body pump

last week my friend nancy mentioned that she was going to be attending "body pump" class at the gym. it just so happens that aaron and i just joined the same gym and i had yet to make an appearance. she tells me i should go, i do the whole, "oh yeah, maybe" thing and then try not to think about it. saturday night we were out (the weather was gorgeous the whole weekend, i think we were outside the entire two days), we get home in the evening and i find a confident message from nancy saying that she will see me in the morning for this body pump class. ugh. i haven't done anything since i just kind of stopped my running regimen last winter and had said i'd need to get in shape before attending a class called body pump. nancy and others who had experienced it insisted that it was pumping weights on a bar and only as hard as you make it depending on the weight you put on. after playing the message aaron says he thinks i should go. he's been listening to me whine about needing to get in shape and hesitantly supports me by telling me to go while trying not to act like he thinks i need to go.

so i surprise myself by showing up, nancy's mouth hangs open when i walk in the door as i'm sure she didn't really think i was going to come. nancy's been doing this class three times a week for five months, she is in awesome shape. i make it entirely clear to everyone in the room that i'm brand new and a total weenie so if i fall over or don't know what i'm doing it's to be expected. i somehow make it through the class but pretty early on as i do squats a kind women behind me tells me my back isn't straight enough and i'm leaning over as i squat and stressing my legs. no wonder i have a severe burning in the front of my thighs. and by fatiguing these muscles, lunges later make me wonder if i will in fact fall over. i feel my legs shake and at times i think there is a beat other than that from the music pulsating through the floor and into my legs because they are shaking. geez. but i survive. the biceps, the triceps, the abs, the gluts, the quads, muscles i didn't know i had, we worked 'em all and i was SO incredibly sore i didn't know if i could walk to the water fountain. i looked like a clown walking up and down the stairs and clinging to the railing in case my legs couldn't support my weight.

so that was body pump. i'd like to go back sometime, if my muscles ever stop burning.