November 1, 2016 –
“Newton’s first law of motion, sometimes referred to as the law of inertia. An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”
For over 11 years, I have been taking the same weekly Pilates session with the same instructor. Over they years, the class has gone from 4 people to semi-private to now private lessons. In November, my Pilates instructor had surgery and with the holidays, I was looking at possibly 1 lesson for the entire month. Not good.
In addition, with all of the kids off to school by 7:00am, it leaves me time to have longer morning workouts; plus I moved my 6:00am Pilates session to a later time, so I can be home in the morning with the kids. I decided now was the time to mix up the routine.
I usually look at November as my “workout January”. While everyone eats their way through October-December and then decides to get to the gym in January, I like to make a point to work out during the holidays; feeling less guilty about junk I eat, and also, I tend to eat less of it as well.
So with all of this change, I decided to take my first ever Cycling class. I have biked all my life, but have never taken a “spin” class. November 1st, 2016 was on a Tuesday, so I hit the gym at 7:00am for a Cycle45 class – should be a 45 minute class; which I thought would be a great start.
So 10 minutes into the class I was thinking, “Why did I take this class?” and “How am I going to last another 35 more minutes?” I wanted to walk out. There was no way I was going to finish this class. It was painful, hard and incredibly challenging. It was no ride in the park.
20 minutes in: “I’m done. Can’t do any more.” But I did. Pressed on. Dancing/jumping (in and out of the seat), turning the gears/resistance up and down, peddling faster on lower gears, harder on higher gears.
40 minutes in: Instructor says that if you have the time, you can stay for a couple of more songs; otherwise, cool down. I was done. So, I just started decreasing my resistance peddling at an nice even rate. But, when the music kicked in and she asked us to turn up the resistance and get out of our seat, I did it. So, I ended up staying for a full hour! It was nuts and I was hooked. Went back that Thursday, and pretty much took every Tuesday/Thursday class that I could for all of November and December. I even took a few Monday/Wednesday classes as well. I do prefer the T/Th classes, with fewer people.
In addition to the cycling class, I started taking a cardio/weight class, Monday/Wed/Friday; so I was pretty much working out 6 days a week for most of November up until Thanksgiving. The Wednesday cardio class was sort of tough to take because it starts so late, by the time I get out, shower the kids are home from school, so I stopped going to that one; but kept going to the Cycle45 classes and the two cardio classes. I even took a cycle class after the cardio class on Mondays for several weeks; but decided again, too many hours spent at the gym, and housework and Christmas stuff was calling me.
So, I feel very good going into the New Year 2017. I have decided to take a second Pilates class (Reformer), which will be a class 1 day a week in January; in addition to my private weekly lesson which resumed back in late November. I’m planning to take a couple of weeks off from cardio and cycling, just to avoid the influx at the gym for the new year. The 2 Pilates classes should be fine until mid-January!
