Pole Dancing Fitness

I recently saw an ad on TV for a workout center in Las Vegas.

It wasn't a Gold's Gym or a come-on for the Las Vegas Athletic Club.

It was a 30-second spot for a pole dancing fitness studio.

Yes, pole dancing, that All American activity conducted in gentleman's clubs from coast to coast.

While the studio claims it was founded and owned by a woman, I know that this concept had to have been originally conceived by a man.  And men everywhere should stand up and applaud.

Somehow, a man has convinced a significant number of women that they should give up Pilates and Zumba, two regimens that most men can neither understand nor pronounce.

I'm pretty sure that if one of my friends signed up for a Pilates class, they'd show up with an eye patch and a parrot on his shoulder, answering every question with "Arrr, matey!"

As for Zumba, most guys simply think it's the latest sports car offering from Mazda.

Instead of these two exercise programs, a man has managed to convince women that they should sign up and pay for a class that will teach them how to become strippers.  I mean, "exotic dancers."  (I've always been amused by that term, as if showing up somewhere as naked as the day you were born, something every single one of us has experienced, is somehow unique and exotic.)

This guy is a genius.

I would love to have been in the room when this idea was pitched.

"You wanna lose weight?  Wanna firm up those abs?  Become a stripper."

To be honest, I think the guy may have the cart before the horse a little bit on this, but I admire his moxie.

I can just see me trying to talk my wife into doing stripper routines as a form of exercise.  I'm sure it would improve her arm strength, particularly from lifting all those pots, pans, rolling pins, and other weighty items she would use to conk me over the head repeatedly for even bringing up such a topic at our dinner table.

However, other women are obviously buying into this.  They are signing up to take a class in pole dancing, which has to make their husbands and boyfriends happy (not to mention saving those guys a fortune on Friday nights).

I can see another advantage to this phenomenon.

For those men not fortunate enough to have a spouse or girlfriend enrolled at the pole dancing fitness emporium, they can now attend the kind of establishments where pole dancing takes place without lying to their loved ones.

"And where do you think YOU'RE going at this hour on a Saturday night?"

"Honest, honey, I'm headed over to the gym.  You know, the workout place."

I suspect it will take Under Armour, the athletic apparel company, all of about five minutes to start selling a new workout outfit for pole dancing athletes complete with crotch pockets to hold the 10 dollar bills.

I'm excited about some of the additional opportunities this will create.

By legitimizing pole dancing as an athletic endeavor, it won't be long before it's added as an event at the Summer Olympics.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, representing the U.S. team, it's Sugar Flame."

It will be worth the price of admission just to see the entry from the American Samoa Olympic team put the vertical bar to the test.

It's also going to be interesting to see the Olympic judging panel made up of guys in trench coats and refugees from all-night bachelor parties.

Being curious by nature, I actually checked out the website for the pole dancing school in Vegas.  I can tell the studio is operated by learned fitness professionals by the introductory statement which claims their classes will help you "loose weight, change your body, shrink your waste line and feel great!" (Notice the spelling of "lose" and "waist.")

I learned that they also offer a variety of other fitness courses, including (and I'm not making this up)...lap dancing. 

I haven't seen the FDA's bulletin on how many calories are burned while engaging in this workout routine, but I can tell you that for the first time in a while, I'm thinking about getting in shape.

Or at least volunteering to "spot" someone at the gym.