1/10/13
Three weeks in and I have successfully tracked my food and exercise in my phone’s app and been committed to working out. My phone told me I needed to weigh 258 pounds or less today and I came in at 253.5!
In more exciting news, Empower kicked off its group fitness classes with Casino night tonight. It was a great event – gambling is always fun when you don’t lose any actual money. More importantly, I’m stoked to see what all these group fitness class names mean (Tabata? TRX? Vinyasa? HIIT? Nia?…..WTF?).
1/14/13
Group Fitness Class Review
Class: Empower Circuit
Time: Monday, 6:00 AM
Instructor: Angelo
It was a miracle that I made it to a 6 a.m. class on a Monday. I have clearly come a long way from my college self whom rarely made appearances at 8 a.m. classes. Empower Circuit was quite literally a wake-up call. Angelo started us off with a short warm-up before he set up the six stations for our circuit.
Station 1: Sit up with medicine ball slam
Lying on the floor, holding a medicine ball over my head with my body fully extended, I did a sit-up. When I reached the top of the sit up, I bounced the ball, caught it, and lied back down. The difficultly is to not slam your own balls.
Station 2: Three-way TRX rows
Not that kind of three-way. We changed our grip for each row – overhand, hands facing each other, and underhand. My favorite part of working with the TRX cords is how easily and quickly I can step my feet in or out to make it harder or easier depending on how fatigued my muscles are.
Station 3: VIPR twist squats
This one made me feel like I was awkwardly swing-dancing with an unattractive partner. I squatted with the VIPR between my legs, brought it up over my head, twisted it around, and put it back through my legs. I was sweaty, tired, and not good at it – it was like prom all over again!
Station 4: Sand bag slide in plank position
This was a real man’s exercise. In plank position, I had to hold myself up with one arm and reach underneath and across my body with the other arm to pull a large sandbag over. I alternated arms and kept sliding the sandbag back and forth.
Station 5: Bicycles crunches with weighted ball
This exercise was meant for someone with better hand-eye coordination than me. I already struggle with bicycle crunches (perhaps due to the extra fat on my gut that gets in the way of such motions). Now, Angelo threw in a weighted ball that was to be tossed between hands underneath each leg, back and forth while bicycling. Go ahead, picture that. Are you dizzy yet?
Station 6: Plank jacks
These are a killer for me. Holding myself in a plank position, I did a jumping-jack type motion with my legs. By the time I got to station 6 each round, I was on the back seat of the struggle-bus, so I did not complete as many as I would have liked – but the ones I did were certainly difficult.
We cycled through these stations 5 times: 40 seconds the 1st round, 50 seconds the 2nd round, 60 seconds the 3rd round, 50 seconds the 4th round, and 40 seconds the 5th round. I was drenched in sweat and panting from the 1st round on. Angelo is very encouraging though. During the later rounds, he kept saying, “Now is when you are changing yourself.” That stuck with me and motivated me to keep powering through the last reps when I normally would have just waited out the last 5 seconds.
Needless to say, it was a great way to kick start my day and I look forward to taking some more classes with Angelo.
