The Manhattan Times

Making exercise cool

by Adam Garrett-Clark

It’s 6:30 on a Thursday night and rather than updating their Facebook status or catching the latest reality television show, a dozen Washington Heights teenagers are doing group calisthenics in a small room in Highbridge Recreation Center on Amsterdam Avenue and W. 174th Street.

As the group moves from jackknife jumping jacks to power lunges, trainer Eduardo Martinez points out the progress that some of his students are making.

“Look at his vascularity,” he says, excitedly motioning towards the arms of an older teen. “Look at his definition,” he adds, pointing at another.

Martinez, 21, is the executive director of Get Focused, an organization that is offering free fitness classes to youth in Washington Heights. His dream is to someday standardize his work and have it used around the country with youth in inner cities.

For the last year he and his partner Yusuf Myers, who are both professional personal trainers, have offered their services free to Washington Heights youth five days a week at either Highbridge or J’s Big Gym on W. 181st Street. The organization is funded completely by Myers and Martinez who use minimal equipment – mats, cones, hurdles and agility ladders – to create their workout routines.

“We are basically taking away the excuses people have,” Meyers said, the common one’s being “I don’t have a gym membership” or “I don’t know how to work out.”

Meyers and Martinez who both grew up in the neighborhood, met while modeling together for a calendar. The program, they said, is designed to tackle Northern Manhattan’s high rates of childhood obesity.

Over 50% of elementary students in Northern Manhattan were classified as overweight based on their body mass index according to a 1999 study conducted through a partnership with New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center Community Pediatrics and public elementary schools, according to Stephanie Pitsirilos-Boquín, Manager of Choosing Healthy & Active Lifestyles for Kids (CHALK), a program dedicated to reducing childhood obesity in Northern Manhattan.

Meyers, who looks like a life size action figure, said he knows exactly what a lot of local kids are going through.

An active multi-sport athlete in high school, when Myers got to college he gained considerable weight and could no longer count on a high metabolism to burn it off.

“At that point my self esteem was completely low,” said Myers.

The program has a nutrition education component as well as life skills training, handled by the donated time of Kevin Hernandez, a motivational speaker who once counseled Martinez.

The idea for Get Focused came to Martinez while he was going through his own rough spot. “I started it so that I could get focused,” he said.

Jaded by the chaotic life of modeling, he started to lose his edge, entering a dark period when nothing seemed to be going right for him. One day he saw an old childhood friend, who had been in jail for dealing drugs, running in the street. He was in great shape, Martinez remembered, with an inspired look in his eyes. His friend told him he was training to become a boxer. As Martinez regularly saw his friend on the street, he said he began to notice kids running in step behind him.

The idea was spawned, and Martinez, who had grown up admiring the way the founder of Fresh Youth Initiatives, Andrew Rubinson, had inspired kids, saw his chance to start an organization. “I’ve always had that hidden agenda within me,” he said.

His friend said he was more interested in boxing than working with kids, so Martinez went to work writing out the concept, eventually developing a relationship with Highbridge Recreation Center.

Some days only three or five kids show up, he said, but little by little through word of mouth the program has grown.

“My first day, I was so afraid,” Martinez said.

Someone did walk in that first day, but he was looking for a job with the center manager. Martinez quickly injected himself into the conversation and eventually convinced the reluctant teen to work out with him. For the first two months Jorge Hernandez was the only member of the program. It wasn’t until his friends at George Washington High school started seeing changes in his body that others began to show up, Martinez said. Hernandez now works as a Get Focused trainer.