May 21st: Friday Muscle Class -- Urgh!!!

This class is my least favorite class at the Y, and I go to it on rare occasions. The class is a combination of aerobics and weight training but neither component is really challenging. The weights we use are light: body bars and dumbbells, and the aerobic portion of the workout is at a level appropriate for chain smokers and asthmatics. Also, my personal preference naturally lean towards class that have us running around and moving about more, therefore standing in lines in a small rooming doing what really amounts to nothing more than a warm up is not how I normally spend my workout time. I am out to punish myself for years of inactivity, not give myself a workout that is the equivalent of afternoon tea. In addition to all of this, the thing that really makes me nuts about this class is that it never changes. The songs are the same, the warm up is the same, the exercises never change, and the instructor seems to not notice that most of the people in the class know her routine better than she does. I hadn't taken this class in five months, but could have told you the exercises we were going to do, in order, before the class even started.

So, why did I go? Well two reasons: one, I know that the muscle classes are good for focusing attention on muscle groups and working them in a more controlled manner, which I need because I have been doing only intensive conditioning classes, and I am starting to see a lot of fatigue injuries. Two, there was suppose to be a different instructor on that morning, and when she teaches the class it is truly a strengthening class. She eliminates the aerobics aspects and focuses on giving you an intensive muscle strengthening workout. However, something happened and the original instructor showed up instead of the sub and I ended up doing a light warm up. The only good thing about this class was that I had put in a pretty heavy workout week, and I needed a light day. Honestly, the just sucked. The instructor for some reason even noticed that I was wearing my Washington Capitals shirt and thought that I might want to chat about how they got bounced out of the playoffs in the first round. Really? Who wants to talk about how their team got embarrassed at 5:30am with a room full strangers will your doing a geriatric home workout routine? Not me!! Anyway, I made the best of it, and next time I go to the muscle class I'll wait for the instructor to enter the room before I go in. Lesson learned.