Fitness
Innovative Bungee Fitness Fills Gap in Senior Exercise Market
A pioneering fitness studio in Pasadena is revolutionizing senior exercise through bungee-assisted workouts, adapting the concept from Thailand to serve those with physical limitations. Martha Bustos, recovering from her second hip replacement and currently using a walker, opened Bungee Fun FITT Studio on January 4, 2025, drawing on her experience with rehabilitating her right hip from 2022.
The concept emerged after Bustos, a former track and field, softball, basketball, and tennis coach with a master’s in kinesiology, found traditional gyms lacking. “After that surgery, I noticed that gyms do not cater to senior students. The compliance was just not there. And they wanted to set me up with a private instructor. But even there, I mean, I would notice their focus was not on me looking around, oh, do this, do that, but not really focus on my needs,” she explained.
Similar to the Silver Sneakers program for adults 55 and older, Bustos’s “Soaring Seniors” program uses a specialized harness system. Each station incorporates “a link, a carabiner, a swivel, and then bungee cords, and then another carabiner, and then the harness,” engineered to support 500 pounds. Basic setups use eight bungee cords providing 134 pounds of support, with single cords offering 17 pounds of resistance, doubles 34 pounds, and triples 50 pounds. Additional cords are added based on participant weight — for example, a 146-pound person requires one extra cord.
Participants begin with a 15-minute registration session, documenting weight and height for proper harness sizing (S, M, L, XL). The 45-minute workouts for seniors follow Bustos’s “Move to Improve” methodology, featuring instructors Taylor, Lisa, Star, Ashley, Rick, and Jackie leading warmups with “lunges, butt kicks, everything” before progressing to choreographed routines. Instructors call out moves like “knee up, knee down, knee up, knee down, and then around the world” to music, with participants advancing from Level 1 to more intense Level 2 classes.
Comparing the experience to “The Twilight Zone” episode “Kick the Can,” where seniors regain their youthful abilities, Bustos noted, “They’re going to be moving to improving and at the same time doing things they hadn’t done in a long time.” Participants report burning 300 calories per session on their Fitbits.
The studio, which opened to the public on January 7 before a temporary fire evacuation, fills a regional void — similar facilities exist only in Utah, Arizona, and Oklahoma. The timing proved prescient, with recent class-action lawsuits against LA Fitness and 24 Hour Fitness regarding Americans with Disabilities Act compliance.
Operating through word-of-mouth rather than social media, the studio offers bronze, silver, gold, and platinum memberships under the “Let’s Heal Together” campaign, providing year-long discounts. Weight restrictions range from 90-260 pounds, with strict safety protocols including liability waivers. Each class is recorded, and participants receive photos of their achievements, particularly the popular “Star” pose where they “jump and fly up in the air”.
Bustos, pursuing partnerships with Ultimate and LA Care (preferring Ultimate), sees her own journey — being told she couldn’t “cross your legs… do burpees… do squats” — as testament to the program’s importance. New participants must complete a mandatory two-day introductory class (Level 1) before advancing to Level 2, ensuring proper progression in what she calls a “low impact cardio assisted workout”.
The studio also offers a Bungee Fitness Studio app for class registration and has a six-hour cancellation policy. Participants are advised to wear athletic sportswear or padded bike shorts for comfort. Those who have had surgery in the past six months or are pregnant should consult a physician before participating.
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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Finding time to work out as a mom with young kids can be a challenge in itself, especially when you’re new to an area and don’t know where to start. However, a new fitness option strolled into Sioux Falls today. iStroll offers moms the chance to work out and meet other moms all while their kids can play or even join alongside them.
iStroll is a national organization that has more than 35 locations in the country but this is the first time one opened in South Dakota. It’s a full body workout that incorporates dumbbells, body weight, and jogging strollers when the weather’s nice.
“I found iStroll in Oklahoma and fell in love,” said Kelsi Supek who started the affiliate in Sioux Falls. “We made friends. It became our entire social network. The kids loved it and then we moved to Arizona during COVID. And all the moms were stuck at home. They were inside with our kids and lonely, honestly. And we were like, why can’t we start an iStroll and be out at the parks with the kids every day? And it took off.”
When Supek moved to Sioux Falls, she was encouraged by her family to start an affiliate and own it herself.
“Gym daycares did not work out for my children,” said Supek. “I would get 10 minutes into a class and then I’d have that person trying to knock outside the yoga studio going, Can I have Kelsey and her kids screaming in daycare? And it just didn’t work for us. So at iStroll they could be with me or I could be breastfeeding the baby as I was teaching in class.”
Classes are planned to continue each Wednesday and Friday at We Rock the Spectrum and First Presbyterian Church. For a full schedule for January and February, you can look at their Facebook. The first class is also free and memberships are for the whole family.
“Letting the kids see you work out is, it’s similar to homeschooling where like, you know, how are they going to love working out if they don’t see you working out,” said Kelly Jardeleza, a stay-at-home mom of three kids. “Whereas at other gyms they put them in a room and they don’t get to watch you. And how are you going to inspire them if they’re not watching you do it?”
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There’s no bad time to take a more active interest in your health, but the new year, for lots of us, feels like a fresh start. Maybe you’re planning to sign up for a 10k or finally have a go at bouldering, eat a bit better or learn to swing a kettlebell. Maybe you want to keep up with your grandkids — or just be a little bit more physically prepared for whatever life throws at you.
To help things along, Guardian Live invites you to a special event with public health expert Devi Sridhar, journalist and author Mariella Frostrup, and health and fitness columnist Joel Snape. They’ll be joining the Guardian’s Today in Focus presenter Annie Kelly to discuss simple, actionable ways to stay fit and healthy as you move through the second half of life: whether that means staying strong and mobile or stressing less and sleeping better.
To make the whole event as helpful as possible, we’d love to hear from you about what you find most challenging — or confusing — when it comes to health and exercise. What should you actually be eating, and how are you going to find the time to make it? What sort of exercise is best, and how often should you be doing it? Is Pilates worth the effort — and should we really all be drinking mugfuls of piping hot creatine?
Whether your question is about exercise, eating, or general wellness, post it below and we’ll put a selection to our panel on the night.
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Jan 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that it will limit regulation of wearable devices and software designed to support healthy lifestyles, issuing new guidance to clarify its regulatory approach.
The guidance, along with comments from FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, adds to existing policy that classifies low-risk wellness tools, such as fitness apps and activity trackers that encourage exercise, as non-medical devices exempt from stringent regulation, provided they do not make claims related to disease diagnosis or treatment.
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“We have to promote these products and at the same time, just guard against major safety concerns,” Makary said in an interview with Fox Business about artificial intelligence software such as ChatGPT, adding that “if people are looking up a symptom on an AI-based tool, let’s have that conversation when they come in to see their doctor or do a virtual visit.”
“We want to let companies know, with very clear guidance, that if their device or software is simply providing information, they can do that without FDA regulation,” Makary told Fox Business.
“The only stipulation is if they make claims of something being medical grade … like blood pressure measurement. We don’t want people changing their medicines based on something that’s just a screening tool or an estimate of a physiologic parameter.”
The agency also sent out a broader warning to consumers about the risks posed by unauthorized devices.
Reporting by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Henderson and Sherry Jacob-Phillips
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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