With the exception of a few pickup basketball games, my exercise routine since the summer has been pretty much nonexistent. To put it bluntly, I was due for a good sweat. Thankfully the good people at Under Armour extended an invitation to work out with celebrity trainer Gunnar Peterson and Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Miles Austin to test out their new line of performance cotton.
As I got off the elevator at the second floor of The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers in New York City for the Under Armour Charged Cotton Launch Event, I was greeted with a knapsack full of UA athletic wear and a liability waiver. Not really knowing what to expect, I signed the waiver and was ushered to the men’s locker room where I threw on my Under Armour gear and headed to the basketball courts. After a short introduction to the Under Armour ambassadors, which along with Peterson and Austin, included Vanessa Minnillo, Heather Mitts and Lauren Cheney from the U.S. Women’s World Cup Soccer team, we got right into the fitness portion of the day.
After a quick warm-up, myself and other reporters from various media outlets were put into teams of five and instructed to do a 14-minute intense relay gauntlet. The first station had us on foot gliders where we got in a squatting stance and had to slide to halfcourt and back. The next station had us jumping rope, except the rope was about 5-times the girth of a normal skipping rope. This turned out to be a lot tougher than anticipated. The third station had us doing push-ups on inverted BOSU Balance Balls with an extra reach component. (Good thing Gunnar was there for a little moral support.) My personal favorite station was next: the rest station. There we had a chance to towel off and catch our breath. Once we were tagged at the pit stop, we had to run around a track to the final station and don an elastic harness around our waists where we attempted to touch an opposing wall 15-20 feet away – all while controlling our backpedal as the elastic recoiled.
Props to Miles Austin for the words of encouragement, though I’m pretty sure he can do this exercise in his sleep. Even with my sweat glands acting on overdrive – picture Patrick Ewing after an hour in the sauna – my clothes stayed relatively dry. The performance cotton definitely lived up to expectations.
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