They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That in mind, my breakfast of champions this morning was Urban Boot Camp led by Ryan Halvorson and Nicole Pizzi.
Their early AM workout buffet included heaping helpings of high energy, gritty, old-school body weight exercise and a steady stream of laughs. Ryan got us outside almost immediately and used the urban landscape around the LA Convention Center as our gym/playground. There’s nothing like the sight of more than 100 adults bear crawling across the concourse and cartwheeling Parkour-style down a line of benches to let you know that this is not a run-of-the-mill convention. We did pull-ups on long, slanted banisters and then flipped over for stair step pushups. We were a sweaty, dirty-handed mess after the last quad-searing jump squat, but it was just what I needed to spark my day off.
After a quick shower and some calories in, I headed over to Michol Dalcourt’s ViPR workshop to gauge if attendees were enjoying this training tool as much as I do. I train a few times a week with Anthony Carey and ViPR master trainer Derrick Price at Function First in San Diego and we tear it up with this crazy tube almost every workout. It’s really kept strength and core work fresh for me; and by the enthusiastic response I saw in the session, the same light bulb went off for a lot of attendees. These folks cranked away doing challenging moves for almost 2 hours, even after Dalcourt told them 30-min is the optimum length for a ViPR workout for many physiological reasons, fascial hydration chief among them. There were a lot of trips to the water cooler after that remark!
Kara Mohr, PhD, provided my mid-morning snack in “Solving your Clients’ Biggest Dieting Dilemmas.” We hear obesity statistics so often I think we’ve become numb to them, but Kara kicked off early in her lecture with a quote that really shook me and reinforced why we’re all here at IDEA World Fitness Convention this weekend educating our brains as well as our bodies: “Across the world, 7,000 people develop diabetes and pre-diabetes every day.” Seven thousand. Every day? Really? Have we ever got our work cut out for us.
Kara was a fountain of practical information and offered several significant takeaways: This one is simple, but I couldn’t agree more: “The single-most empowering thing you can do for your clients, particularly your female clients, is tell them the scale doesn’t matter. Their whole world is a scale; their whole head is a scale.” Can you relate to that? I know I did. When a simple number on a dial has the power to start a client’s day on a note of near-crisis and impacts their behavior in a negative way, it’s time to trade the habit for something more realistic and healthy. The session was filmed, so if you missed it and you could use some insight on this topic with certain clients, it might be a good one to purchase.
Speaking of purchase, the Expo Hall opened today with great fanfare—and funk. Five companies busted out precision-choreographed dance routines to treat the expectant crowd to five consecutive flash mobs before the grand opening ribbon was cut by IDEA founders Kathie and Peter Davis. Thanks to Tmba, Bokwa, Batuka, Les Mills’ SH’BAM and Zumba for creating great excitement.
If you haven’t made it to the Expo yet, there are a lot of great things happening—including special challenges for discounts and prizes in many of the booths. Don’t be shy, ask the exhibitors what their challenge is and see if you’re up for it!
That said, I need to dive into my schedule to see what’s on the breakfast menu for tomorrow’s early workouts. Still a lot of day to go and a client dinner tonight, but not much time to plan between here and there. Maybe I’ll see you at the morning buffet!
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