Flashback Fitness: Free, Cheap & Fun Retro Workouts

By Heather Clisby, July 21, 2009

Forget pricey gym memberships and personal trainers, Americans are re-shaping the future of exercise with some help from the past.

Though Gold’s Gym was established in 1965, health clubs as we know them today (a $19.1 billion dollar industry in 2007) didn’t really take off until the 1980s. Ironically, as a nation, we’ve never been tubbier. According to the Center for Disease Control, between 1962 and 2000, the obese population grew from 13 percent to 31 percent. So what did our predecessors have on us in the fitness department?

When I initially threw out the phrase ‘retro fitness’ to a friend, she responded, “What do you mean? Like farming?” She’s got a point. Before we became Twitter Nation, we used our bodies regularly in day-to-day activities, both at work and at play. Whether it was manually mowing the lawn or swing dancing, hanging the laundry or hula-hooping, we were on the move. Now we’ve got robot vacuum cleaners and video games, even automatic flush toilets.

It’s only been in the last decade or so that we’ve been chained to computers all day, and while World of Warcraft is a fantastic challenge for the mind, our bodies have suffered. Throw in a suburban car culture, an increase in fast food and the TV remote control, and you have our current situation. The North American Association for the Study of Obesity states that a whopping 64 percent of American adults are currently overweight or obese and — should current trends continue — it will be 75 percent by 2015.

Check out these physical hobbies that are making a comeback:

Swing dancing
What came out of jazz in the 1920s has grown into an energized subculture of dance. “The realization that you are exercising is secondary; I think a lot of people don’t even think about it,” says Tiffany Wine, National Lindy Hop Champion and dance instructor in Denver. “Today, a lot of our entertainment focuses on sitting and not moving. Back then, entertainment involved moving around — going for walks in the park and dancing.” Wine cites an article in Psychology Today that rates various activities to incite happiness: Dancing was top-rated because it included the five key elements: Creativity, social aspects, music, physical activity and physical contact — all triggers of serotonin.

Swing dancing events are held across the country, such as Lindy Exchange, that gathers swing enthusiasts from all over. For lessons in your area, check the local dance hall or city college.

Ping Pong
In a recent issue of People magazine, Susan Sarandon gushed about her new passion, Ping Pong: “It’s fast, fun, inexpensive and it’s almost impossible to get hurt,” she said, “and (it) transcends gender and age. Thirteen-year-old girls can beat 35-year-old men.” Sarandon is even opening up a Ping Pong club in New York this month called SPiN New York.

Google ‘ping pong’ or ‘table tennis’ clubs in your area and you’ll be shocked — clubs are everywhere.

Burlesque
As a former member of a burlesque dance troupe, I can tell you that the windy-grindy will surely keep you fit. Burlesque (and its slutty younger sister, pole dancing) returned in the 1990s with classes offered in all major cities. Dorinda von Stroheim, artistic director of San Francisco’s Devil-Ettes and co-founder of the annual burlesque convention, Tease-O-Rama, says, “It’s interesting how our body images are so different than they were in the 50s and 60s. Being in shape in the 50s was just about being healthy. Nowadays, we’ve forgotten how to move our lives in healthy ways.”

Hula Hoop
Hula-hooping has re-emerged as a fun way to shave inches off the waist and tone abs while feeling like a kid all over again. Rayne McInturf, founder of Hoopnotica, says the resurgence of the hoop as a lot to do with nostalgia. “Everybody has a connection to hula hooping and remember it as a kid. When they rediscover it as an adult, it takes them back to their childhood,” she says. “It awakens a real sense of play and helps break them out of the ‘Ugh, I have to work.’ Adults are starting to wake up to the fact that we don’t have any play time.”

Hula-hooping tones core muscles while providing an intense cardiovascular low-impact workout, burning between 400 and 600 calories an hour — all with no risk to your joints. Check out Hoopnotica, Boston Hoop Troop, or one of the many hula hoop workouts on YouTube to get started.

Roller Derby
After a two-decade lull, it now seems that every town now has their own roller derby squad. If you’re a gal that can roller skate (not to be confused with rollerblading) and subscribe to the shove-or-be-shoved philosophy, then consider joining this throwback to the 1970s. Best part is, you get to come up with names like “Edie L. Mean”, “Winona Fighter” and “Assaultin’ Pepa.” P.J. Shields a.k.a. Dangerous Leigh A’zon , skates for Denver’s Rocky Mountain Roller Girls and says, “Since I joined derby I am in the best shape I have ever been in and always have a few neat bumps and bruises to show off. I put on a lot of muscle, took off a lot of fat. Sure, there is serious injury risk but if you hang out on the couch with adult onset diabetes, cholesterol and heart disease — these are also risks.”

