Squats and pull ups are trendier than ever, but no one makes these timeless fitness fundamentals look better than the crew at Second Beach Sundays.
For three years, these athletes have gathered once a week near Stanley Park to tap the primordial nature of human physicality through an exercise philosophy they call original movement. No equipment needed but your own body.
Urban calisthenics is a power-driven mix of gymnastics, aerobics, and even parkour and yoga, using obstacle-course elements such as rings and bars – or just nothing at all but your body – for resistance. A part of CrossFit (like these minimal equipment WODs), calisthenics and bodyweight training ranked for the first time this decade in the global fitness trend survey and since 2013 have not left the top three.
Just as the best gym teachers and drill sergeants know, going basic means moving forward, and this is where Akeem Pierre is at. As the instigator of Second Beach Sundays, he’s dedicated to optimizing the human body through natural movement and asks big questions about these basics, like, “How does your body function on the daily and how can we make that better?”
Performance is part of everyday life and not just for elite competitors, he says. “Whether you like to go on hikes, do yoga or just play with your children, I want to see to it that you are able to excel at it and do it pain free.”
They meet at noon on Sundays when the sun is shining, because no one wants to plank in a puddle. This isn’t about punishment. It’s playtime.
“As we get older, we forget about play in general and become strictly business. This made me dislike working out and left me desiring more,” says Pierre, a basketball player recruited by the UBC Thunderbirds whose promising career was cut short by injury. He adds, “In such a beautiful place like Vancouver, I find it crazy we spend so much time inside gyms when we can be training in all this beauty around us.”
Creative play puts the fun in functional, or so the health mag headline promises us. It’s a pun and it’s true.
“Once you start to play, you are able to have fun in your training and remember what it feels like to be a kid again,” says Pierre. “Playing also allows you to integrate all that you have been doing in your training. It’s fun to do cool movements by themselves but it’s even more fun to do them together.”
Everyone is welcome at Second Beach Sundays. Find them on Facebook here.
For more performance play, take these on:
#TreeClimb30
For the month of May, people around the world are challenging themselves to climb one tree each day. Many are posting their exploits on social media.
AcroYoga
A combination of yoga and acrobatics, AcroYoga is a partnered practice of balance, coordination and trust. So much trust. You can see practitioners at Second Beach Sunday, and in Vancouver, Slava Goloubov and Devon French are at the forefront.
NijnaFit
Obstacle course champion Allison Tai has trained hundreds of mud runners and Spartan racers, and now she and her mad-genius husband are opening their own gym, fit with all kinds of rigs, beams, and warped walls. They’ll be fully up and running July 1.
