As someone who has spent her 20s living in New York City, it has become a right of passage of sorts to go through many a boutique fitness class phase.
In my college years, SoulCycle was still all of the rage, and scrambling to score a bike at one of Akin Akman’s classes (if you know, you know). Once I graduated, I would impress myself every Saturday when I would dutifully wake up, even after a long night out, to join my friends for a Sculpt Society class, or at Physique57.
During the pandemic, I relied on work-out videos from Melissa Wood and Tracy Anderson, and these days, I still sneak in a good Melissa work-out here and there in between my Equinox visits.
And while that’s just the tip of the iceberg of all of the work-out classes New York City has to offer, and though people like Tracy are certainly innovators in the field, this week, I was reminded who the OG really is: the one and only Jane Fonda.
This shouldn’t be news to me; from her decades of activism to being arguably one of the original nepo-babies, before the term was even coined, Jane has always been an innovator.
Still, idol of mine as she may be, I had yet to try one of her famous work-outs, which she began developing in the 1970s, and first released in 1981 with Jane Fonda’s Workout Book, which preceded her first exercise video, Jane Fonda’s Workout.
© GettyOne of those videos is what I did for one of my work-outs this week, and I think one of the things that I loved about it the most (other than the fact that I was definitely sore the next day), was the fact that there wasn’t really a particular exercise that I hadn’t done before (hear me out.)
As someone who is such a fan of Jane, as I did her work-out, it was so fun to be reminded of the origins of all of the work-outs I have done countless times over the years, and it was heartwarming to consider that the same moves I’ve done on a yoga mat in all the New York City apartments I’ve had, another 20-something-year-old was also doing it back in the 80s.
© Getty ImagesThe particular work-out I did, a perfect 30 minutes, was set to upbeat, very 80s-esque instrumental music, and started off with Jane guiding a class through stretches, before moving onto some simple aerobics to get our heart rates up.
It was then sectioned off into different focuses, arms, then abs, then thighs and booty, and as my muscles burned and I wondered how Jane was so calm and seemingly unaffected by her tough work-out, voice overs of her saying things like: “Don’t forget to breathe,” or giving technique advice would be pleasantly interspersed throughout the class.
© Getty ImagesBy the end of the work-out, I was sweating and knowingly anticipating sore muscles, which, as I write this two days later, I can confirm they still are.
While there are so many great options these days for at-home work-outs (I won’t be canceling my Melissa Wood Health subscription anytime soon) I highly recommend going back to the basics every now and then, and getting a reminder of who the OG really is.
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