By the time we reached our last night home and I was relaxing in my (elastic waist, duh) leggings, we had already agreed to join a gym immediately upon getting back to Boston, and we did just that-- the YMCA a couple of towns over from us. Now, our house is in a perfect little suburb, but I quickly came to realize that the quality of the surrounding gyms was seriously lacking. I suppose they do their job, but several of our options were in little strip malls with all of the cardio and weights in one room together, no classes, no shower/locker room facilities-- blech. We broadened our search to another town, which we drive through every night on our way home from work and is only 10 minutes from our house, and came across the YMCA. There are tons of classes (my favorite) in three different studios, a huge cardio/weights area, a family pool and lap pool, indoor tennis courts, and outdoor pools/tennis courts for the summer-- perfect, right? We accepted the fact that saying "My gym is the YMCA-- there are children, meatheads, kids our age and grandmas" made us feel old and married, and signed ourselves up.
When it comes to working out, keeping things fresh and new is what tends to keep me interested. I cannot run on the treadmill every single day for 40 minutes, and then do the same weights workout over and over again. Instead, I try to do my own mix-up of cardio + weights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, and take classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I was so excited to see that the gym offers Body Pump classes on MWF and weekend mornings, but I'm always a little intimidated to start a class for the first time-- it's so stressful! You don't know what equipment to pull, how heavy the weights will be, not to mention trying to follow along with everyone else who has been taking the class for who knows how long. Well, I bit the bullet and took the class last night, and it was fantastic! I did my own little cardio warm-up since I was at the gym pretty early, then went to wait outside of the door for the class in our studio to wrap up so that we could go inside. A super nice lady asked if it was my first time and offered to help me get set-up (seriously, thank the Lord for nice people like that. I'll be paying that one forward!), and the instructor also asked if anyone was new, so she was helpful at giving me cues and giving subtle corrections without calling me out in front of the entire class-- points for her as well!
Like I said, I loved the class but I'm still not positive how the format of Body Pump works-- is the music the same every single class? Does the workout ever change or only when a new release is... released? Everyone was all pumped up about a new release coming out this past Monday, so apparently that was what we did last night and it was intense! I loved it regardless because it took the guess work out of the workout-- you basically do multiple combinations of the same movements, so you know you're going to have to do 3 sets of the same combo. I personally really enjoy lifting-- it's so rewarding to see your body start to tone, and to feel yourself growing stronger, but I tend to get burnt out when I write up my own weight routines, so this format, as well as the entire class being set in beat to a music playlist, really felt like a great fit for me. I'm super sore this morning, but I'm feeling sore in all of the places that are needing to feel sore, so this is good!
Here's hoping that starting off on the right foot in January will get me into a good routine as we go into spring/summer! What's that saying-- summer bodies are built in the winter? I think that will be my mantra on these cold, icky days that I don't want to work out-- already working for the beach!
And, just because this consistently makes me want to get up and dance:
You're welcome.
And, just because this consistently makes me want to get up and dance:
You're welcome.
Cheers, friends!
