Boot Camp and Awaken Yoga

Well, I'm writing this more than a week after I took the classes because I just haven't found (made?) the time to sit down and type up my thoughts.  A Friday ago I went in early enough to fit in two classes before work.  The first was "Boot Camp" and the second was "Awaken Yoga," which seemed a nice way to cool down after Boot Camp.

Boot Camp is held in the gym, so it's easy to watch and I've seen it (mainly just walking past it on the way to/from the locker room) enough to know that there's a warmup which the whole class does together and then the class breaks up into multiple stations through which the groups rotate.  I arrived about ten minutes early (well, 5 minutes early, the class started 5 minutes after the appointed time) and observed a couple of clusters of people who obviously were familiar with each other.  One group was some younger women (late teens-early 20s) and the other group was a pack of men and women of a broader range, though tending toward late 30s-40s).  I walked around a little and determined I didn't fit in with either group; the first for obvious reasons, the second for a vibe of cliquey-ness and general meatheadedness (don't worry, I'll explain).

[Side trip, in which I share my thoughts on workout partners]

Historically, I haven't had many workout partners, at least any that I stuck with for long.  I enjoy working out, enjoy working out alone [exception: swimming] and have a hard time finding the right dynamic with a partner in the gym.  I've only had two that I really enjoyed, and they couldn't be much more different.  Donavon was a guy I lifted with back in high school and we were in quite similar places fitness-wise and had fairly similar goals. Cory was a young lady (8-10 years my junior) in a very different physical place and with very different goals.  What they both had in common was that they were both supportive and encouraging, but not too much so.  They both had a great feel for when I needed a spot, when I needed an extra motivational "You can do this!" or whatever and when it was just a great time to take a break and chat a bit.  [I hope like hell they look back and feel the same way about me.  I'm happy working out alone, but I've never been happier than when working out with Donavon and Cory.]    

The two things I've really never enjoyed was the partner who gave too much encouragement, or even worse, the negative motivators, the people with horrible trash talk skills that is mostly reduced to "you suck!" in an effort to tap into that extra motivation that some people get from anger.  I'll confess that I succumb to that motivation, I can do quite well angry, but I don't enjoy it and prefer the more positive encouragement.  These negative motivators, are the ones I tend to associate with the term "meathead" though there's more to my connotation for that term that isn't particularly relevant here, maybe another time I'll expand on that thought.

[End Side Trip]

Okay, back to the gym for Boot Camp

So, as I walked past the second group, or when hovering nearby, I caught a lot of snippets of their conversation which were mostly variants on the themes of "You suck," "I'm way better than you," and the ilk.  Obviously that works for them, and more power to them for that, but it's not the vibe I like.  The class started and I was a fair distance away from that group during the warmup, which was fine...nice variety of drills to get loose and start the heart pumping.  When we broke into groups, I headed for one of the stations only to realize right after I got there that the meatheads had bee-lined for the same station.  

I won't go into detail on all the stations and each of the exercises we did at each station.  I can sum up the experience in three points:

1. I worked my butt off, I haven't worked that hard in a long time.  
2. I got some great new drills/exercises that I'm incorporating into my workouts.  
3. I didn't enjoy the class.  

I suspect part of point 3 may have been that the people in my group rubbed me the wrong way with their repartee, but it may have been the class.  I'm giving the class the benefit of the doubt and will probably give it another shot and be a bit more aware of the people in the group I choose.  (I almost added "or just tune them out," but if I'm tuning people out, I might as well just work out alone.)

Off to Awaken Yoga

[Full disclosure: I've taken this class a few times before, but wanted to take it in the process of this silly little quest of mine to make it official.]

Since the yoga class started at the same time that Boot Camp was finishing up, I had gone to the yoga room early to lay out my mat so I could just go right upstairs from the gym and start yoga-ing.  Normally this class is run by Kelly, but she's been training a gal named Jenny.  Jenny lead us through the workout while Kelly walked around the room giving pointers and helping with form.  It's a pretty low-impact (even for yoga) workout.  That said, after Boot Camp, my thighs were dying so I was a bit shaky doing a few poses, primarily Warrior I and Warrior II, as both put a lot of weight onto one leg.  I really like that class for loosening up if I'm particularly stiff or if I'm stiff and sore from other, previous days' workouts and want some recovery while still getting into the gym and doing something.  Kelly generally has some nice music (nothing too new age-y, normally Harry Connick, Jr., Norah Jones or Enya) and the sun generally comes up partway through the class so it's a really nice easy way to start the day.  

