Dear Constant Reader,
Your Faithful Correspondent is laid up in bed with some sort of bug (I’m doing better, just very tired) and since I can’t seem to bring myself to do any of the active things had planned for the day, how about a book review.
Punk Rock Aerobics by Maura Jasper and Hilken Mancini, 2004.
Wait, you say, is this our refined Miss Mina writing of punk rock? You many not believe this, but as a dainty young thing I could be found in the mosh pit at an all-ages hardcore club. I still retain a great deal of affection for the music. And you know how I love creative workouts.
I encountered Punk Rock Aerobics last fall whilst I was working on the Boston Public Library Passport Challenge (a missive for another day). The Parker Hill branch of the BPL was celebrating “Punk Rock Week” and I decided it give the it a whirl. I had a lot of sweaty fun and picked up the book.
The creators hated traditional fitness classes and gyms, but wanted to get in shape. After becoming certified aerobics instructors, like true punks, they tossed everything out and developed their own gritty workouts with moves like “skank” and “Iggy’s pop”. However, many of the exercises are ones you would recognizes, just with punkier names, like the “unnatural axe” is a hamstring stretch.
The book takes you through the equipment needed, including good sneakers, a mat, water, weights (they use bricks) and then progresses through the vocabulary: stretches (both warm-up and cool-down), cardio, strength training (standing and on the floor). All of these are illustrated with black and white photos. The cardio moves are classified as hi-fi or lo-fi (high or low impact) or both. Difficulty is rated with skulls. “Hand-written” notes give helpful tips.
After an extensive tour of the moves, they show you how to create workouts. Pick three cardio moves (a mix of hi & lo-fi) and a song, which they call combo-hatching. You’ll be doing the three moves over and over to the song. Fortunately, punk songs are pretty short, so there will be a lot of variety in each cardio section. Then string your combos together into rock blocks. Choose your stretches and strength moves and put them all together into a workout of your desired length. Don’t panic, there are plenty of examples of combos and sample workouts.
The last chapter is tips on how to sustain your fitness practice. Throughout the book there are Q & A’s with musicians about their fitness routines and the authors recommend movies and albums for inspiration. The tone of the book overall is, as you might imagine, irreverent, but encouraging.
It’s hard to learn physical skills from a book, so I wouldn’t recommend this to a fitness novice. But if you’ve got some exercise experience, this is a fun way to shake things up.
A live PRA class ends with the instructors lobbing mini-candy bars at you, so give yourself a sweet treat when you’re done sweating.
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