Beth Schwartz began her fitness class like normal.

“Hi, and welcome to your SET class — strength endurance training.”

Except this wasn’t a normal class. Schwartz, an instructor at CU Boulder’s Rec Center and administrative assistant at the Leeds School of Business, was filming the class in her home  for The Rec’s virtual training library, which has replaced in-person classes since the COVID-19 pandemic forced the campus to go fully remote in March. 

“We are in my lovely garage, so please ignore the mess,” she added before beginning the lesson.

In the initial haze of closures, The Rec was required to stop in-person fitness classes on March 16, the same day students began the transition to remote learning. In response, the fitness and wellness team not only put together a library of filmed instruction, but also have continued live classes such as yoga, meditation and cycling over Zoom for students and faculty.

It was important to the team that students stay engaged: “Because group fitness is grounded in community, it seemed a natural way to connect students, faculty and staff,” said Denise Adelsen, assistant director of FitWell, the rec center’s fitness and wellness department. 

As was for most in the U.S., the transition was quick, and there was little time to prepare to go virtual. Adelsen and fitness coordinator Annie Tuck (IntPhys’14) had to learn as they built the program.

“We didn’t have time to plan, research and gather what we would need,” said Adelsen. “We reached out to other campuses that were in the same boat, and shared ideas.”  

The team created a 10K program, for instance, originally designed to prepare runners for the now-cancelled Labor Day BOLDERBoulder. 

Since making the switch, there have been nearly 400 participants in live classes, which currently run at six time slots every week. In the virtual library, Schwartz’ High-Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT, has the most views with more than 520. 

Yet, the road wasn’t always easy. There were some unexpected hurdles. 

Adelsen explained, “We are strong in developing and offering fitness programs, not in the production, IT requirements and AV necessities.”

It took some getting used to for Monica Nabholz (Comm’90), a yoga, core and strength instructor.

“Teaching to a screen rather than having the in-person, interactive connection with students and staff continues to be a challenge,” she said.

She also faced some of the challenges that many who made the transition to working at home faced: loud construction, family-member photobombs and the like.

“My dogs try to get into my shot, and lie down on my yoga mat,” she said.

It can be difficult to teach, let alone hold, a proper mountain pose with all these distractions, she said. Yet, Nabholz has made it work.

“The most important thing I’ve learned teaching virtually is to continue teaching your class and ignore all interruptions” she said. “No losing your train of thought or getting rattled.”

The hectic transition and on-the-job training has settled into routine, with virtual classes scheduled to continue for FitWell members after the fall reopening of campus. The Rec will also be up and running, although things won’t look quite the same as they did before, with COVID-specific protocols being implemented such as plexiglass dividers and social distancing measures. 

“I’m used to teaching virtually now,” said Nabholz, “but I’m looking forward to teaching in-person at the The Rec and seeing all the people I’ve missed.”

To learn more about virtual Rec classes, visit /recreation/fitwell-virtual-classes.

Photos courtesy CU Boulder Fitness and Wellness; Bottom: courtesy Monica Nabholz

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Need a new hobby? The CU Rec has you covered. 

1. Learn to roast more than hot dogs and smores with the backcountry cooking clinic.
2. Beginning fly fishing includes classroom lessons, practice and a trip to the river.
3. Ever dreamed of being a ballerina? Now is your chance — take ballet technique.
4. Try women’s self-defense, it’ll help your dad stop worrying about you.
5. Beginner Olympic weightlifting, for those who want to take their gains to the next level.
6. SCUBA lessons are offered at all levels. ... Lesson No. 1: Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.
7. Eskrima is the martial art of the Philippines, and it's primarily weapons based. Be careful!
8. For those who spend more time in nature than at home, consider getting your wilderness medicine certificate.
9. If you’ve never gone before, or want to master a triple-Lutz, the rec center has ice skating lessons.
10. Invented 4,000 to 6,000 years ago, snowshoeing is a great way to explore Colorado’s winter scenes.

Head over to the Recreation Services website to learn more.

Photo courtesy of CU Boulder Recreation Services

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City Tops "Brain Concentration Index"

A new measure of fitness for success in America’s high-tech economy shows Boulder has the right stuff. When Bloomberg News published its “2016 Brain Concentration Index” in December, metro Boulder ranked first.

The index measures “per-capita concentration of residents working in science, technology and engineering occupations or who have science and engineering college degrees or post-graduate degrees.”

In a story about the index, Bloomberg introduced Boulder as a “tech incubator and the home of the University of Colorado.” It also highlighted the region’s aerospace, bioscience and renewable energy industries, software firms and abundant federal science labs.

“The public-sector presence contributed to the brains,” Clif Harald (DistSt’75), executive director of the Boulder Economic Council, said in the story.

Two other university towns made the index’s top five: Ann Arbor, Mich., home of the University of Michigan, and Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University. San Jose, Calif., and Washington, D.C., round out the top five.

A major Google campus is under construction at 30th and Pearl Streets in Boulder, as the Internet search giant prepares for a local head-count expansion that could eventually bring total local employment to 1,500. Twitter and Microsoft also have operations in the city, along with a host of smaller tech firms and start-ups.

Bloomberg capped its story with a headline that says it all: “America’s Best and Brightest Are Headed to Boulder.”

Illustration by Brian Stauffer

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Allen Lim (MKines’97, PhDIntPhys’04) – Photo courtesy Jamie Kripke

Kevin Costner isn’t a sports scientist, but he played one on the big screen. Allen Lim (MKines’97, PhDIntPhys’04), on the other hand, is the real deal, and Costner can take some credit for that.

At the age of 12 or 13, Allen watched American Flyers, the 1985 bike-racing movie filmed partly in Colorado. Costner plays a sports physician who puts his brother through a stress test designed to gauge the rider’s fitness.

Fast-forward three decades. Allen is a sports physiologist for some of the biggest names in cycling, most recently seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

As director of sports science for Team RadioShack two years ago, Allen put Armstrong through a set of paces that could be fairly described as unusual.

Allen persuaded Armstrong to swallow a pill-sized thermometer to measure and transmit the champion’s core temperature during training rides in Hawaii. Allen also had Armstrong time-trialing along the Hawaiian coast with dozens of pieces of yarn [to indicate airflow] fluttering from his body suit.

Team RadioShack’s marquee rider endured a series of crashes and hard knocks in his final tour last year, but, assisted by Allen, RadioShack won the team competition.

He is known as the sports scientist who helped popularize the measurement of power output in cycling. His CU doctoral dissertation, which focused on biomechanics, aerodynamics and physiological responses to the stress of exertion in cycling, relied in part on measurements taken by the Saris CycleOps PowerTap, one of several power meters embraced by cyclists in the last decade. Power meters measure the human equivalent of horsepower.

Allen’s dissertation validated the measurements of PowerTap and found that power meters installed on bicycles provide a much more reliable indicator of a rider’s on-the-road performance than heart-rate monitors.

Allen says the sports-science community is still figuring out how to use all these data, but the general population could ultimately benefit as well.

“We need a universal metric for describing physical activity,” he says. That standardized unit could help people have a better grip on their level of exertion and health.

Although Allen loves what he’s doing, his longer-term goal is to become a Johnny Appleseed of physical fitness.

“If I can take what I’ve learned from elite athletes and apply it generally, I think people can lead better lives,” he says.

It is a daunting challenge. But a guy who persuades Lance Armstrong to go time-trialing in a Mardi Gras costume might have a good shot.

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