Tennis and bicycling are great cardio activities. I'm very fortunate that I enjoy doing both as they are great calorie burners. But cardio is not enough. Strength training is important as well. Maybe even more important, as it builds muscle which burns more calories and fat.
I absolutely hate strength training.
So with dread in my heart, I headed over to the gym next door during my lunch hour yesterday. At least I was attending an exercise class and not trying to work out on my own. I'm not at all good at motivating myself.
Upper Cut is described as a muscle toning class which will focus on the upper body. It will increase strength, develop muscles, and teach proper weight training technique. Dumbbells, dynabands, and one's own body weight will be used for resistance.
Add in crappy, rewritten 80's tunes and you've got yesterday's class.
Despite it all, it was a fairly good class. The music was a bit too loud and I had trouble hearing the instructor. As I was laying on my back on top of an exercise ball, it was hard to keep an eye on her. But I fumbled through, hopefully with proper form, and all of my upper body muscles are tired and sore today. I kept the weights light, not wanting to over do it.
When Upper Cut was over, I stayed for Hard Core. Abdominal exercises. Definitely something I wouldn't do without someone prodding me. Things were moving along fine with the usual crunches and side crunches. And then we did something called Pass the Ball.
In this exercise, you hold a giant exercise ball between your feet, you crunch up and reach for the ball and take in in your hands. Then you lower your hands and your feet, without touching the floor, then reach back up and grab the ball between your feet again. Continue passing the ball back and forth until you die.
The end.
Seriously. Oh. My. God did that hurt! Worked the hard-to-work lower abs for sure. But ouch! And if doing it in class weren't enough, I demonstrated this tortuous exercise for Tom last night and I swear I pulled an ab muscle. Is that even possible? All I know is that it hurt really bad and I couldn't get up from the floor without Tom's help. I staggered over to the couch and collapsed. Then I couldn't get up from the couch and he had to help me again. I started to feel better, eventually, but I had to be very careful for the rest of the evening not to do anything that engaged the abdominal muscles.
Have I mentioned that I absolutely hate strength training?
I HATE the exercise ball! Yuck!
Posted by: Heather | January 14, 2009 at 06:20 PM