For me, and probably for many of you, spring is arguably the busiest time of the year. Under the weight of course work, the desperate search for a summer internship, and the constant state of existential crisis that comes with being an upperclassman, my new year’s resolution to drag myself to the gym more often has crumbled.
Rather than bucking up and just doing it, as Nike would suggest, like all enterprising young people I looked to the Internet for a solution to my lax commitment to fitness and it offered me a personal trainer in the form of Cassey Ho.
Cassey Ho is a real-life Pilates instructor who also hosts a YouTube channel, youtube.com/blogilates, where she posts “POP Pilates” workouts that last from 10 to 30 minutes.
Using online platforms to help me workout has been a great alternative to wandering out in the cold, having to look decent enough for possible human contact and searching the second floor for an unoccupied elliptical amidst a sea of soon-to-be bikini-ready bodies. My online trainer has also helped me cut down on travel time to the gym, which means more time to study or, more realistically, catch up on Portlandia.
It may seem counterintuitive to look to the Internet, the enemy of productivity, for fitness solutions, but, in addition to the Blogilates YouTube channel, Ho runs a Facebook community, an Instagram, a Tumblr and probably any other social network you can think of where she encourages “popsters” with workout commands, recipes and pictures of the healthy food she’s eating that make me think twice about stopping by Chick-fil-A more than once a week.
The best part about doing online workouts is feeling like I have a personal trainer. I don’t know about everyone who has a zero dollar per hour salary, but I’m far from willing to shell out my limited cash for a personal trainer, so working out alongside a professional, even virtually, is the next best thing.
There’s also the benefit of Cassey talking through the whole workout, which may seem annoying, but is actually a much better distraction from the burn than obsessively checking the treadmill timer to see when the workout is finally going to end.
Due to my previous lack of a trainer, my trips to the gym would just be 45-minute sessions on the elliptical, which were both repetitive, boring and altogether not motivating. Working out with a professional online has added a lot more variety and fun to my workouts.
The Blogilates workouts are far more intense than anything I could come up with on my own. Plus, shorter, more intense workouts can be more beneficial than longer, easier ones.
Now there are literally no excuses not to workout. You can do it without ever leaving your apartment or making yourself decent and with a free trainer who will tell you exactly what to do. If that’s not inspiring for my fitness-challenged fellows, I don’t know what is.
Leading in today’s Crimson White:
‘Storming the court’ has lost meaning, should be limited to certain instances
