

Julia	Todd

Views #1198 | Intermediate (B1)

Alternative Exercise

Julia and Todd talk about new ways people are getting in shape beyond the basic gym membership.

Script
Vocab
Quiz

Todd: Hey Julia.

Julia: Hey Todd, how are you doing?

Todd: Good, good. Now Julia, you are really fit and also you are a yoga instructor and a runner so you are the perfect person to talk about extreme exercise.

Julia: Extreme. I wouldn't say I'm an extremist, but go on.

Todd: OK. So first of all I thought I would ask about this yoga that you do in like really hot rooms or something like that.

Julia: Yeah, the bikram yoga it's called.

Todd: Yeah.

Julia: Yeah, actually I've never tried it myself. I know it's kind of a growing craze, maybe Madonna made it really popular. As far as I know you do it in a sauna but it can't possibly be a sauna.

Todd: Not a real sauna, right?

Julia: I don't know what the temperature is but I think the philosophy behind it is to try to recreate the same climate as you'd find in India where yoga originates.

Todd: Right, so you want it to be really hot.

Julia: And humid, yeah.

Todd: Wow.

Julia: And also people who like to get the kind of the stretch value but also like to sweat at the same time. If you want a sweat yoga then it's a crank up the temperature is going to help you.

Todd: Wow, that's intense.

Julia: It is.

Todd: What about, have you heard about cross fit?

Julia: Cross fit? No.

Todd: Yeah. Cross fit's the big rage in America.

Julia: Cross fit, no I haven't heard of that.

Todd: Cross fit is like people do all of these really old-school exercises, like push ups or pull ups. They do like jumping jacks, they do really weird things like dead lifts, stuff like that but they do it one after the other in really short time intervals and like the work out only takes twelve minutes.

Julia: Wow.

Todd: But if you do it right, I think some people actually get so fatigued they throw up so like you really push your body to the limit.

Julia: That is extreme, yes.

Todd: It is extreme, although I'm probably saying it wrong.

Julia: Good for weight loss.

Todd: Yeah, so it's actually a big craze where people do more natural body movements and you never do the same thing twice. You're not supposed to get into a routine. You always do things different.

Julia: You do it like spontaneously or you set yourself a program?

Todd: There's a whole website, you go to the cross fit website and they explain it all but it looks pretty cool. It's like not your typical gym type workout.

Julia: Cross fit sounds like something you do on a BMX or something.

Todd: Right, right, exactly.

Learn Vocabulary from the Lesson

originate

You try to recreate the same climate as you'd find in India where yoga originates.

The place where something 'originates' is where it was first created or invented. Notice the following:

Do you know where bread originates?
Some of the earliest forms of writing originated in Mexico.

the big rage

Cross fit's the big rage in America.

Here, 'big rage' is similar to'popular trend' or 'fad.' It's something that many people have recently become interested in. Notice the following:

The singer Adele has become the big rage in the past year.
These shoes are the big rage right now.

old-school

People do all of these really old-school exercises, like push ups or pull ups.

Used like this, 'old-school' refers to traditional methods of doing something that may seem outdated. Notice the following:

She wears a lot of old-school sweaters.
He listens to a lot of old-school music.

jumping jacks

They do like jumping jacks.

'Jumping jacks' are a form of exercise where you start standing up with your hands by your side and then jump and open both your arms and your legs, then you jump again to return to the starting position. Notice the following: