by: Tom Brewer, Content marketer interested in sports, fitness, craft beer, and the arts.
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The greater Greenville fitness community showed out for the area’s first NESS Fest, two days of health and lifestyle seminars and classes at Fluor Field. My wife and I won a pair of one-day tickets in a Blush Nutrition social media contest and spent our Saturday getting our NESS on.
It was sprinkling when we arrived but the weather had hardly any effect on the action: Rowers were rowing, presenters were speaking, and people were dancing, weather be damned. This was a festival for a group used to fighting temptation, convenience, and fatigue in the Battle of the Bulge. It’s no surprise a little rain didn’t slow them down.
We did a lap around the field and checked out the tented booths where we could find out about a variety of wellness-related products and services—everything from nutritionists to life insurance to midwives to athleisure wear. NESS Fest had everything.
We got in the game quick with a boot camp run by trainers from the Cherrydale Gold’s Gym. It was a Tabata-style heart-pumper featuring burpees and lunges, but my favorite parts were the old-school gym class classics: high knees, sprints, and shuffles. I fought the urge to mix in a crab walk. After 30 minutes with the Gold’s crew, our tanks were empty. Lucky for us, the Stella’s Southern Brasserie demo on healthy holiday desserts was still going down. We snagged a sample of delicious apple pie and signed up for the recipe.
Still reeling from the morning’s workout, around midday we took the opportunity to watch the festivities from the seats along the first base line while we recovered with RX Bars and water. Dozens of NESS Fest-ers took to a tiered stage on the pitcher’s mound for an enormous Cyclebar session. This was definitely the event of the day. Music pumped through the stadium and the class was cast onto the scoreboard, which made for great people watching. The leader danced while he coached and cheerfully shouted instructions. Cyclers hooted and high-fived. It looked more like a party than an exercise class.
Before the Cyclebar class was over, we were sweating it out again with Junkyard Fitness. Junkyard has gamified exercise (think Guitar Hero for interval training) and our instructor was a tornado of encouragement, bouncing around from station to station. He was so inspiring, I didn’t stop after I swallowed a mouthful of grass doing burpees.
We were on such an endorphin high that we immediately joined Pound, a class from Anytime Fitness where you exercise to music with drumsticks. It was fun, but let’s just say that I am no Dave Grohl. We finished the day with stand-up comedy and a Ketel One tasting. Consider this the mental health portion of the day.
All told, NESS Fest brought it: The intensity of a killer workout mixed with expert knowledge and plenty of fun. I hope it comes back even bigger next year.
