Step Aerobics Is … Cool Again? + 'Charlie's Angels' Unite
Hey WNVM-ers,
Today I (Cheryl) am writing about step aerobics, the workout that shredded the knees of an entire generation. (Fawnia and I both used to use three risers in step classes in the ‘90s. This was bragging rights back then!) While anyone who follows me knows that I am a weight lifting evangelist, I still do cardio 2 or 3 days a week in 20 to 30 minute increments. It’s good for my heart and lungs, sure, but I do it because there is nothing that gives you an endorphin high like cardio does. Since 2020, step is back in my mix. Plastic platforms for cardio exercise have arguably not been this popular since the Clinton years. Maybe — with your doctor’s approval because I am not looking for anyone to hurt themselves here!! — it’s time to practice your repeaters and over-the-tops. Per Fawnia, there is even a scene in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door wherein Julianne Moore, presumably not wearing a coat, pretends that she’s doing step-ups and downs for the first time ever — despite playing a character who definitely aerobicized in ‘90s New York City.
Plus, in news You Oughta Know, Charlie’s Angels continue to support each other after nearly 20 (!) years and more Kea-News, plus Fawnia rants about a Princess Diana reference that’s truly unbelievable.
PS: You may need to view the entire newsletter in your browser.
Step By Step
Step aerobics never totally went away — the workout just evolved into a supercharged new style.
By Cheryl
In the ‘90s when I was in my 20s, I’d hit up a 9am step class after pulling a 12-hour overnight nursing shift. I was addicted to the workout. The day my favorite instructor at Jamnastics (lol and also RIP) in Chicago moved me to the front row remains one of my proudest moments. I’m only kinda joking.
Chris Dorner, 48, has had an insiders’ view of the breadth of the step aerobics phenomenon. She started teaching step classes in the ‘90s at women’s-only chain gym Living Well Lady in New Jersey. (“There was purple carpeting and it was just terrible,” she says.) She became a personal trainer and then had a career in computer tech support, but never stopped teaching multiple styles of group fitness.
During the early days of the pandemic, Dorner started offering Facebook Live classes. Someone suggested an old school step class, and they took off. She now has 214,000 subscribers on YouTube and 22,000 followers on Instagram. Savannah Guthrie, 53, of the “Today Show” even appeared on-air in 2020 during the Tokyo Olympics doing one of Dorner’s step workouts. Dorner says her friends tell her their daughters do her workouts in their dorm rooms.
“[Step workouts] started to become my most popular workouts on YouTube, and they still are,” Dorner says.
In the late ‘80s and through the early aughts, step was every cardio queen’s go-to. But as fitness trends inevitably do, it petered out as other workouts took hold, lingering in random YMCAs and vacation resort class offerings. But in the 2010s, a fast-paced, energetic hip hop step style gained a, ahem, foothold, and this is where you can currently find the most innovation, nationally known instructors, and packed-IRL classes. Step earned even more attention during the pandemic. New and old styles alike found an audience looking for exercise options during gym closures, which is how I rediscovered it. And as most old things do, it ultimately found its way to TikTok, leading to its logical conclusion: a step flash mob in a mall.
While saying, “Step is back!!” may be overstating things, there is definitely… something happening. So how exactly did we get to the point where I have already written the word “aerobics” multiple times in the year 2025? Well, pull on your knee braces and let’s start off with a right basic.
Old School
Gin Miller is credited as the godmother of step. The lore goes that a doctor told her to step up and down on a crate as part of a rehab routine after a knee injury. She turned it into a workout, signed a deal with Reebok in the late ‘80s, and the rest is workout DVD history. If one of those classic teal and purple steps aren’t in the Smithsonian, it should be.
Step dominated the ‘90s, as this evocative Chicago Tribune article from the era, featuring my aforementioned step teacher Randy Bichler, illustrates. But then, as high-intensity interval training (HIIT) became popular, workouts like P90X and boot camp took off. Barre, yoga, and Pilates became ascendant, and Zumba emerged as a gentler way to get a low impact choreographed workout. Spin class studios took over gyms, leading to the emergence of Soul Cycle and the boutique fitness boom.
Because of step heights, injuries also started becoming common, as this long list of risks published by the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine, attests. Plus, as students advanced in step, iterations like “double step” emerged and enthusiasts expected more challenging classes. It all probably alienated potential beginners.
