The Exercise Nazi

Now that we have income again (I've been using that phrase a lot lately), the youngest and I rejoined Four Season fitness club, because we were doing a pretty lousy job of working out on our own all winter.  She picked up the brochure with the schedule for all the group fitness classes, and some mysterious bug bit her.  She decided she wanted to try every class.  And not only that, she decided she wanted to try a different class every day of the school week.

Yes, anyone who knows my youngest will see the irony of her suddenly becoming the Exercise Nazi in our family.

I had no desire to drive to Four Seasons and get exhausted and sweaty five days in a row.  But Lord knows, I'm not about to stifle such an unexpected and fortuitous urge to exercise in my youngest.  And so . . .

Monday, we went to Aqua Aerobics at 9am.  With all the senior ladies.  Seriously, even the instructor had gray hair, although she was friendly and peppy and probably in better shape than the two of us put together.  It was more of a workout than I expected, although it paled in comparison to classes that came later in the week.  The worse part for me was all the rigmarole after class to get ready to go out into the cold weather again.  (Yes, it snowed here on Monday.  Insane.)

Tuesday, we did circuit training.  I've never tried circuit training, but I always thought I might like it.  And I was right.  Thirty-eight different stations, forty-five seconds at each station.  The painful, icky exercises went by fast, and we got a good workout.  Problem with this one:  the youngest didn't realize just how long this was going to go and didn't pace herself.  By about two-thirds of the way through, her face was beet red.  I instructed her to sit out a couple stations and rest because I was afraid she was going to pass out  She still said the workout was okay, but next time, she'll take it a little slower.

Wednesday was "Group Power".  I had no idea what this was, but it didn't sound like something I thought I'd enjoy.  Turns out, it's like choreographed weight lifting.  We had barbells and followed his instructions to do various lifts with them to the music.  If I had to do weight-lifting, this is the way I want to do it.  Problem with this class?  It went for forty-five minutes.  Holy cow -- that's a LOT of weight-lifting.  We were so sore afterwards . . .

Yesterday, we went back to the reason we joined Four Seasons in the first place: Zumba.  We really enjoy Zumba.  I like dancing, and I like the music, and I like the challenge of figuring out the new combinations.  Doesn't feel as much like exercising to me.  But after our absence, we did forget how long a one-hour class feels.  Or maybe it was just because our bodies were already exhausted.

I get a Four Seasons break today, because this is the last day of homeschool P.E. for the year, and youngest has conceded to allow that to be our workout today.  (A bike/walk along the river downtown -- sounds glorious now that the weather remembered it's supposed to be spring.)

Apparently I have Group Ride and Yoga in store for me next week . . . and possibly something called "Boot Camp"?  Oh, Lord, help me . . .