LOS ANGELES — She’s the genius behind Demi Moore’s triumphant one-arm push-up in the movie “G.I. Jane,” Brad Pitt’s Adonis-like physique in “Troy” and Pink’s overall buffed, solid bod.
Yumi Lee, touted in Men’s Health magazine as one of the nation’s top 100 trainers, has appeared in the VH1 reality fitness show “Flab to Fab,” whipping the weak and flaccid into rock-hard, rock-star shape.
I’m scheduled to meet this fitness phenom at the upscale gym Crunch for her Monday night kick-boxing class. “It’s high intensity,” a Crunch member warns. “Prepare to sweat. Oh, and good luck making it through the entire one-hour class.” I tell him that I’m nervous.
Actually, no, I’m not. I only said that so he won’t feel inferior when I breeze through the workout, which I fully expect to do. I’ve taken kick-boxing classes before. I even went through a manic Tae-Bo phase (which I promptly ended once my martial arts masters derisively declared my jump front snap kicks Billy Blanks-ish — not a compliment in any real martial arts studio).
So, to be frank, I’m confident that Yumi’s class will be easy, even after seeing the weak and flaccid sweating like stuck pigs on VH1 after one of her routines. I work out regularly. So I can do this, I tell myself smugly — almost arrogantly. Piece of cake.
Oh, naïve and foolish Grace.
***
I arrive early and ask the receptionist if Yumi is in. Not yet, she says. “Do you know what she looks like? Tan, long brown hair, really buff,” the receptionist says, with her hands outstretched over opposite arms for illustrative emphasis. “You can’t miss her.”
Six people matching that description stream past me. This is Crunch Hollywood, after all, replete with the crème de la crème of the industry’s buffed, bronzed and beautiful. The place looks like a two-tiered casting call for “Baywatch.”
And then I spot her. She smiles hello, her tan setting off her gleaming white teeth and her black outfit molded around what looks very much like a zero-percent-fat body. She is 5 feet and 3 inches of pure muscle.
“You’re staying for the class after the interview, right?” she asks. I nod. “Good,” she says, grinning. She takes a seat outside by the gym’s front doors. Yumi watches — evaluates the patrons coming in and out as she talks.
“Never in a million years did I think I’d be doing this for a living,” says the fitness expert, who is a self-described tomboy. In fact, Yumi says, she thought she would be a reporter. She holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and sociology from Virginia Tech.
“I was just miserable doing that because I found that it was taking me away from working out, sports and dancing,” she says. “I thought the ideal job would have been to write for fitness and health magazines, but it seemed like the track to get there was just going to take so long, and there was so much back-stabbing, that I just said forget it. It was the best decision I ever made.”
