Until this morning, I thought I was in excellent physical condition. After this morning, I realized the joke was on me.
Almost every exercise we did this morning was something I hate doing. I hate push ups. I hate lunges. I hate dead lifts. I hate jumping jacks.
Then there were the new exercises that I learned to hate too. The fake swimming exercise with stretchy rope thingies hooked to the wall, the reverse push ups with some straps hanging from the ceiling while lying almost parallel to the floor and holding onto the straps, jumping up on giant tires, the mountain climber exercises with sliding things under my feet, the burpee thing (ugh!).
I wish I could say it was fun, but when is pain fun? When is panting, sweating and gasping for air fun, especially when a young, 20-something handsome male is pushing you really hard, telling you "KEEP GOING, FASTER!!! FASTER!!!"? After fifteen minutes I thought to myself, 'if I get out of here alive, I AM NEVER COMING BACK!'.
After 35 minutes, my heart rate monitor said I'd burned 276 calories. It always reads half of whatever the machines say, so it's fairly accurate. Thirty minutes on the StairMaster only burns 200 calories, so I was happy with the results. Normally the bootcamp class is 45 minutes, but since today was my intro class the first ten minutes was spent going over the exercises with me.
Am I going back on Wednesday? Of course. Will I keep going after my month is up? No. One, normally it's $247 a month which is ridiculous. There are only three people in the morning class, which is also odd. The guy that owns/manages/teaches and is the CEO is about 20. He's in great shape, but he's 20! He was nice and seemed to know what he was doing, but the place was kind of strange.
I was slightly flattered when the owner said he would have to up my weights next time because the 15-pound dumbbells were obviously too light for me and the dead lift weight (I have no idea how much - it was a kettle ball) was too light. Next time he said he'd make sure I used heavier weights than the other women. I guess that's a good thing.
The most valuable lesson I learned today is that I don't push myself hard enough on my own, and I'm very competitive when it comes to exercising. Hence, group exercise classes are probably what I need to focus on to get the best workout possible.
When other people are doing the hard stuff, like push ups, it's hard for me to say I can't do it. I feel like I have to prove something, like I may be 20 years older than you, but I can do everything you can do (and more!).
Overall it was okay. Maybe it'll be more fun when I feel more comfortable with the exercises. It was a lot of stuff to learn very quickly, and a lot of hard work. Plus the ton of lunges I did just about killed me. My butt is already sore!
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