Up in the air

Executive: Jessica Muroff, CEO Girl Scouts of West Central Florida. Muroff started her career in marketing, and worked for ChappellRoberts in Tampa and Raymond James. She later ran Frameworks of Tampa Bay, a youth-focused nonprofit. She was named CEO of the Girl Scouts in July. The Girl Scouts district Muroff oversees, with a staff of nearly 70 people, covers eight counties and nearly 20,000 girls.

Diversion: Aerial silks. The sport is part aerobics, part yoga and a big part Cirque du Soleil. It involves being suspended from a ceiling in a special fabric and then wrapping, twisting, spiraling, falling and climbing in a series of maneuvers. “It takes a lot of effort,” says Muroff, “and it's really beautiful.”

Go deeper: Muroff, 38, discovered the sport about a year ago, when she took her daughter to New Level Dance Co. in Tampa, which had a class for kids. Her daughter loved it, and eventually the studio launched a class for adults. Muroff now attends a class once a week. “I love challenges,” she says. “I love to push myself out of my comfort zone.”

Multiple skills: Muroff grew up a on a farm, and has always been athletic and devoted to fitness, both mental and physical. Aerial silks, she discovered, is a way to work out both the body and the mind. Part of getting better is also figuring out what risks to take — and when to hold back. “It takes a lot of core and upper body strength, and it also takes a lot of focus and balance,” she says. “At the end of the hour, you are just wiped out.”

Punch through: Boxing and Pilates are the other sports and workout activities Muroff engages in outside of aerial silks. She's been going to a boxing gym for about three years, and loves the release. “If I've had a hard day,” Muroff says, “going through boxing and punching drills for eight three-minute rounds feels amazing.”

Plan it: Muroff is on multiple civic and philanthropic boards, and interacts regularly with Tampa area business executives. In her other life, she's a busy mom to two daughters. So her exercise time, she says, is crucial to her day. So much so she schedules it in, looking at her weekly appointments on Sunday nights and marking down the classes she will attend. “I don't leave the workouts to chance,” Muroff says. “This is my only me time.”

Bake and take: Muroff doesn't have a strict diet, though she limits sugar and tries to eat mostly fruits and vegetables. For someone dedicated to fitness, she also has an unusual hobby: “I love baking,” Muroff says. “I bake really exotic cakes.” She makes cakes for her daughters birthdays, Halloween, other holidays or just because. She rarely takes a bite of the cakes, she adds.

Keep pushing: There's one side of aerial silks Muroff hasn't been able to pull off: bringing the sport to her house, so she and her daughters could go in the air at home. She thought the ceilings would be high enough, but her husband, an architect, nixed the plan. Says Muroff: “He thought it would be too risky.”

Follow Mark Gordon on Twitter @markigordon