With top health clubs here charging as much as $170 a month, Mayor Bloomberg put out a call yesterday for 100 professional gut-busters willing to help New Yorkers get fit for free.
The volunteers would supplement paid fitness instructors already providing no-cost exercise classes to 1,600 people a week at 15 recreation centers and other facilities in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
“While there are many people who can afford a private health club, there are many who can’t,” said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, who joined the mayor’s recruitment effort at the Sunset Park Recreation Center in Brooklyn.
The city’s current classes are funded through the Health Department and are targeted at neighborhoods where residents have high levels of obesity and diabetes.
But they’re open to anyone.
About a dozen fitness experts have already signed up, including Dr. Howard Sichel.
Sichel, who taught classes for eight weeks to youngsters 6 to 13 years old, called the results “absolutely astounding.”