Wednesday 8th August - Body Pump
The description of this class on the booking page is "Simple, safe and effective! Resistance training exercises taken from the gym to the studio and set to powerful music." Looking back at it now it all makes sense, but being a gym noob and only breezing through the descriptions, it is understandable that both Lorraine and I were expecting your average aerobics type class.
I stood at 9.20 on this unhappy morning looking into the class, mouth gaping. When Lorraine entered the gym I walked towards her with a look of fear on my face she tells me has kept her sniggering to herself for the rest of Wednesday. The class being set out ahead of me was the class that Lorraine, Collette and I had seen finishing off before Body Combat on Monday. Weights - with bars - steps, mats and God knows what else. We all agreed this class looked horrific.
Lorraine and I entered, assuming that the empty equipment was not occupied and had been put there by the gym instructor. Only to be told by some, quite frankly butch, middle aged women that we had to set up our own equipment. We started to gather what we needed and realised there was no space in the room for us to set up. Bloody people sneaking into the class when they're only on the waiting list. Tsk tsk tsk. We look one look at each other and our minds converged. "Shall we run away?" I offered. So out of the studio we scrambled and onto the gym floor.
Not wanting to waste our time and abundance of energy (!) we spent 10 minutes on the sit down bikes, 10 minutes on the hand bikes and 10 minutes on some exceedingly bouncy cross trainers that made you feel like you were running through a meadow.
We then followed up with some arm, leg and ab weight training. It was pretty good doing it in twos because you'd get into a good habit of swapping machine so your workout was a little more well rounded. All went pretty smoothly until I decided to stretch out my legs, effectively blocking in and mooning the poor old man who had just finished on the machine behind me and was too polite to ask me to move. It had to happen at some point.
A few glances back into the studio room we do not regret our decision to run away from Body Pump. Nor will we be returning to it at any point in the future.
Workout gets 10/10 purely because it was not Body Pump.
Thursday 9th August - CORE'N'TONE
This was a MAN class. Only women attended, but it was definitely a MAN class. "An innovative workout that helps build strength from the inside. Each session focuses on technique, with intensive training for abdominal and lower back muscles. Improving balance and posture". This entry will go into how CORE N TONE is none of these things.
At the beginning of this class the women stood nervously around the edge. Which is strange for a gym class because normally as soon as you enter the doors you know exactly what you're doing. Maybe it's something you get in the 25+ membership because I'm still lost as anything.
We began with a MAN warm up. No aerobics, grapevine etc. Full on P.E. warm up. Jogging in a circle followed by windmill arms and not a lot else. I will also point out that the instructor only joined in for the windmill arms and was laughing at people who couldn't do the arms-in-opposite-direction thing. I was laughing because he was doing it wrong and didn't even notice. Idiot.
Then we divided into groups and have to get equipment. We had to get the weights with the bars. Shit. It became apparently this is not an ab and back class, which it would have been had it been run by a woman. But nope, it's just circuits. MAN gym class. So we have to do the exercises which are badly spaced out (all the arm ones are together with no break. Silly.)
I should also mention at this point a lady who I will name Sweaty McGee.
Dear Ms. McGee: Nobody, I repeat, NOBODY wants you to go on a step machine until you are DRIPPING with sweat ad then attend a class in which equipment is used and shared. Sincerely, The World.
She was in the group just ahead of me, which meant our group had to avoid using her equipment. It wasn't hard to figure out - it was the one with sweat dripping all over it. In the second half we had to sit against the mirrors and dear LORD did she leave her mark. Vom.
So the class was pretty hard work. But nearly all the stations focused on arms and legs. Which (of course I'm not a gym instructor) are different to your abs and lower back. Everything was covered quickly so there was no focus on technique and doing two minutes on each exercise isn't my definition of "intensive". To top it off our MAN instructor didn't join in, wasn't particularly helpful or motivating. The music was too quiet and too slow.
3/10. I won't be returning.
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