“They were intimidated once the choreography got more complex,” says Dorner. She also notes that the classes were hard to teach, leading to a shortage of instructors.
Ironically, though, step was going to come roaring back with some of its most complicated footwork ever.
Hip Hop on the Step
In 2014, Phillip Weeden started the Xtreme Hip Hip step program out of his gym in Cleveland, after learning how to teach step when members requested a class and he couldn’t find an instructor. He ended up developing a style borrowing from hip hop dance that is fast-paced with lots of directional changes and some athletic elements, like jumping jacks, thrown in. It is extremely fun to watch:
Weeden developed a following on social media, and it eventually led to him traveling to gyms across the country and training instructors. He now runs an Xtreme Hip Hop empire, with 2200 instructors in 25 countries (per his site), a DVD library, and options for streaming from home. Plus, for the locals that attend his gym in Ohio, he often has rappers, like Yung Joc, come perform live in his classes.
Vanessa Stewart, 39, used to watch her mom do step classes when she was young. A few years ago, she fell into a depression, gained a lot of weight, and was diagnosed with lymphedema and scoliosis. Her doctor told her to exercise. In 2018, she started watching Weeden on Facebook Live and bought his DVD.
“I watched the program for a year before I even attempted [it]. Because at first it was intimidating, but what caught me was the music,” says Stewart.
During one Live, Weeden called on her to do burpees, which she did with her daughter. She was hooked, and started doing step in the park when it was too hot in her apartment. One day, someone saw her and asked Stewart to teach her the technique. The single mom and veteran is now an NASM- and Xtreme Hip Hop-certified instructor who teaches twice a week in Brooklyn.
Stewart says instructors are given routines to work from, but can modify it as they see fit. She always starts slowly so people can learn the steps.
“I love using music with affirmations in it,” says Stewart. “My goal is to make people feel comfortable, make them feel accomplished.”
Other high profile hip hop step stars with their own styles have emerged in the past few years and gained national attention. Many offer streaming. EJ Houston, based in Atlanta, has 885K Instagram followers and scored a “Today Show” interview two years ago.
Then there is Club Cardio’s Step Reloaded, headquartered at a gym in Raleigh, NC. Ciara tapped owner Sherry Ringer and her daughter Trinity to choreograph a step sequence for the video for her 2022 song “Jump.” “CBS Mornings” featured the mother-daughter duo in December, and Step Reloaded has taken it on the road to offer instructor certification.
Julius Burphy is the newest step phenom, with 3.7 million followers on TikTok and 2 million on Instagram. The UK-based instructor’s Stepper-Ton style is infectious. He plays with different musical genres, including a routine to “Footloose,” and he’s the one that pulled off a mall step mob in December. (Weeden, Houston, Ringer, and Burphy did not respond to requests for an interview.)
But Stepper-Ton is hard! This is a “beginner friendly” routine:
Step On It
Inspired to try step again/for the first time? Go to YouTube and find an instructor. Dorner says she realizes her step workouts probably have a lot of views because there just aren’t many people teaching it. It’s always been a difficult class to teach, and cueing has to be impeccable. The other thing is that if you’ve taken step classes where the instructor is in the front with their back to you, it’s a learning curve to pick up the steps via the mirror image view you get on YouTube.
I love getting on the step because it puts me back into my 28-year-old brain again, in a good way. Because you have to pay close attention to the instructor and make your feet do what they are telling you, you cannot think about anything else. Focus is rare these days, and step gives this to me.
Karla Luster, 45, taught step in the latter part of its popularity, including in corporate fitness programs, and has a YouTube channel and Patreon where she still offers them, as well as instructor training. She credits step with helping her memory as she is learning ballroom dancing.
“And it's not just my memory. It's also my mind-body connection and being able [to have] a level of body awareness,” says Luster.
If you want to stick with more traditional classes vs. the hip hop styles, be aware of some modern updates:
It’s faster: Dorner says that in the olden days, using music with 120 to 128 beats per minute (BPM) was the norm. Now, it can head up into the 135 BPM range and much higher.
It’s lower: Because everything is faster, steps are closer to the ground. Do not give in to your 1997 ego and add risers! The cardio jolt is still there with just a step, and it’s less impact on joints.
While step isn’t on Peloton’s app or in every Crunch gym quite yet, maybe we are headed there.
