Fit For Friday - BodyPump

This week, I rejoined the YMCA. Cheers from behind the computer screen. Last Summer, Adam and I decided we needed to cut expenses to reduce debt and buy a house, so my Y membership got the ax... So at the beginning of February, we decided to start saving up money for a YMCA membership again. Long story short, Adam would put $10 in a fund every time I did a non-running related workout and this week, we (with a little extra funds from someone special) made it to the year membership fee, so I joined. Yay!

Now on to the topic at hand... BodyPump! I'm pretty sure my very first exposure to BodyPump was my first year in college (back track to 2005). To fight those "freshman 15" I joined AC Fitness for Women in Auburn. The membership didn't last very long because it wasn't really a priority of mine, but I did see these crazy women there doing BodyPump (from my treadmill/elliptical).

Here were my thoughts... Geez that looks hard. They are crazy. They have muscles... I could NEVER do that.

Well... fast forward to 2011 (wow - 6 years...getting old). I'm in the process of changing my physical appearance and stubble across BudyPump (again). This time, I've been running for a little while, doing other aerobics classes, so I think, "Why not?" All I have to do is survive one hour, not make a total fool of myself, and if I don't like it, I never have to do it again.... Well... I loved it.

This kinda makes me nervous...

I'm not sure what everything does. I don't want to spend to long on one machine... people are waiting. Do I have correct form? You get the point.

But this...

Not quite as scary. And the instructors help to correct form. You choose the weight. It's not really as much about how much weight as it is correct form and repetitions.

So here's what BodyPump is. If you want to learn more visit their website. BodyPump is a barbell class that will sculpt your entire body. With 70-100 reps in each of the 10 tracks, you can get 800 repetitions in an hour.

Knowledge is power, and some people avoid classes because they just don't know what to expect. So here is "what to expect"

The class is 1 hour. There are 10 tracks (including a warm up & cool down/stretching). Each track focuses on a specific muscles group.

• Track 1: Provides a warm-up with the lowest weight of the class. During the warm-up, most muscle groups are trained in short succession, and stance and barbell grip is often changed when cycling through all different exercises.
• Track 2: Squats. This track targets the legs, notably the quadriceps and glutes and participants are advised to use the highest weight of the entire class. A typical weight for squats ranges between two and three times the warm-up weight. The weight is placed in the neck of the participant.
• Track 3: Chest. In this track, participants are invited to lay on their backs on a step, and perform chest presses with the barbell. Sometimes, depending on the choreography of the release, these are combines with chest push-ups. A typical weight will be around 1,5 times the warm-up weight.
• Track 4: Back. In this track, participants stand up and train the muscles of their back. Exercises performed vary from release to release, but mostly contain dead lifts, dead rows and sometimes clean-and-presses. A typical weight selection will be between chest and squat weight.
• Track 5: Triceps. As the first of the smaller muscle training, participants will select a lower weight, usually slightly above warm-up weight and perform triceps exercises. These change per release, but mostly consist of triceps extensions with a barbell, triceps pushups, kickbacks with a single free weight and dips on a step.
• Track 6: Biceps. After the triceps, participants stand up again and use the barbell to do bicep crunches and sometimes bicep dead rows. Mostly, the weight will remain the same as for triceps, or slightly more.
• Track 7: Lunges. Participants take on a heavier weight, usually the same as for the chest track to train the legs again. In this track, squats can be included but most of the time will be spent doing lunges to train the butt and the glutes. These lunges can be performed with the barbell in the neck, or without a barbell but by adding a plyometric element by jumping at the end of the lunge.
• Track 8: Shoulders. The participants select a weight comparable to their warm-up weight on the barbell, and two free weights. The track traditionally starts with pushups, after which the participants use free weights for shoulder raises, either to the side or to the front. At the end, the bar is used for upright or overhead presses, with a heavier weight than using free weights only. Sometimes the choreography adds another set of pushups at the end.
• Track 9: Abdominals and core. Usually no weights are used, and participants perform abdominal crunches or planks to strengthen the core.
• Track 10: Cool down and stretching.

So that's it. BodyPump in a nutshell. They release new tracks all the time that change up choreography and music. I love it because it is challenging. I feel stronger after a workout and SORE. Sore is good. That's when I know it's working :) If you want to try out a class or two, join me!