A week of bad attendance

This has not been a good week for taking classes at the Y.  I intentionally skipped a couple of days earlier this week because I had some really bad stiffness in my neck and upper back.  Then, this morn, I was all prepared to get up at 4:00 and head to the 5:00 CrossTrain class.  I was laying in bed this morn, having, I thought, awoken before my alarm and thinking that I couldn't be that much earlier than my alarm, so I tried to maximize my sleep.  Problem was, there was a bird chirping loudly and frenetically.  Eventually it hit me that the birds don't tend to make much noise in the 3:00 hour.  I grabbed the clock and found it was 6:58.  I'd set the alarm for 4, but hadn't turned it on.  Oops.

Cycling with the Spin Dr.

Thursday morning I returned to the Y with the intent of attending the Boot Camp class.  I was worried that I dallied too much and would be late.  (For these classes, I'm trying to show up ~5 minutes early to get a feel for it, make sure I'm all set and perhaps talk to the instructor a bit to get a lay of the land.  Since I'll likely only take most of these classes once, I want to get the full experience.)  Well, I wasn't late for Boot Camp...there wasn't a Boot Camp planned for Thursday.  When I'd gone to bed I was setting my alarm to make it to the CROSS TRAIN class, not Boot Camp.  By the time I realized this and ascertained the room in which the Cross Train class was taking place, I was, indeed, late.  I walked by the room and looked in.  It seemed they were just doing some light warm-up type activities, but I opted not to straggle in late and try to get assimilated into the Borg, er, class.

So, I went and checked the other schedules and discovered that in less than a half-hour there would be a Cycling class!  Not only that, but it was a Cycling class run by The Spin Dr; the exact class and instructor I'd missed out on Tuesday when I opted to get a decent night's sleep!

So, how was class?  It was pretty much what I'd expected. (Note: years ago I took a "spinning" class and didn't much care for it then.)  I understand why The Spin Dr. is very popular.  He has a lot of enthusiasm, obviously loves what he's doing, plus, his varied and eclectic playlist made for an interesting game of "what's next?" as to the music we'd be hearing.  Speaking of which, there was one amusing moments during Gin Blossoms' "Follow You Down" where there's a bit of a harmonica solo.  He whipped out a harmonica and played along.  He did it quite well too.  But, ultimately, it's sitting in a room pedaling, not going anywhere.  It's a great workout and the Dr. did an admirable job of mixing it up, but it still didn't do it for me.

(Side note: the Y has these "Expresso" bikes that have a CGI video of a bunch of different courses you can ride.  There are other "bikers" on the video, going various speeds, you can set a pacer who wears a yellow jersey, and you can even have a "ghost" of your own best ride if you've done the course before.  Moreover, these bikes give a visual sense of what the course is, the other riders help give extra motivation and you can see the hills coming...and coming to a merciful end as well.  Plus, it tracks your heart rate (if you keep your hands on the sensor portions of the handlebars) as well as a bunch of other stats on your performance.  If you don't want to try to remember every little bit from the ride but want to track how your doing when you're not there, you can create a profile to log in and check out all your rides through their website any time.  My general disdain for stationary equipment stops at these bikes, I'm a big fan of them.)

Oh, an amusing thing I got out of the class, well, not so much from the class, but from the playlist.  The good Dr. played Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca."  I don't much care for most pop and that song definitely isn't one I'd chose to listen to.  However, while it was on I realized that there's some great bass playing in there.  There's not nearly enough to make me like the song, but I certainly found that a pleasant surprise.

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Yesterday (Friday) I went back to the Swim Fit class.  I really enjoyed it on Monday and from talking to them, found out that Fridays are when they do a lot of dry land stuff and really mix it up.  Plus, I suspect I'll continue doing this class after this silly quest is over.

