<\/p>\n
Magnuson started the club as an experiment to get people thinking less about fitness as a closed ring, and more about exercise as a social circle.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d always wanted to teach an exercise class, and her first instinct was Jazzercise, a dance program she\u2019d been involved with for years.<\/p>\n
However, Magnuson said there were barriers to teaching the courses, especially for those who don\u2019t have the time to dedicate to the practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe instructors there don\u2019t follow a tape,\u201d she said. \u201cThey memorize everything, the whole hour-long class. It always intimidated me.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then, a lightbulb came on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about VHS tapes?\u201d<\/p>\n
By reviving the camp and candor of the workout tape craze of the \u201980s and \u201990s, she hoped to create a more welcoming health environment; by her estimation, fitness these days has become too serious.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you throw humor in there, everybody\u2019s going to relax,\u201d Magnuson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also intriguing, it\u2019s funny, it makes you curious. It just creates a common ground for conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s found some success. Her group has grown steadily over the past few months. Through once a week classes, she\u2019s learned that whether ironic or nostalgic, people of all exercise experience levels have a soft spot for the VHS workout fad.<\/p>\n Magnuson said she leans into that to bring out the better parts of what the old tapes promote: functional, regular exercise for everyday fitness.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are people like me who are interested in obscure, weird things. On the other hand, I do want to create a space where we are moving our bodies, working our muscles, and learning fundamental things.\u201d<\/p>\n And according to Dr. John Noble, a sports psychologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Magnuson might be onto something.<\/p>\n He said that finding some sort of common ground with others goes a long way toward sticking with a lifestyle change.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can find a group with similar interests, that social support is built into that group,\u201d Noble reasoned. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to let the group down by not being there to give your insights. So you\u2019ll want to be consistent with that, and that\u2019ll be helpful in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, fitness choreography goes beyond the revived Mylar and canned tunes, but the motivations seem to remain.<\/p>\n At the decidedly quieter Lotus House of Yoga in Omaha, Mary Clare Sweet\u2019s been offering hybrid dance classes for years. She said no matter what the latest app promises to track, it\u2019s the feeling of dance that keeps people coming back.<\/p>\n \u201cYour enjoyment, and the feeling of euphoria you\u2019re feeling when you\u2019re dancing, supersedes the amount you\u2019re worrying about a calorie counter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Noble agrees. He said a person enjoying their activity as opposed to measuring it can be one of the biggest indicators of someone\u2019s willingness to maintain those positive changes when it comes to exercise.<\/p>\n \u201cEnjoyment is part of intrinsic motivation. When we can do something for an intrinsic desire because we like it, we\u2019re more likely to stick with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweet said she\u2019s seen that firsthand, time and time again, especially in the years during and just after the pandemic.<\/p>\n In that time, the fitness world saw a boom in gadgets, trackers, programs and apps partly as a necessary response to a more isolated workout environment.<\/p>\n Psychologically speaking, Noble said those instruments can be helpful, but they don\u2019t necessarily give anyone a leg up in sticking with healthy habits.<\/p>\n \u201cFor four, five, or six months, they get all gung-ho, but typically what happens is they go back down the slide and fall back into old habits after that newness wears off.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweet said that\u2019s a big reason why interest in hybrid dance has consistently grown; her classes aren\u2019t meant for measurement, but rather for movement. The way she teaches dance is low impact, and even lower pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that points to the consistency that people can maintain with more fusion-like classes,\u201d Sweet said.<\/p>\n And as unscientific as it sounds, both Sweet and Magnuson said there could be something to all forms of dancing that can\u2019t really be measured, tracked, or optimized. Also, it\u2019s just fun, they said.<\/p>\n But first time attendee Josh Falewitch has a different word for the class.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is way more difficult than you would think. It\u2019s pretty challenging,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ultimately, though, the credits start rolling, and after congratulating newly-found friends, draining a water bottle, and catching his breath, he reflects fondly on the blistering 90 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s such a challenging thing, but it\u2019s so cool to learn it and be in sync with someone else doing it,\u201d he said. \u201cCollectively, as a group, there\u2019s something really cool about all doing the same movement together and learning it together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A drum machine thumps as 20 pairs of high-top white sneakers lift and squeak, driven on by encouragement from Missy Magnuson, the founder of the Right Babe Body Club in Omaha. Magnuson started the club as an experiment to get people thinking less about fitness as a closed ring, and more about exercise as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-workout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/modernfitnessguide.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"An](\"https:\/\/nebraskapublicmedia.org\/assets\/images\/IMG_6040.min-1200x1200.jpg\")
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