2009, $2.99, at Goodwill on San Fernando in Glendale
First Impression: Look at her abs.
Second Impression: Give them your love, your fear, your pain, your secrets. Your very… essence!
We’re back with Physique 57, where chipper women put you through your paces until you cry for mercy. I have been reluctant to attempt this workout because, if the 27 minute version of this routine is so grueling, then, mathematically, the 57 minute routine must be twice as hard. But this week I will swan-dive into this experience so you, Loyal Reader, do not have to.
Our fearsome leader is workout creator and long lost Charlie’s Angel, Tanya Becker:
Tanya starts us off on the hand weights, quipping, “You want somebody to come up to you and say do you have a license for those guns?”
Look how proud she is of that joke:
I notice there’s a token man in the back of the class who, because he’s not lithe and pretty and smiling through the pain, doesn’t get a lot of camera time. Like all of us at home, he’s just doing the best he can, so I salute you here, sir:
We assume the position for a Forearm Plank and Tanya can’t wait to ask us, “Are you ready to go to the Zone? The Calorie Burning Zone?”
Does someone write those inane lines for her? Is this an actual job a person can get? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but I am available to write cheesy dialogue for fitness videos!
Tanya has us squeeze a playground ball between our knees and do some pliés and gratuitous hip shaking. It hurts. Sensing resistance, she takes a moment to explain why she is doing this to us. “Its a process we call Interval Overload; work the muscle to the point of exhaustion then stretch it for relief.”
Okay, that sounds scientific…
“Look at your thighs. I want you to ask yourself one question, how many calories do you want to burn today?”
Wow, Tanya. Rude.
We get into some Power Kneeling Punches, and Tanya needs to know if we “Feel those muscles gripping closer to the bone?” I’m going to overlap that in a Venn diagram with Things A Serial Killer Would Say.
We do a side leg lift with a circle as she chants “Cellulite go bye-bye!” We add an upward punch and she demands, “What are we punching out? Fat cells!”
I feel personally attacked. By the punching.
We do a hip lift designed to target the outer thighs as Tanya Becker chants, “Slice it down! Slice it down!”
Lady, can you put down your verbal knife, please?
After 57 minutes of cellulite taunting and violent imagery, she instructs us to “be at peace with your body.” I eat a chocolate chip cookie and you know what? Now I do.
Thrift Store Fitness 