—————————————————— Sweaty Spandex: The Hottest Fitness Celebrity Babes of All Time | Art Attack | Houston | Houston Press | The Leading Independent News Source in Houston, Texas

Pop Culture

Sweaty Spandex: The Hottest Fitness Celebrity Babes of All Time

Just in time to make you feel awful about yourself and your soon-to-be-failed New Year's fitness resolutions comes this collection of the hottest fitness babes of all time. Don't worry, I'm a dude and even some of these ladies' abs make me feel like Jabba the Hutt after Thanksgiving dinner. Plus, the need of rock-hard buns goes across gender lines.

Before I set out to create this collection, I didn't know that country legend Tanya Tucker, TV vixen Heather Locklear and old-school triple threat Debbie Reynolds even made fitness videos, let alone knew how to sweat. And wait, is that Mary Hart, late of Entertainment Tonight, on here? Be careful, should could give you a seizure.

Honestly, coming of age in the '90s, I was all too aware that Kathy Ireland, Cindy Crawford and Suzanne Somers were VHS fitness gurus. You didn't have to be 18 to rent these videos at Blockbuster, and maybe you could learn something along the way, like the art of hiding the cassettes from your parents inside Disney movie clam-shell boxes.

I was reminded of all these videos of our collective bun-steeling past by visiting the VHS sections of thrift stores, which are haunted by the ghosts of the dreams of people who wanted to get fit, but probably never quite made it. I found the entire Billy Blanks Tae-Bo series, tons of Buns/Abs/Legs/Thighs of Steel, and at least a handful of Richard Simmons oldies-smoldering tapes.

I had to include Jillian Michaels at the end because people would complain, even though she seems more scary than attractive, and not in a sexy, dominating way. Screaming Susan Powter leads off our list, proving that in the '90s all you needed was a loud, military-grade voice, a bleached crew cut and superhuman energy to make millions. Hey, it worked for Billy Idol too, I guess.

Susan Powter

Lord bless her for trying, but insanity could not in fact be stopped. KFC's Double Down and the Wendy's Baconator, anyone?

KEEP THE HOUSTON PRESS FREE... Since we started the Houston Press, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Houston, and we'd like to keep it that way. With local media under siege, it's more important than ever for us to rally support behind funding our local journalism. You can help by participating in our "I Support" program, allowing us to keep offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food and culture with no paywalls.
Craig Hlavaty
Contact: Craig Hlavaty