Sunday, April 19, Absolute Nutrition Center in Chicopee, Mass. held its first annual health and fitness expo in its parking lot. We don’t get a lot of events like this in Western Massachusetts – scratch that, this is the first one I’ve ever heard of! – so of course I was going to go.
Absolute Nutrition Center did an excellent job putting on this expo. There were 15 vendors, an endurance event, seminars and classes, and Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman signing autographs and posing for fan photos. And there were tons of free samples.
My friend Laura, who is an amazing group fitness instructor and teaches the most intense cardio kickboxing class I’ve ever attended, was there to shepherd me around and show me all the cool stuff, since she had gotten her swag already and taken the glutes class. I was really excited to try the Quest bars, can you tell?
I checked out the ProveIt Fitwear booth and met Rudy Planter, the owner. The brand was born out of leading by action, and that tank Laura is wearing in the picture of us with the Quest Bars is a ProveIt tank.
I was also scoping out the Marina Morena Brazilian fitness wear on display. (Laura tugged me over, and I’m like, “You’re going to get me in trouble!”) There are a ton of cool prints, and apparently she only makes five of each print, so definitely no twinsies at the gym! I was intrigued by those skulls.
I also swung by the Dymatize booth to try some protein shakes. The orange dreamsicle flavor was pretty good. The fudge flavor got the thumbs up from my oldest, and my youngest really liked the birthday cake flavor. Also, I want her shoulders.
The award for best branding goes to Grenade. I snagged some pre-workout samples; I was cautioned to only use one-third of the packet. I had to ask, did he get stopped by TSA flying with those shaker bottles? Apparently so. But the whole military theme is pretty awesome.
And then I decided I couldn’t leave without meeting Jay Cutler. Cheesy, I know, and I’m such an introvert that I could barely talk and scurried off like a scared spider immediately after the pic was snapped.
And then there was the endurance event: a farmer’s carry, tennis ball balance, and medicine ball toss. All entrants got swag bags. Since I was not dressed for it (I had lunch plans on the other side of the state and was wearing what I had worn to lunch, my skinny jeans/t-shirt/ballet flats uniform perfect for herding kids), I didn’t enter.
But this guy did, and he made those bars look pretty light. A bunch of people signed up, but at this point, my assistants were very bored and very annoyed and wanted to go home.
And then there was the swag. I’ve got some stuff to review and some stuff to just plain try. I’m really excited about this swag! Kudos to Absolute Nutrition for getting so many vendors!
I’m also really pleased at how family-friendly the event was. I was a little worried that I would have to grab my assistants and cover their ears, but the music was great – Top 40 – and all the announcements were perfectly G-rated.
I genuinely hope Absolute Nutrition is able to do this again. It was a great event, and even though I was only there for a little while, I had a blast.
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