“Everyone should give it a try. It brings joy to your life,” says Stewart. “It will change your mindset mentally, physically, and spiritually.”
Just like it did the first time around.
We are two Gen X journalists who celebrate people of our generation doing cool things, as well as analyze all the '80s and '90s nostalgia in current pop culture, fashion, and beauty. Read more stories like this one here!
You’re Unbelievable
Princess Diana edition
By Fawnia
Caption: ‘The Crown’s #ElizabethDebicki embodied her role as Princess-off-duty in all-black with a Lady Dior bag at today’s @dior couture show, while @kellyrutherford brought her son Hermès. See more stars from Bridgerton to Beetlejuice arrive in Paris.
Now I don’t mean to make this new segment an InSt*le pile on (see: last week) — and no disrespect to the site’s social media manager, who I’m sure is overworked, underpaid, and under very specific SEO directives. (As you can tell, I’m increasingly bitter about the state of journalism these days.) But, this caption made me snort-laugh at how far they’re reaching, like all the way to Elizabeth Debicki’s home country of Australia. (Her expression also seems to be conveying, “really?”) So, yes, the Emmy winner truly did embody her role as Princess Diana in “The Crown,” and, sure, she’s carrying a small Lady D-Joy version of the classic Diana bag. But otherwise, that's just an ALL-BLACK OUTFIT that's not even remotely the signature off-duty style of the beloved People’s Princess. If it was, she’d be in a baggy sweatshirt and bike shorts. Not to mention, almost every other A-lister at the Dior Haute Couture show wore monochrome black Dior. “Jenna Ortega embodied Wednesday Addams” (or “her movie mom Lydia Deetz”) would have made way more sense and been much less insulting to the reader.
You Oughta Know
The reviews out of Sundance for Andrew Ahn’s The Wedding Banquet are here and glowing! The Fire Island director’s update of Ang Lee’s 1993 queer classic stars multi-Emmy-nominated Bowen Yang, Oscar-nominee Lily Gladstone, Star Wars vet Kelly Marie Tran, Minari Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-Jung and WNVM fave Joan Chen, flexing her comedic chops. Collider’s Taylor Gates lauds the “incredible ensemble,” calls the humor “sharp, with multiple laugh-out-loud moments” and thinks the film “is truly accessible to everyone and explores universal themes of connection, community, and family. For Variety, Carlos Aguilar found it “thoroughly enjoyable,” which sounds universal to me! I kind of wish I didn’t read this review because too many jokes are now spoiled for me, but The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney calls the film “funny and poignant in equal measure.” The teaser trailer had me cackling and I, for one, cannot wait to see more of Yang throwing out his one-liners, Gladstone, period, and Chen doing physical comedy in that glam silver sequin dress. [The Wedding Banquet, opens in theaters on April 15, 2025] –FSH
Kea-news! Our angel helped director Justin Lin get financing for his indie film Last Days, by picking up the phone and networking on his behalf. Would you say “no” to Keanu? Plus, he is currently filming a “dark satire” called The Entertainment System Is Down, set on an airplane where the “passengers are forced to contend with boredom.” Now that is terrifying. -CW [The Wrap; Yahoo Entertainment]
Good morning, Angels! Demi Moore, Lucy Liu, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore reunited over Zoom in support of the newly-minted The Substance Oscar nominee, who played a PI-turned-operative in the 2003 sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. Barrymore, utilizing her proven hosting skills, led the Zoom reunion and deftly transitioned Liu’s tech issues — relatable! — into a Charlie’s Angels (and The Substance) reference. The four also recall they last all reunited in support of Liu receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — which feels like a gore-free way to come full-circle to The Substance. (Cheryl still needs to watch the movie! No thank you-CW) [Vanity Fair] –FSH
Just chiming in to say that I am so, so excited for The Wedding Banquet remake!! (And I totally forgot how step aerobics was such an omnipresent thing, and how interesting to see the form it takes today.)
This is FANTASTIC!!! (WNM edition of my 90s dreams!!!) 👟 TOO MANY MEMORIES!! Gin Miller!!! Also, Kari Anderson (was it?!) Kelli Roberts and Cher!!! (I did that VHS on repeat in the 90s!!!! Guy in the downstairs apartment loved me🫢). I am off to search all these new classes and instructors online. Oh to teleport to NYC and go to a class with you guys!!! (With a very much lower step!!💯). LOVE all of this! 🌟XXX