Working Out Again

I went to my first work out class in years.  Seriously y'all.  Yearrrrrrs.  But 40 is staring me down and I have a goal to hit before that milestone birthday.  So here go my adventures in working out.

My sister is all about home workouts and I got a program from her, but I lack motivation.  We did it some, but it just didn't work for me.  My home is far from being free of distractions.  I already get up crazy early for work (5am), so getting up even earlier to work out in my living room, where my kids will surely hear me and wake up isn't ideal.  And when I get home in the evening, I'm busy doing dinner, a little play time with the kids, cleaning up dinner, some chores, bath time, bed time...you know, ALL THE THINGS.  By the time I get my crazy kids settled locked upstairs, I'm gassed out and ready for bed myself.

My solution was to join the gym near work, get up at the same time as always but instead of getting fully ready, just get in the car and drive to work.  The commute is 1000x faster at that ungodly hour, so I get downtown in time for the 5:30am class and just get ready for work in the locker room. Upside is NO TRAFFIC (can I get an amen?), downside is locker room and shower shoes take me back to living in dorms.  Gross.

DAY 1:
My first class was called CXWork at Gold's gym.  It's only 30 minutes.  I can do anyhting for 30 minutes, right? Well clearly I looked out of place because the instructor pegged me immediately and asked "are you new?"  Well yes, yes I am.  What gave me away...the spare tire around my belly?  The fear in my eyes?  My confused look about what the ever-loving shit are all the things people have laid out before them and was I supposed to bring them?  Do I need to go buy this crap?   The instructor then kindly guided me to some secret side area where all the said crap was kept (a mat, a free weight and a bungee band thingy with handles - I'm sure there are proper names for these things, but I don't know them).  She was all "we have 5, 10, or 15 pound weights.  Which would you prefer?"  Ummmm, 5 please.  I'm here lady, but let's not get carried away.  Also, I wanted to spray it all down with my Thieves Spray.  Ewwww.  But alas, I have a bikini goal so I got over the grodies.

I went to the back of the room with all the things and set up behind everyone else,  who I was certain had all been going for years and could probably teach the damn routines.  How I can go from a self-assured confident women to a sheepish, insecure neophyte is beyond me.  But there I was, feeling very nervous about being able to follow along.

Now look, I've always considered myself athletic and coordinated.  I played sports growing up and I was pretty good at them.  I played left wing in soccer up through my sophomore year of high school (I had always been right wing until my super amazing coach Gary Wilson convinced me to try lefty at some point and I scored my first time out with a strong left foot), I played 2nd base in softball and was always in the top of the batting lineup.  Then I was a cheerleader in high school that danced and tumbled and stunted.  Cheering was basically non-stop aerobics and cardio.  I say all of this to say I have been athletic and coordinated my entire life.  OK, OK "entire life" is a stretch...my entire life up until 18.  That was a long time ago, but I was good at stuff.  I also say all of this to say that just because you were once all of these things, that don't mean shit now!

Planks - who the f*ck made these a thing.  Good God!  And the bungee tube thingy with handles - zero control.  I mean I had zero frickin' control.  It was snapping all over the place, making it totally obvious that I was 1. new and 2. totally uncoordinated.   Picture Phoebe running but with tubes.  HOT MESS EXPRESS.  The damn thing wouldn't stay under my feet like everyone else.  Clearly I don't have the prowess for this advanced level of shit yet.

Remember when i said "I can do anything for 30 minutes", well, I was wrong.  I CAN NOT do that tube shit.  But I stuck it out because even if no longer coordinated, I am still highly competitive and deem myself "not a quitter" so I finished the class.


BodyPump:
So the next workout was a class called BudyPump.  I didn't read the description.  I figured it was some kind of high energy (pumped up) cardio class.  I knew it would be painful, but was ready to face it head on.  I parked at work then walked the 3 blocks to the gym as I did the day before. It was still pitch black outside, as it tends to be at 5:30 in the frickin' morning and this new routine renders me terrified of all the, um, street people waking from their stupors to ask me for stuff but a little jog  running for your life before class is a good warm up right?  Anyways, as I approached the gym I slowed my panicked run down and noticed I could see inside the class windows as other early risers got all their equipment ready for class.  Great!  A new class with more equipment I know nothing about. I peeked in closer and they all had barbels in front of them.  With weights....lots and lots of big weights on them.    Wait, what?!  WHAT?  My friend Christie had mentioned that she attended this class sometimes but made no mention of weights.  I was apparently so scared of this that I turned right around and ran back to my office past all the mumbling/waking homeless .  I felt a little defeated and like a quitter, but whatever.  My office building does have a workout facility with some stuff, so I went and used one of the treadmills so the morning wasn't a total loss.


BodyPump Round 2:
I asked Christie to escort me to the BodyPump class to help me navigate the weights situation.  I wanted to try to go again, but I needed backup.  I convinced her to wake at the crack of dawn (she's soooooo not an early bird) to meet me there and show me the way.  It actually wasn't as scary as I had made it out to be once she got me all set up.  It was hard for sure, but I felt good afterward.

PiYo:
OK, so I was majorly sore from the BodyPump workout but didn't want to skip 2 days in a row.  You see, I missed the day after that BodyPump class because Lucy Bell had woken in the middle of the night and ended up in our bed.  When my alarm went off at 4:45, she begged me to stay in bed and cuddle her more.  I challenge you to say no to that!

Anyways, the only class on the following day (which is today actually) was PiYo.  Confession:  I've never done Yoga or Pilates.  I have yoga pants for sure, but I've never actually done it. In my head, this would be a class full of stretching and poses and low impact and just what all my very, very, very sore muscles needed. WRONG.  Hollleeeeeeyyyyy shit.  That was harder than the BodyPump.  I was happy to walk in and see no equipment in front of all the other attendees other than a mat.  I'm always happy with those damn bungee cords aren't involved.  But oh my goodness, I was not prepared for that.  It was INTENSE.  And the intensity combined with my all over soreness was a recipe for disaster.  I was shaking and wobbling and embarrassingly failing at ALL OF IT.  It was an hour class and in the first 5 minutes I began hatching a plan to pretend I had to leave for a meeting at the 30 min mark.  No way I would survive an hour of this.  But alas, I stuck it out.  I thought for sure my legs would buckle under me at any given moment, but they didn't fail me.  I mean, they barely got me back to work and to my car to go home (I sweat way more than I planned and didn't bring my shower stuff), but my legs are in fact still attached to my body, so I'll call it a win.

My big take aways from these classes are:

1. I am so very out of shape
2. I am so very uncoordinated 
3. I am so very unflexible

Good news is I am able bodied and can rectify all of these things.   In the meantime, I'll be nursing my sore muscles with some things that Mother Nature made.  Well actually, she didn't make them, she just provided the ingredients and some smart people at my fav oily company Young Living put them all together for me.  My recovery kit includes:

1. Epsom salt soaks with essential oils or the new bath bombs from Young Living 
2. Deep Relief
3. PanAway (comes in the new member kit)
4. Cool Azul Pain Cream 
5. Ortho Sport Massage Oil

You can get all of these things here if you're interested.

Stay tuned for more updates on my work out adventures.  There are a few classes I have tried yet so there are certainly more opportunities for me to look like a new born giraffe that doesn't know how her legs work.