When we saw a recent World Freerunning & Parkour Federation (WFPF) promo on YouTube, it sparked our curiosity: Is scaling walls like Spider-Man really the next trend in fitness? And not just for skinny teen boys, but for women our age? Developed in France, parkour is fairly new as a recognized international sport. In parkour, athletes use the cityscape as an urban jungle gym to free-climb walls, swing from scaffolding, jump over banisters and balance on barriers. Now Equinox in New York City is bringing the sport indoors, offering its members a taste of the action with Parkour Power Play.

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We recently filled you in on some of our favorite beauty products benefiting breast-cancer charities. To kick off the week, we’re highlighting fitness companies that have pledged to do their part. Here are eight more ways to shop pink — and contribute to finding a cure!

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It can be one of the more confusing aspects of exercising: Figuring out how hard you should be working in order to reap optimum health benefits. After all, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend getting a minimum of 150 minutes a week of “moderate intensity” physical activity (plus two strength-training sessions a week), but what does that really mean? Researchers at San Diego State University have determined a more illuminating answer: walking about 100 steps per minute.

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We recently attended the ninth annual Les Girls cabaret in Hollywood, the annual celeb-studded fundraiser for the National Breast Cancer Coalition. We were pleased to see so many stars out in force. Many in the show have a loved one who had breast cancer, including Modern Family’s Ty Burrell and Mad Men’s Bryan Batt (left), whose mothers survived it.

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We love the gym, we love the yoga studio; we are not among those who detest places where strangers and sweat mingle. And yet, sometimes a child has the sniffles or we’re waiting for an important delivery and we just can’t get to these places. That’s where On Demand ExerciseTV comes in. We didn’t even know we had it until a gym-hating friend pointed it out. It’s offered for no additional charge on AT&T, Bresnan Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS.

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We believe in reformers — Pilates reformers, that is. (And cadillacs, too; not the kind you drive, the ones you find in a Pilates studio.) Years ago, we discovered our first Pilates-friendly vacation spot when we visited the The Royal Playa del Carmen, a beachfront resort south of Cancún, Mexico. The all-inclusive price for our sumptuous junior suite included meals at any of the resort’s seven restaurants, room service, in-room cocktail bar and a fitness center offering cycling classes, weights and as many group Pilates reformer classes our muscles could stomach.

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We’ve often thought it would be fun to live in the alternate reality shown in Bollywood movies and Bollywood-inspired music videos, in which people spontaneously break into song and choreographed dance. Thanks to Masala Bhangra workouts, we can experience the sensation — and burn calories while we’re at it. Since instructor Sarina Jain combined traditional Indian folk dance with cardio fitness to create the class 10 years ago, she has taught instructors throughout the country and tours internationally. Masala Bhangra has become so popular that Crunch gyms are offering the classes nationwide on the fall schedule, beginning Sept. 8.

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A friend tried to teach us to play tennis about seven years ago, but after a few hours of chasing errant balls around neighboring courts, he resigned as our coach. Since then, (we think) our game has improved enough to earn us the right to fashionable tennis attire, so we have eagerly awaited the adidas by Stella McCartney fall/winter 2009 collection. Danish tennis sensation Caroline Wozniacki, who is currently ranked No. 8 in the world, will be wearing the Tennis Image Jacket in dark grape during the U.S. Open, which kicks off Aug. 31 and runs through Sept. 13.

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We were a bit nervous heading to our first Hoopilates class in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. As a child, we couldn’t keep hula hoops on our hips, so instead we rolled them up and down the driveway. But to our surprise, we were soon hooping it up, under the direction of Jen Bleier, a Pilates instructor who combines hula hooping with stability exercises, spine rotation, extension, flexion and balance work. It also helped that Hoopilates — one of the latest in an increasing number of hula-hoop workouts — uses heavier Circle Candy hoops that makes keeping it aloft slightly easier. “I think hooping is on the rise because it is absolutely joyful and contagious,” Bleier says.

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After an intense workout, we know it’s important to refuel our muscles. And since exercise uses stored carbohydrates, we’ve been replenishing with high-carbohydrate sports drinks. But recent research indicates we could probably replace our specially engineered beverages with one from childhood: chocolate milk. The study, conducted at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, suggests that lowfat chocolate milk is more effective in repairing muscles after training than the average carbohydrate beverage.

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