FitLabPGH is a podcast about movement and movement opportunities in the Pittsburgh, PA area. Once a week we also highlight a FitLabPGH mover…someone who understands that movement is a lifestyle…not just an activity. The questions are lightly edited to allow for easy readability. Click FitLabPGH Features for more info if you want to be featured/know someone who should be featured.
This Week: Mandy Cylc
Are you a Pittsburgh native? If not, what brought you to the Pittsburgh area? Yes. I’ve spent the last 7 years in DC and the 5 before that in Philadelphia. In 2017 my heart sent a pretty strong message to my brain that it was time to come home.
What are your three favorite movement activities in the Pittsburgh area? Walking along Grand View Avenue, I would do this with my sisters for aerobic activity decades ago and I still love it. I recently started taking a weight lifting class at the Y that I really enjoy. And of course, before my studio opens, wherever we can do a pop up Bar Method class is my favorite!
Describe your fantasy movement-focused vacation…cost is not an object…where do you go and what do you do? I’d really like to explore Antarctica.
What is your go-to weekday breakfast? Your weekend breakfast? There really isn’t too much of a difference between my weekdays and my weekend days in general. I get fewer emails on the weekend but more people are around. Maybe that’s why my diet is pretty consistent? Breakfast is in two parts- pre workout is light, like a Kind breakfast bar and coffee (with creamer, always flavored creamer) and afterward cottage cheese with walnuts, fruit and honey. I buy the fruit frozen and put the nuts, cottage cheese and fruit together the night before and put it in fridge. Carrying honey around can be dangerous but I love sugar so if a sticky bag is the price, I’m willing to pay it
What is your favorite thing to eat in Pittsburgh? Note: it does not need to be healthy. Bethel Bakery Thumbprint Cookies
What is the most unusual and/or challenging movement activity you’ve done? Would you do it again? I have a pretty paralyzing fear of heights. But I had no idea until I was hiking through the Alps in Switzerland. I was with a group of people; and I couldn’t turn around; we had to stay on the trail because our endpoint was different than the starting point. The fear is strange and powerful. It is as if the openness below is so open and so vast that gravity is just going to pull me over the edge, almost like an arm will reach up and around and gobble me up. I made it through but I don’t feel the need to do that again. I can be in high valleys, but I avoid edges and cliffs.
What movement activity/event are you looking forward to in the next year? The opening of Bar Method Wexford! It has been over a year in the making and I can’t wait to be open!
Would you rather go scuba diving or skydiving? Ha, well, neither. But If I had to pick, sky diving. I know I just elaborated about my fear of heights, but I think I would need gravity to suck me out the door. Scuba diving, don’t people die?
What is your favorite recovery or self-care practice? Washing my hair. Every other day ladies- or less- I see you!
What is the one place visitors to Pittsburgh “must” see? I love learning when I travel. I want to know the history of a place. If you are visiting Pittsburgh for the first time, I think the Senator John Heinz History Center in Association with the Smithsonian Institution is a great place to start.
Contact info for Mandy Cylc, Bar Method Wexford
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barmethodwexford/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barmethodwexford/
