I’ve been Body Pumped

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My wife asked me if I wanted to come to her gym’s Body Pump class this weekend and I’m wrecked. I’m getting ahead of myself, let me start at the beginning…

I don’t belong to a gym because our apartment complex has one. It’s not very big and doesn’t have everything that I would want, but the price of free is the right price for Lazy Man and Money. My wife on the other hand, is used to a nice gym and going to the free one would be a considerable step back - and probably result in her not wanting to go to the gym as much. As such, she has her gym and I have mine - until this past Saturday, when I decided to check out this body pump class she’s been raving about.

I had no idea what to expect. I figured it could be really easy. She had said she started at 2.5 pounds and is now up to 12. As a guy, this kind of weight seems like child’s play. The other side of me said, “Remember, aerobics and yoga class tend to hurt you real bad. Don’t get cocky here.”

For those not familiar with Body Pump classes, the concept is pretty simple. For an hour or so, you listen to music and lift weights… as you can tell, small weights… about 33,976,399 times per song. I had no idea that it was going to be same motion over and over again. Fundamentally, I don’t like this approach for me because it’s not what the body builders would do. I’ve read numerous studies that suggest lifting really heavy weights a few times with long breaks (3 minutes not being unusual) for the muscles to rest is the idea way to make strength gains. This seemed like a good way to just hurt yourself by overdoing one movement too much without adequate rest.

It’s two days later and my triceps are in complete pain… I can barely lift my hands to my head. Scratching my head is so painful right now that I get up and rub my head on a wall. Nonetheless this tells me that it’s doing something (hopefully something good) and I plan to go back for another class on Wednesday. Before that I think I’m sticking to healing or cardio. My cardio might not get too far as my quads felt like they might explode climbing the stairs yesterday.

Perhaps it’s time for me suck up the money and pay for the gym.

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