I’ve been away from my favorite exercise class for more weeks than I care to count. I have good reasons–visiting family out of town, a trip to Cuba, a ferocious case of bronchitis that cut my lung capacity down to a wheeze, and legit appointments. Still, good excuses don’t serve my fitness level nearly as well as the actual classes do.
I started going to this class a year or so ago. For a year before that, I’d been taking classes in the pool thanks to a knee surgery to address a torn meniscus (10 out of 10 would NOT recommend). I’m not a fan of pool aerobics. It’s the swimsuit thing. And the getting all wet business. So I was past ready to participate in some kind of fitness class that didn’t compromise my knees and didn’t require be to be a swimsuit model.
This class, y’all! It’s called BodyPump and it was designed by fitness mastermind Les Mills. It’s billed as “a total body workout that will burn calories, shape and tone your entire body, increase core strength and improve bone health.” It’s also low impact–necessary since my knees have used up all their cartilage. That squishy stuff that keeps your bones from scraping against each other? Yeah, doc says mine is all gone in the knee joints.
So anyway, I finally got back to the class Monday and holy moly! Gracious that’s a workout. I knew before the hour ended that I would pay for my extended absence with achy muscles the next day. Oh boy did I ever. Deltoids–those pesky little muscles at the collar bone? Yeah, I’d forgotten they were there too until they screeched their presence when I pulled back the covers. And my quadriceps? Good grief. Drama queens, they complained the livelong day. Whenever I moved from sitting to standing you would have thought I was climbing Everest. Equally fussy? The quads backdoor neighbor, my hamstrings. Sheesh. Can’t a woman miss a month of class without the whole body acting like it has been mutilated?
The next class was Wednesday and that morning I was still ridiculously sore. So guess what I did? Yep. I went back to class and did it all over again.
Fitness, for me, is a series of restarts. If I gave up because of sore muscles or lengthy gaps between workouts, I’d never get off the couch. So I start over. And then I start over again.
