I went to the Total Body Workout class at my gym again last night. I didn’t love it as much as I did the first time, for a few reasons:

While everyone was still pleasant (ie: not overtly rude), I felt very much like an outsider last night. It seems there is a large group of women who comes to this class each week, and one of them is sick. We’ll call her Loretta. Loretta has a staph infection, and someone brought in a Get Well Soon card for everyone to sign.

This is a lovely gesture. However, I’m not part of “everyone” – I don’t even know who Loretta is. For the 15 minutes or so leading up to class as people were waiting to go in, there was an excessive amount of socializing: Whispered stories about poor Loretta’s infected staph, laughter and giggling at the supposedly clever card, etc. I felt very out of place – like a sliced hot dog in macaroni and cheese. Oh wait, that’s delicious. Well, let’s just say I felt very out of place.

Also, I felt far more uncoordinated last night than I did before. In the first class, I kept up with almost everything in the aerobics portion, and just fumbled a few moves. Last night, though, I was a mess. It was rather embarrassing – it’s a good thing no one has a clue who I am.

Otherwise, though, I still really enjoyed the class. This time, there was some work with a step, which was neat. I like that the instructor changes it up – it makes me excited to see what she’s going to do next week! And hey – it’s not like I’m there to make friends; I’m there for a total body workout! And I got that.

Even with the great workout, it’s uncomfortable sometimes. It’s always difficult to break into a close-knit group. I was thinking that next week I should walk right into the group and act like I belong. Just ask how Loretta’s staph infection is. With my luck though, I’ll ask Loretta and it’ll be hot dogs in mac & cheese again… or something NOT good. You know what I mean.

For the first time in years, I took a class at my gym tonight. In fact, it’s only the second class I’ve ever taken at a gym (the first was spinning, and it was not pleasant).

It was a one-hour class called Total Body Workout. I got there a little early and sat with a few other women while the previous class finished up. I was surprised to see how many people joined us as the minutes ticked by. There were probably 40-45 people by the start of class – all women.

Since I’ve never taken this class and was unsure about the equipment needed, I stayed back a little and followed what everyone else did as we settled in. Unfortunately, that meant that by the time I got to the hand weights, it was slim pickins, and I ended up with 8 pound weights. That may not sound like a lot, but it gets heavy fast!

Before the resistance part of class though, was the cardio portion. It was about 30 minutes of very intense aerobics: Lots of jumping, kicking, running in place, squats, etc – without a break. I didn’t have a hard time endurance-wise, but the coordination was tough at times. The instructor switched it up a lot, and it was hard to know what she wanted me to do when at first. I think I caught on pretty well, though. I only felt like an idiot about 15% of the time!

The next section was resistance work – this is where the hand weights came in. There was a lot of bicep curls, hammer curls, tricep extensions, etc. Those 8-pound weights felt like 50 after just a few minutes. I hung in there though, and I felt really good about that considering my weights were heavier than just about everyone else’s. It looked like most people were using 3 or 5 pound weights.

Then there was about 10 minutes of ab work. Abs are always a challenge for me, but I did the best I could, and only missed a few crunches here and there. I’m glad it was only 10 minutes! The ab workout was followed by stretching, which rounded out the hour.

I really enjoyed the class: The workout itself was very intense – I think I sweat the entire 60 minutes – and covered the entire body, which is great. The people in the class were all friendly, and even though I was bigger side than the average size, I didn’t feel completely out of place (though I didn’t enjoy seeing my reflection as I jumped all around that first half hour!). The instructor was great too – kept the class flowing nicely and did a good job of explaining what she wanted us to do when. I even found remixed music agreeable.

I’m going to try to make this a regular Monday night thing! I’ve always found it difficult to get myself to a gym, but I’m good at making it to classes (kung fu, for instance), so this might be an excellent thing for me. I might even be inspired to check out the other classes my gym offers.

I feel really good tonight. Definitely back on that wagon!