RUSH -- an exercise experiment

This past weekend, local photo studio and event venue One105 hosted RUSH: Human Movement, an immersion fitness program that's the first of its kind. The program itself is somewhat difficult to explain. RUSH is half-rave, half-gym. An afternoon at RUSH is like exercising inside of a music video. Dubstep pumps out of the speakers while the walls are coated with a laser light show provided by Third Eye Projections. There's so much going on that it's easy to forget why you're there in the first place---until you get started.

There are 20 exercise stations, including a jump rope, a tire drag, kettlebells and a punching bag. Each station focuses on utilizing a different part of your body. Guests spend 80 seconds at each station before a siren cuts into the music and forces them to move on to the next one. Because the guests are allowed to go at their own pace through each individual exercise while still being pushed to complete one after another in quick succession, they are are able to push their own limits without having to keep up with a program that is too advanced. The course is designed to challenge anyone and everyone, regardless of their level of fitness.

RUSH is the brainchild of Chuck Stach and Parker Lennon, both accomplished trainers who put their experience together to create the course. They teamed up with Michael Murphy, director of operations for One105, who organized the multimedia aspect of the course. All three emphasize that RUSH is a collaboration which they hope will bring together people from both the fitness and party communities of Sarasota. Murphy hopes future One105 events will have this same spirit of collaboration and innovation. In his own words, he wants One105 to "bring a focus to Sarasota's local underground culture and stimulate an interest in it by raising the bar on what's expected."

One105 will host RUSH on a quarterly basis as Stach and Lennon prepare to take their project to venues across the country. In the meantime, One105 will host a variety of events, including the "Dark Forest" concert on Feb. 1 featuring The Send Offs, Florida Night Heat and Brazos the Rat,  and a "Drunken Shakespeare" event on Feb. 17 in which Asolo actors "get plastered and recite a Shakespeare piece of their choice," according to Murphy.

To learn more about the creators of  the Rush training course visit them at stachtraining.com or lennonfitness.com. For more information on upcoming events at One105, visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/one105.