No Gym This Weekend

My encounters with Bally have really been declining. Especially now since I am not here Monday through Thursday and all the classes I like to take fall on those days. Of course. Instead this weekend I went to dance, cross-fit and yoga classes. Hip-hop has been fun and mentally stimulating - most importantly fun. After this weeks class of cross-fit I think I've realized that if I signed up, it would become a chore and then I would eventually hate it. It's a good change of pace, but just alternating what kind of resistance work out you do isn't the kind of change I need in my workouts. I think I will go back to it every now and then cause it is a REALLY GOOD workout.

I have been wanting to try a good yoga class because Teresa and Lisa seemed to really like it. None of that grandma yoga stuff they have at Bally. So what better day than today? Well probably should have waited because I did xfit this morning, but I didn't want to wait a week before I could try it. I was so pumped I went and bought 2 pairs of yoga pants and a yoga mat. haha. So then I went online and found a few places. Jenn Yoga claimed to have a class at 6pm but was definitely closed when I showed up. So I did a Joy Yoga class. Joy Yoga on reliability -> A+.

Anyway this yoga was definitely challenging. No pauses for 45 mins. It wasn't even hot yoga and I was sweating like I was outside. It was weird because internally I was really hot, but the room was probably at a nice 75 degrees. We kept going back to the same poses about 50% of the time so I wasn't that mentally engaged, but I guess that's not bad because by the end I was balancing a little bit better. You know, when you see pictures of people in those crazy yoga poses, you think "oh that doesn't look bad, I can do that" but really they're freaking hard. Today I learned that I have little balance and sometimes have trouble following directions. haha.
I think I'll give it another few go's and then decide how much of a commitment I want to have with yoga. I do want my balance and flexibility to get better, so yoga is in my future but it might take a backseat like xfit. We shall see.

Free CrossFit Day

Today was free CrossFit day at Lululemon in River Oaks. This store was really nice. And expensive. But the class was free to try so me and a bunch of my friends went to give it a go. Today I understood the true meaning of CrossFit and why some of my friends call it Pain Day.

The concept today was do 2 resistance workouts back to back as many times as you can within a 7 minute period. 3 different stations. 3 minutes rest in between. It was 10 Free Squats with a medicine ball + 5 Burpees, 10 Dip Lifts with weights + 10 Lunges with weights, finally 10 Kettlebell swings + Run a short distance.

I managed to get in from 5-7 sets at each station. This was like 10X the weight training I usually do. It really puts a workout into perspective. In 7 minutes I can do at least 5 sets of 10 Lunges and 10 Dip Lifts. That's 50 Lunges AND 50 Dip Lifts! Holy Crap. I gotta step up my regular workouts. No more of this 3 sets with 10 reps in whatever time BS.

If you just go at it with no reprieve, you're basically sprinting your way to big muscles. I tried to stay in control and pace myself. But I probably should have went all out on the last one. I think it's the sprint-your-way-to-as-many-sets-as-possible mentality that really gets you into the best shape. The group aspect was also a big motivator as you're watching people and making sure you don't fall behind too much. Then at the end if you're competitive you can compare your number of sets to everyone else's.

Haven't decided if I want to do this regularly as this is not really my kind of work out. But it was a good change of pace. I'll have to incorporate the concepts into my routine.