[This post was obnoxiously long, so I divided it into three parts.]

 

 

Some days are easier than others to boldly stroll into a giant fitness convention and say to all the super-buff, neon shoe-clad fitness pros, “I am one of you.” I found that attending an 8,000-strong event on four hours of sleep made it harder.

 

 

Don’t get me wrong. The 31^st annual IDEA World Fitness Convention, held this year at the Los Angeles Convention Center, is a grand event. Participants choose between a dizzying number of workouts, lectures and workshops on the mechanics, science and business of the fitness profession. But you need a lot of energy to keep up.

 

The event was split this year between the convention center and the downtown Marriott. So I entered a constant ant-like flow from one building to the other, often crossing through a growing throng of tweens awaiting a glimpse of the One Direction tour bus. Of course, it was easy to distinguish between these two body-conscious groups. The tweens wore homemade T-shirts proclaiming their love for the One Direction boys. One girl carried a large cardboard head, I guess representing her favorite. We fitness people wore workout clothes that could be subdivided into our smaller cultures. Zumba is all neon and shreds, functional fitness people dress in gray and black Ts and shorts. A CrossFit guy may wear a T-shirt that says “Follow No One” while a yoga girl’s shirt says “Gratitude.”

 

 

That first day, I knew I’d fall asleep if I sat down for a lecture. So I hit the exhibit hall, which is one of my favorite things about the convention. As someone with an entrepreneurial spirit and lots of weird ideas, I have a serious soft spot for people unveiling their new products. Will they be brilliant, successful, or a product only its inventor can love?

 

Here are a few interesting people and products I encountered (some of which I will review in more detail in future posts here or elsewhere):

 

Nufoot

This is a product that’s trying to put socks and slippers out of business as the indoor footwear of choice. This slip-on is made out of wetsuit material. Nufoot comes in super cute patterns, like purple and black zebra, pink and black polka dot and leopard. They’re anti-microbial, allegedly air-dry in 10 minutes, and are recommended for use on cruise ship decks, in dorm rooms, to shower at the gym or if your feet are too gnarly to take your shoes off during yoga class. My mom loved them and wants a pair for her water aerobics class, but I’m not sure if the bottom of the pool would be too rough a surface for them or not.

 

Luongo

In other footwear news, I met Michael Luongo. His new eponymous footwear is as close to being barefoot as he could get. Luongo owns a personal training studio in Encinitas called Body Refinery. He got this idea for his new footwear and came up with a rough draft. Then he hired two architects to help him. Why architects and not shoe designers? “Being that we’re not a shoe, we’re footwear.” I’ve been very careful writing this, because I really want to call it a shoe. Quasi-barefoot runners will love this product.

 

 

Doonya

I met the originators of Bollywood-based dance fitness program called Doonya, which is headquartered in L.A. They were lovely and sweet. I took their 12-minute demo class in the expo hall. Their program is similar to Bombay Jam (which I teach and is based in the Bay Area), but they add some gym moves into the routines. For example, burpees in the middle of a dance! That was cruel. The 12-minute demo made me sweat. I won the dance contest for most engaged participant! The prize was three DVDs of their dance routines. I like to think my spectacular dancing accounted for my victory. However, I suspect the contest was rigged because they hoped I’d review their DVDs. Oh well. I probably will.

 

 

Posture Perfector

 

Sylvia and Gabriel Burrell, personal trainers/nutritionists/exercise therapists who live in Austin Texas, launched their product just over a year ago. “It’s revolutionizing the posture industry,” says Gabriel, who describes the Posture Perfector as “a wearable dynamic brace.” It looks like a figure-8 shaped resistance band that you slip over your shoulders to help you keep them back and down. It definitely works. But you might want to wear a jacket over it, as it’s sort of dorky looking to walk around with a pair of resistance bands on your back. Despite my fashion skepticism, in just over a year the Burrells have their product in more than 500 chiropractor and physical therapist offices in  the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. Ah, success.

 

Buti

Fitness entrepreneur Bizzie Gold developed Buti because yoga wasn’t enough exercise for her. So this former competitive athlete blended yoga, tribal dance and plyometrics to come up with a super sweaty, feminine-focused workout. Bizzie developed her program in Hawaii. But her students encouraged her to spread Buti to the mainland. She moved to L.A. and propagated her program. In just a couple of years she’s trained 427 instructors who teach Buti in 20 states. This year she has trainings planned in Asia, South America and Europe. She also opened an exclusive training studio in Santa Monica aimed at her celebrity clients.

 

 

GoodOnYa Bars

Fitness expos feature a preponderance of things I don’t really consider food. I enjoy big platters of salad and vegetables, sort of like a cow. But fitness people seem to favor compact bars and mysterious blended drinks. Or if they eat, they’re likely to be carnivorous Paleo types. So I hung around the GoodOnYa Bars booth for a while, sneaking extra samples. These bars are made out of edible and identifiable ingredients, such as hemp, dark chocolate, coconut and peanut butter. Inventor Kristen Buchanan, an ex-Olympic field hockey player, describes them as more like trail mix than granola bars, which are often coated or extra sugary. “It’s real food, in a nutshell.” Took me a moment to realize that was a figure of speech. Seemed like nutshells would fit in well with the other organic, non-GMO, mostly raw ingredients.

 

 

Daiya

 

Strangely, the realest food at the expo was Daiya, a fake cheese. As far as I saw, they were the only booth cooking anything. I hovered around, wondering how many samples of their quesadillas I could eat before they shooed me away. Honestly, I’ve eaten lots of Daiya so didn’t need any samples. It’s delicious and melts better than its more rubbery competitors. Daiya was also debuting their new fake cream cheese. Unlike other fake cream cheese I’ve eaten, this one contained no partially hydrogenated anything. The plain tasted just like regular cream cheese, as far as I can remember (It’s been a while). The strawberry cream cheese was light and sweet, dessert on a gluten-free rice cracker.

 

IDEA, to be continued after a real lunch…