It’s February, which means for many of us, our fitness resolutions have gone out the window. Maybe we were overzealous about our goals or work just got in the way, but celebrity fitness trainer, Jeanette Jenkins thinks it’s all in the approach.
“From a fitness experts perspective, I would first guide someone to really reconsider health as something a lot more important than something that you would address once a week,” Jenkins told ESSENCE.
“Working out is your opportunity to improve your immune system, is to decrease your risk of all illnesses, from heart disease, diabetes, you know, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure down the road. So why would you put that out of seven days a week that you can only do that once?”
“I can guarantee you if you only exercise once a week you will have health disparities as you age. And those health disparities will be things that you could have avoided if you took your health more seriously.”
In the business for 27 years, the trainer is all about practicality when it comes to setting fitness goals. With a client roster that includes Alicia Keys, Pink and Mindy Kaling, Jenkins understands why women have vision boards filled with celebrity bodies but she believes the desire to change should come from within… literally.
“You don’t say to yourself, ‘I’m only gonna brush my teeth once a week. I’m only gonna comb my hair once a week?’,” Jenkins said. “So instead of being focused on the exterior things of what other people look like, focus on your health. Think about your heart, your lungs, your immune system.”
Strong by Zumba is a fun, high-intensity workout that Jenkins believes is a great class for those wanting to jumpstart their new year’s resolutions. Started by Alberto Perez and Alberto Perlman in 2016, the training is HITT (high-intensity tempo training) and is choreographed to music made by Grammy award-winning producers like Timbaland.
“It’s not a dance class, at all,” Jenkins said about Strong by Zumba. “If you look at my repertoire of training it’s the exact style of training that I have used with my celebrity clients for years because it’s effective and it delivers results.”
“You use the total body, and you exercise as hard as you can for 30 to 45-second intervals and then you bring it back down for active recovery. The best way for me to describe it is if I pick you out and make you run as fast as you can for 30 to 45 seconds, and then I let you walk or jog for a little bit, then I would like ‘You gotta sprint again! And now you get to walk. And now you gotta sprint again!'”
“This particular style of training is extremely effective because you burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time, and you use all of the muscles of the total body.”
And for those concerned about not having enough time to workout each week, this one-hour class could be a solution.
“People don’t have the time to do these long 70-minute, two-hour gym workouts. So if you can burn a lot of calories in a shorter amount of time, that’s more effective and people get results quicker. By having to stay at the specific speeds doing the music, you have more overload on the body, which gives you more results in the end. At the end of your workout, you end up burning more calories and challenging your muscles more so you get better results.”
Quick, effective and with good music— those fitness resolutions just may be attainable.