Spurred on by my rekindled love of taking exercise classes (thank you, Zumba!) I decided to sign up for an exercise class through our city's parks and rec department.* After perusing the list of options for the spring session, I decided to take "low-impact aerobics". It met at a good time of day on a good day of the week, it was cheap (only about $6 a class!), and it was nearby. It was perfect.
I had a little buyer's remorse after signing up for the class and wondered if it was going to be worth the hype in my head; I tend to get a little psyched up for things and take them to a level that the actual event could never live up to. So I tried to put it out of my head onto the back burner for a while.
Today was my first class, and after getting the kids situated with my mother-in-law (thanks again, Paula!) I hurried down the icy streets to the class. Luckily, I had actually properly estimated the amount of time it would take to get there, so I made it there just in time; usually I over or underestimate it so badly that I end up either with tons of extra time or horribly rushed. It was nice to be neither on the first day of class.
So, how'd it go? All in all, I'd say it went well. As I thought might happen, I was younger than everyone else in the class by at least fifteen years (up to forty years, as I think one of the ladies might have been in her seventies). And because there was a nasty little storm during the night, we only had five people in the class, including myself. Being the youngest one in the class was an interesting experience. I was almost liberated from feeling like I had to be the best; I made a few mistakes here and there, but I found myself thinking, "These ladies know that no one is perfect. They don't care what I'm doing." I don't know why I thought this of the biddies (as I came to call the other ladies in my head - though they are not "biddies" in the sense that they were gossipy or mean, just older than me) and not of the ladies my own age in my Zumba class, but sometimes thoughts just pop into your head, you know?
Anyhow, I digress. The aerobics part of the class was fun, repetitive, and a good workout. You could easily modify it to make it more difficult if you wanted to, or easier if you were having trouble or needed a break. I ended up being able to do all the aerobics without much trouble, no doubt because of Zumba and working out on our recumbent bike in the morning.
After the aerobics section of the class, the instructor asked us to get a drink of water and take a little walk around the classroom to bring our heart rates down. All of these ladies, including the instructor, knew each other from previous classes, so I ended up walking around by myself watching the pack of ladies in front of me chatting and smiling away.
Then came the strengthening exercises. Holy crap, I was not prepared for that. First, we did squats across the room four times, during which I noticed that I was getting a little dizzy. Then we got our weights and did an arm workout. I have to admit, I brought three-pound weights and those were almost too much for me, while all of biddies in the class brought five-pound weights and did just fine. You'd think toting around a nearly-40 pound kiddo would bulk up your strength, but you'd be wrong. After that, we did lady-style push ups or butterfly moves with our weights. Our instructor told us that the push ups were definitely the more difficult of the two, so I had it in my head that - being the young one of the group - I would be doing the push ups and only the push ups. Yeah, about halfway through I had to switch to the butterfly move.
Then we did two one-minute plank moves. Again, she told us ways we could modify it to make it easier (either the hard way on your feet or the easier way on your knees). Full of youthful hubris, I chose the feet for my first session of plank. Oh ... dear ... God. I felt like I was dying about thirty seconds into it. But I pressed on and finished the first session on my feet. The stretch afterward felt amazing but too short. Then we got into plank again, and this time I was forced to choose the "easier" way; I still struggled through the whole minute. And after two minutes of plank, we did crunches ... a lot of them. At one point I had to stop because I thought I was going to die. Not literally, but holy moley that was rough.
After a few more floor exercises and some stretching, the class was done. And so was I. Yikes!
I hobbled to my car, astonished at the biddies around me who do this twice a week and have been doing this for who knows how long, and I decided that this would be a good learning experience for me if nothing else. I need to learn to pace myself, to listen to my body and do only what I can; pushing yourself is great, but not to the point that you can't move later on.
The kids did great with my mother-in-law but were still excited to see me when I got home, which always feels good. After a quick shower, we said goodbye to Grandma and hopped in the car to visit Oma and Aunt Christine. Since the class, though, I had been noticing a good amount of dizziness if I moved much at all. As it turns out, I got a bit of vertigo from some of the exercises, so it was good to have some other adults around to help with the kids. We had dinner there, as my husband had a meeting for a group project, and after dinner I noticed I started feeling worse. At first I thought the Bonine I had taken wasn't agreeing with me, but soon I discovered something much worse. *sigh* Much, much worse.
Anyhow, hopefully I'll be recovered from everything by next week and can apply what I learned in this class to the next one. We'll see.
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