by Mary Monroe
Jacki Sorensen is credited with originating one of the most significant fitness movements in history: aerobic dance—the combination of fitness and dance that swept the world in the ‘70s before evolving into the multifaceted group exercise classes of today.
Thirty-eight years later, Sorensen still lives and breathes choreography, creating over 150 routines a year for h...
by Mary Monroe
“Where do you begin?” muses Jazzercise president, chief executive officer and founder Judi Sheppard Missett, 62. “In 38 years I’ve been through everything. When I first started doing this program, I was a professional dancer in Chicago and my dancer friends were grumbling about [Jazzercise] because it wasn’t for people who wanted to dance for a living—i...
by Mary Monroe
Fitness phenomenon and 1986 IDEA Lifetime Achievement Award winner Jack La Lanne is 92 years old. He works out 2 hours a day, 7 days a week. He eats two meals a day, at 11:00 am and 7:00 pm, with a daily regimen of 10 raw vegetables, five pieces of fresh fruit and six to eight hard-boiled egg whites, or fresh fish, for protein. In short, Jack La Lanne still walks his talk, and he’s ...
In the late 1980s, an orthopedic doctor told Gin Miller to step up and down on a milk crate as rehabilitation for a knee injury. Miller was inspired to turn the idea into step training, which quickly became one of the biggest phenomena in the fitness industry and is still a mainstay for group exercise around the world.
“I remember thinking that step would probably go for a couple of years,” laughs Miller. “But 20 years later, I look back and see how many people have been helped by step training, and I’m proud of that.”
In the late 1980s, an orthopedic doctor
told Gin Miller to step up and down on a milk crate as rehabilitation for a
knee injury. Miller was inspired to turn the idea into step training, which
quickly became one of the biggest phenomena in the fitness industry and is
still a mainstay for group exercise around the world.
“I remember thinking that...
On Kathy Smith’s website, www.kathy
smith.com, she narrates a timeline of her projects, beginning with her first Sunset Boulevard billboard ad for leotards in 1980. Just listening to the year-by-year
account is exhausting: $50 million in
infomercial products; innovations (she had the first workout DVD in 2001 and helped to launch the first downloa...
Few people have influenced the fitness
industry as dramatically as renowned
entrepreneur Augie Nieto, the founder and retired chief executive of Life Fitness Inc. A once-chu...
IDEA
icons & innovators
AN NIVERSARY
25th
IDEA
...
A career professional who has risen from fitness model to 2003 IDEA Fitness Instructor of the Year, Keli Roberts sees opportunities in the industry and takes advantage of them. She enjoys talking to the masses about the benefits of exercise and, as group fitness manager for Equinox Fitness Clubs in Pasadena, California, teaches a variety of classes each week. What are her secrets? Education, hard work and practice, practice, practice.
