I tried out a fitness class for the first time
I made sure to avoid Zumba at all costs
As we all probably know by now, Flex Passes at Rutgers are free this year. As a college student with loans that are accumulating by the semester, I sure love free things. So, I decided to take advantage of my Flex Pass. I downloaded UPACE and reserved a spot for the next class available.
Embarking upon this new experience, I immediately started off on the wrong foot when I picked a class that was way out of my league. Instead of reading the descriptions, I simply picked and chose what class to attend based solely off of the titles. Although I like yoga – and definitely could have used some peace of mind after all my midterms – I opted not to take it because I wanted a class that would allow me to challenge myself. Continuing to scroll through the list of classes, I made sure to avoid Zumba at all costs. Despite being half-Latina, I have no sense of rhythm and was not up for spending an hour tripping over my own feet.
Finally, I came across a class titled ‘BodyPump/CXWORX’ and ultimately decided that this was the class for me. It sounded like something that would really push me – and boy was I right. I definitely was in over my head with this one. As a person who dines regularly on ramen and hasn’t visited a rec center since a failed attempt at avoiding the freshman fifteen, I was nowhere near prepared for this class.
I was one of the first ones at the class, but because I was new, I had no idea what to do. Others came and started getting all their workout stuff together. I was looking around the room like a lost puppy until I mustered up the courage to ask someone what I needed and they were kind enough to walk me through the set-up.
Still as naive as ever, I figured the class would start off easy. I expected the warm-up would be stretching and jumping jacks or something along those lines. Nope. We started off with squats which instantly made my lower body turn to absolute jelly.
My upper body soon matched when we started lifting, working on shoulders and biceps. One thing you should definitely know when taking this class is how much weight your body can handle. When I was getting my workout bar ready, I realized that I hadn’t lifted weights since my senior year of high school. Since then I’ve lost a substantial amount of muscle in my arms and I had no idea how much I was now able to lift. This is where I made my biggest mistake, I put way too much weight on my bar and quickly realized my spaghetti arms just couldn’t take it.
The class finished off with yoga to calm us down. Fortunately, this turned out to be my favorite part of the whole class, and I realized I probably should have just stuck with yoga from the start.
BodyPump/CXWORX is absolutely not for people who haven’t exercised in a long time. Although I wasn’t prepared for it, it was a huge wake-up call that I need to get back into shape, just at my own pace. I was proud of myself for sticking it out through the whole class though, and because of that a reward dinner was definitely in order. After all, it was the least I could do for myself before enduring the next week of soreness.
There goes my workout.