Working up a good old sweat while burning some calories in Riverlea

The Riverlea Aerobics Club (RAC) had their annual ‘aerobathon’ on October 27 at the Riverlea Recreation Centre. The event started the morning at 8.30am and ended at 2 pm. The seniors from the South African Senior Fitness Association (SASFA) started off the morning with their aerobics fitness session.

Muzi Maphalala then started the next session with participants who are basically doing the aerobics for the first time, so he did the basics of aerobics with them. Nkosana Maphalala continued with the next session which is called the ‘high-low’ which is a type of dance aerobics.

The third session is called ‘Box’ which is focused on the cardio side of aerobics. Group instructor Jacquline Ohlsson explained that they are focusing on the beginners’ level this year because many of the participants are beginners.

She said, “Every year we do the fitness awareness campaign. Many people are afraid when it comes to working out and fitness, so this is just a day where we show them how much fun it is to burn calories.”

“We joined with different clubs mainly from Soweto, they will be joining us a little later. Today is just about fitness and introducing the people to aerobics.”

The aerobics club partnered with Liberty and the Region B Health Department who did cholesterol, blood pressure, HIV testing, TB testing, and weight monitoring test for residents.

Edwina Fillies who is the instructor for SASFA said, “Everybody enjoyed it so much, people were sweating and some other seniors were even surprised that its such a fun workout. The event was really well organised and it brings so many different people together it’s just so amazing. To have something like this in the community is really great because there’s more to do than sitting in the street all day, people should join in in the fun.”

All age groups were welcome to join the aerobics day.