EveryBODY workout event at exhibit venue

Students tired of going to the gym can don leg warmers and work out with Denise Austin and Jane Fonda instead.

From 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. today at the Fuller Projects, students can participate in a workout event designed to mix popular exercise tapes from the past with current, updated routines.

IU graduate students Katie Jacobs, Cristinia Weaver and Nathan Perry organized “The Now! Body,” a complete body fitness workshop, as part of IU’s Celebrate EveryBODY
Week to spread positive messages about body image.

The event, located in McCalla School at the corner of 10th Street and Indiana Avenue, is free of charge.

Created by Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts students in 2002, the Fuller
Projects is an exhibit venue on campus where students can present experimental works.

The full workout session will consist of ab work, strength core, cardio, weights and
more.

“Anyone and everyone can come get a good workout and have loads of fun in the process,” Jacobs said.

The event will include 40 minutes of workout tapes from the 1980s, 40 minutes from the 1990s and 40 minutes from the 2000s with a warm-up and a cool down for each decade.

It will include famous routines by Denise Austin and her “Buns of Steel” tape and Jane Fonda workouts.

The event was inspired by Jillian Michaels’ workout routines, which made a significant difference in the students’ lives, they said.

“I had a personal trainer before, and I actually weigh less now than I did with the training because of the workouts,” Perry said.

The Jillian Michaels workouts served as an inspiration to Perry, Jacobs and Weaver as they began to look forward to working out regularly, they said.

“We participate in the workouts on a weekly basis,” Jacobs said. “The routines were fun and we believed in the promises of the results.”

The three graduate students are artists and said they feel that some people, artists in particular, don’t find enough time to workout or exercise as they should.

Jacobs is a ceramist and both Weaver and Perry are painters.

The organizers said they created the Now! Body workout to keep their bodies in shape and to encourage others to pay attention to their own bodies.

“We created this event in celebration of the body, and we want others to have fun with it,” Weaver said.   

Perry said attendees do not need to stay for the entire event, though he encourages they do so.

Limited T-shirts for those without a workout shirt and drinks will be provided.

A raffle will be drawn for a free NOW! BODY T-shirt later next week.

The event is entitled Now! Body because of the instant gratification one feels after a workout, they said.

“Working out is almost like a form of mindfulness and being in the moment,” Jacobs said.

Old-school exercise attire is encouraged, which can include tights and leg warmers for ladies and sweatshirts and headbands for men, Weaver said.

“The more ridiculous the outfit, the better,” Jacobs said.