New River Valley Times

Step Aerobics? TaeBo? How Fitness Has (And Hasn’t) Changed Over 30 Years

Three decades ago, when many of the parents of today’s University of Virginia students were in college, step aerobics was the hot fitness class over at Memorial Gym.

In these sessions, a leader would pop a cassette tape into a boom box and take a group through a choreographed workout that involved stepping up and down on a plastic step hundreds of times in different ways that felt like a 60-minute dance routine.

“Step was all the rage,” recalled Erica K. Perkins, executive director of UVA Intramural-Recreational Sports.

She would know. Perkins taught fitness classes and conducted certification training across the state at the time. With demand surging for exercises classes, she participated an initial meeting among counterparts from UVA, Virginia Tech and James Madison University in 1994 to share ways to choreograph step sessions and “hi-lo” aerobics.

Both the fitness craze and the group that formed at that initial meeting boomed in following years. What began as a gathering with 75 participant returns to its founding university this month for its 30th iteration. The Southeast Collegiate Fitness Expo will welcome nearly 500 students and fitness professionals from 32 institutions to Grounds for a three-day training and continuing education symposium.

UVA Today caught up Perkins to talk about the evolution of fitness and what, if any, steps have changed for those interested in improving health and wellbeing through exercise.

Original source can be found here