The roller derby opportunities are endless, with literally hundreds of teams and leagues all over the U.S. and around the world, including L.A.’s Derby Dolls, Boston’s Derby Dames or New York’s Gotham Girls. Watch for the roller derby-inspired movie, Whip It, starring Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page, in theaters on October 9th, 2009.

Circus Arts
If you are serious about the trapeze, acrobatics, contortion or aerial skills, there are a few learning institutes that focus on the circus arts – namely New York Circus Arts and San Francisco’s Circus Center. All of these skills require serious muscle strength …which is why I’d be more drawn to Clown College. If you are more interested in the workout aspect of these skills, Reebok has joined forces with Cirque Du Soleil to create Jukari Fit to Fly, a workout that uses a ‘flyset’ and a gravity-defying workout that uses a ‘flyset’ that makes you feel like a sexy little bad ass Tinkerbell.

Jukari has recently launched in 14 cities worldwide, and you can now take classes at Equinox in NYC and Reebok World Headquarters in Boston; plus Reebok plans to soon expand Jukari nationwide.

Punk Rock Aerobics
Although there exist offshoots, the original Punk Rock Aerobics was born in Boston over beers and records between two friends, Maura and Hilken, in 2001. “We didn’t like aerobics classes and hated the music — that monotonous beat. When you walk into those classes, you felt like you didn’t belong. We just made our own thing. It was in line with what happened with punk rock,” says Maura. After getting certified as legal aerobics instructors, the girls repackaged basic aerobic moves, renamed them (“Iggy’s Punch”, “The Teenage Kick”, “Transient Squatter”) and soundtracked classes to the Buzzcocks, The New York Dolls and The Stooges. “It was a hard workout. I’m always impressed when I think back on it. One and a half hours long — a good 45 minutes of hard cardio, but it was fun. In PRA, if you don’t hear people laughing when you’re teaching a class, you start to wonder if you’re doing it right.”

Pick up a copy of Maura and Hilken’s book, Punk Rock Aerobics: 75 Killer Moves, 50 Punk Classics, And 25 Reasons To Get Off Your Ass And Exercise ($16, Amazon.com) to do ‘PRA’ workouts at home.

Strength Training
The very quotable Terry Strand, a bodybuilding champion in the 50s and 60s, shared with us his unique perspective on the reputation and history of weight training. “It was an underground culture [in the 1950s],” Strand said. “Bodybuilding was thought to make you slow and uncoordinated. They’d say, ‘It’s going to hurt your heart’ and ‘It’s going to turn to fat.’ It changed in the 70s when athletes started training with weights. It used to be oil and water — workout people didn’t participate in sports and athletes didn’t lift weights. In the Eisenhower era, if you had a heart problem, they told you to go buy a rocking chair. Now they tell you to get some exercise.”

Strand used the term ‘ham-and-eggers’, a phrase coined by Sylvester Stallone, to describe old school bodybuilders. “You put on your heather grey sweat clothes — go out and run the track. Do the push-ups or pull-ups. All calisthenics. You had no money so you bought a YMCA gym membership — $25 a year, maybe,” says Strand. He then devises the most bare-bones DIY fitness program to date: “You want some cheap exercise advice? Take a stack of playing cards. Throw them on the floor. Pick them up. Repeat. There ya go.”

Terry also turned me on to the community of CrossFit, an all-inclusive regimen that he says utilizes “found objects” and other features outside a gym. The CrossFit training program is used by police and the military, and seems so basic and obvious the rest of us should have no problem incorporating this old-school version of calisthenics — free.

Other than reclaiming our playtime, could it be we’re calming down a bit? Regarding traditional ‘workouts’, Beth Shaw, founder of YogaFit, observes: “In the late 1980s and early to mid-90s, there was a lot more group exercise, more aerobics. It’s now shifted to more mind/body — yoga, pilates, spinning. People are walking more and doing outdoor activities. Also, there’s a lot more boot camp. Exercise is now more simple and less prop-intensive. As society simplifies, we’re moving towards a more simple approach to exercise.”

Amen to that.

Copyright 2009 Shoestring, LLC. Photo: iStock