“Let’s Get Physical!”

“I used to run a couple of miles every day” says Yellowcard bassist Pete Mosely, standing by the reception area of Gold’s Gym in California’s Venice Beach. “But these days my fitness regime basically consists of Corona curls.”

It is the damage caused by such alcoholic excess that the pop-punk quintet are hoping to reverse. The Floridians, who earned platinum success with their 2003 major-label debut, Ocean Avenue, have just released their follow-up, Lights and Sounds, and will spend the rest of the year on the road. To prepare for that, they want to be in tippety-top shape. So Mosely & co. have decided to spend Blender’s $848 on a day of health-enhancing activities, starting with a workout session at the sweat palace made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger and former TV Incredible Hulk Lou Ferrigno.

“The people working out here must be thinking, ‘Who are these puny humans?’” chuckles recently recruited guitarist Ryan Mendez. He surveys the massed ranks of exercisers before shouting in his best Ahnold-accent, “‘Dat’s vot ve looked like before ve started vorking out!’”

“This is gonna be a lot of fun,” says drummer Longineu Parsons III, a onetime percussive prodigy who was playing shows with his jazz-musician father at the age of 5. “Let’s get physical!”

The person with the responsibility for making them do just that is fitness trainer Mari Asp, a Scandinavian and, despite lacking the berserk football-stuffed-in-a-stocking musculature of many exercisers present today, a world bench-press champion.

“I’m guessing you guys don’t work out a lot,” she says, suspiciously eyeing the Yellowcard party, some of whom are clutching drink containers emblazoned with the Taco Bell logo.

“What are you saying?” demands violinist Sean Mackin, clearly affronted by the implication that the band are what the Governator would describe as “girlie men.”

“I think I probably bench-press 120,” adds Parsons with a note of pride.

“I can bench three times that,” replies Asp, prior to leading the band through some basic free-weight exercises that leave Yellowcard’s twentysomethings severely out of wind. At least frontman Ryan Key has an excuse: Earlier this morning he had his sinuses drained (“I basically had a face colonic”) and has been diagnosed with a node on his vocal cords.

“Because of the antibiotics, I’m going to be sober on New Year’s Eve,” he moans.

Despite this bad news, the amiable lead singer seems to be taking matters with un-diva-ish calm, and even gamely agrees to allow Asp to lift him over her head. However, any thought that the rest of Yellowcard will be joining Key in sobriety disappear when the rest of the band order out for beer and then openly drink said booze even as Asp is instructing them on the finer points of exercise and diet.

The truth is that, like so many of us, Yellowcard’s desire to be fit seems to be severely outweighed by their unwillingness to really do anything about it. Only when the Hulk himself, Lou Ferrigno, walks over from his barbells to grunt hello to the band do they renew their efforts, inspired by the 53-year-old’s still-impressive physique. Mosely, though, still seems more interested in lifting beer cans than weights.

“Well, we do get a lot of exercise playing every night,” he protests. “And, sure, then it’s usually four to six hours of drinking. But that’s how you’re supposed to do it, right? Cardiovascular first — then the carbs!”

Finally, after one last piece of advice from Asp (“Stay off the beer. Especially when you’re working out”), we drive over to Santa Monica for lunch at a restaurant called Raw, which exclusively serves uncooked food and not, to Parsons’s chagrin, buffalo wings. In fact, as the band are served a variety of salads, healthy soups and a “bacon cheeseburger” made from walnuts and portobello mushrooms, the drummer seems on the brink of outright revolt.

After Parsons asks for the umpteenth time if it is not possible to get something a little more, well, cooked, Key advises, “Just take it as it comes.”

“Dude, that’s what they say in jail,” retorts Parsons, brandishing his heaping forkful of seaweed and shaved zucchini.

Diplomatically changing the subject, Blender asks Key about Lights and Sounds, in which the band cover bleaker subject matter than before, as typified by “Two Weeks From Twenty,” about a U.S. soldier who dies in Iraq just short of graduating from teenagerdom.

“It’s definitely a darker look at the state of the world,” agrees the singer. “There’s no punk rock, fuck-the-government anthem, but we’re not very big fans of the current administration.”With “cheeseburgers” digested and politics chewed over, we head back over to Venice where, at a shop called Good Vibrations, we meet Christine von Liederbach, a “flower essence consultant” who has mixed up a special spray-on fragrance for the band that will, she claims, “enhance energies.”

“We’ve been using the Jack Daniels essence, if you know what I mean,” cracks Parsons.

Such sarcastic comments aside, the band seem genuinely taken with von Liederbach and even spontaneously hug each other in an attempt to show her that the flower essence has had an effect before they depart. Indeed, while the day has had its ups and down, Yellowcard declare it to have been a success. Well, sort of.

“My body is definitely, like, ‘What are you doing to me?’” declares Mosely.

“Meeting the Hulk was pretty rad,” says Key. “But I was careful not to clear my plate at the restaurant.”

And why was that?

“So that I’d have room for a nice juicy steak,” he smiles.

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