…at the 2013 Athletic Business Conference!
You never know who you’ll run into on the floor of a trade show, and the recently concluded Athletic Business Conference, in San Diego, provided me with the thrill of meeting two contestants from one of my favorite reality shows–The Biggest Loser. If you know me, you know I “pound, the table” on the importance of the Biggest Loser for health and fitness professionals. Over the past several years, “Biggest Loser” style contests have popped up in health and fitness clubs, and corporate wellness programs–just to name a few. In my opinion, industry professionals must be prepared to dialog with members and clients about, and respond to, what TV viewers (by the millions)–especially those who get “starry eyed” watching the contestants shed the significant number of pounds that they desire to lose–see unfold before their eyes on Tuesday evenings.
So, when I approached the NuStep booth on the first afternoon of the show, I immediately recognized O’Neal and SunShine Hampton from season 13–and it didn’t hurt that they were wearing bright yellow Biggest Loser T-shirts! After a brief introduction and confirmation that I recognized them from my “favorite” show, we posed for a picture. That’s me in the middle! At that moment I realized that O’Neal and Sunshine had been doing some serious NuStepping–my hands were sweaty-wet from touching their backs!
Now, it was time to get back to work/health on the NuStep. If you watch the video above, you’ll see O’Neal and SunShine working away on their recumbent ellipticals. I couldn’t help but ask for motivational thoughts from the pair. In all honesty, as you’ll note, O’Neal and SunShine are not skinny-thin. But, if you watched their season of the Biggest Loser, they reported to the BL campus much larger and in very poor physical health/condition. To see them as glowing, vibrant and physically active, as they now are, confirms that the Biggest Loser was both a life changing and life saving experience for them!!
As I watched the NuStep workout, it was fun to see the enhanced workout that was developed around NuStepping. NuStep does not have to be a stand alone piece of exercise equipment. It can be used as the cardio.component of a total body, interval-style (combination), workout.
A review of the American College of Sports Medicine’s top-20 fitness trends for 2014, “combination workouts” can be inferred to occupy five of the top eight spots (with High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) being #1 on the list). Therefore, combining NuStep and appropriate off-NuStep exercises–can be considered both trendy and effective for exercisers of all fitness and/or ability levels.
To go a little deeper into my previous thought, the beauty of the NuStep is, as I noted above, that it can be an effective exercise modality for all exercisers; with the right guidance EVERYONE can get a good workout on a NuStep. The art and science of the combined workout is the thoughtful planning of the exercises to do between NuStep intervals–with the ultimate goal being to provide total fitness/strength balance for the exerciser.
So, kudos to NuStep for demonstrating interval NuStepping the the Athletic Business crowd. And, thanks to NuStep for aligning with O’Neal and SunShine. It was a win-win for everyone, including me–the Biggest Loser junkie!
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