I got there a bit early and chatted a bit with Beth, the instructor, letting her know that I was planning to become more of a regular, but that I was in the process of taking all the classes so my attendance would be a bit hit and miss for a bit.  About this time, two regulars arrived, Jeff and Trev so we all talked a bunch about classes we've done and classes we want to take.  I may end up letting them know that I'm writing this blog so they can peruse it for my analysis.  [If I do and any of you guys are reading this, HI!]

We did a bunch of lunges, planking, pushups, stretching and squats (possibly more, it was early) on the pool deck to warm up, then hopped into the pool.  The workout probably had fewer than 1,000 yards.  That does NOT mean we didn't bust our butts.  There was a lot of fun, hard drills like diving to the bottom of the pool for a brick, then treading water with it until our heads disappear.  Also fun was sprinting (swimming) to the shallow end then doing different kinds of jumps (squat jumps and another one whose name I forget).  This post is already getting plenty long and trying to describe, in detail, all the drills we did would take a while so I'll simply say that I continue to really enjoy the class and am looking forward to continuing it.

With that in mind, I gave Beth my email address so she can add me to the class's mailing list.  Now I'll get the workouts in my inbox so while I'm on the quest and the other classes prevent me from going to Swim Fit, I can still do the workouts on my own.  Whee!!

Derailed

Okay, after deciding to get a good night's sleep Monday night and skipping class on Tuesday, I went to Natalie's last night and we went out for a wine tasting/dinner.  It wrapped up at a very reasonable time so I was going to get back to my quest, but then realized I hadn't brought my workout gear.  Oops.  Now I'm back home, going to get things organized and figure out what class to take tomorrow morning!

Plan Aborted

Due to a combination of staying up a bit too late and my bed just feeling waaaay too good this morning, I decided that the optimal course of action was to sleep in for another 90 minutes and skip the class I'd planned to attend.  Stay tuned.

Class 1 Review

AquaFit was great!  As I think I mentioned, I struggle with motivation when swimming laps on my own.  I frequently max out around 2,000 and it feels like a drag.  I've made it up to around 2,500 yards a couple of times, but by the time I got there I was hating it.  Today's class was run by a woman named Beth.  I was the first person there (intentionally) so we chatted a bit about the class and my normal workouts.  She seemed confident that I'd fit in with the class well and she was right.

I enjoyed the people I was swimming with (today's workout was all in the water) but most of all, I really enjoyed the extra sense of both camaraderie and competition that comes from doing the same workout with some other folks.  A couple of them were close to the same level as me which really helped provide some extra push.  The workout had some great variety without feeling like any of the drills were novelties or trying too hard.  It was a good solid workout.

Possibly the best part came at the end, after finishing the main workout, when Beth said, "Ok, just do an easy 150 warm-down, however you want and you're done...2,350 yards for the day."  WHAT?!  That felt like nothing!  And it was 2,350 yards?  SWEET!!!!  (Truth be told, the workout was pretty tough and my quads and calves were both close to cramping up, but, compared to the mental effort it has taken to push myself to barely get to 2,000 yards, this was a piece of cake.

I'm really looking forward to taking this class again and anticipate that I might become a regular.  At one point today, I even thought about scrapping the whole "take all the classes" plan so I could just keep doing this one.  But, I want to follow-through on it, partly because I might find that I really like some of the other classes too...we shall see!

Tomorrow morn is my second class and it's "Cycling" and, according to the schedule, it's run by "The Spin Doctor."  Excellent.

Class 1: SwimFit

As I mentioned the other day, I'm going to take a whole lot of classes at my gym, the YMCA in Silverdale.  Tomorrow I'm starting with SwimFit, which the notes on the schedule describes thusly, "SwimFit is a registered proram that provides guided workouts and swimming instruction for all levels of lap swimmers, triathletes and open water swimmers.  These workouts include lap swimming, cross fitness and dry land components."

When I've been swimming laps, I've noticed this class from time to time and it struck me as something I might enjoy since it combines swimming with, well, other forms of exercise.  Though a swimmer, one dedicated to the all-around, low-impact benefits of lap swimming, I've always found it colossally boring.  So mixing in some dry land activities in there has a lot of appeal.

So, that's my plan for tomorrow morning.  We'll see how it goes.