Body Attack - The instructor's body was literally attacked (March 18,2015)

Body Attack is one of the fantastic workouts created by Les Mills. The description of Body Attack is a sports inspired cardio class with high-energy interval training that combines athletic aerobic movements with strength and stabilization exercises.  The calorie burn on this workout is estimated to be pretty high, and for once, I actually believe the estimate.

Unfortunately for the instructor, today her body was literally attacking her.  When I came into the class she was wearing huge sunglasses.  I thought to myself. "this is new."

The instructor informed the class (at a loud volume) that she had a migraine “but it will be okay guys, we will get through it together.”  I was not trying to get through anything “together” with my instructor.  She seemed like a wonderful woman, but I doubted that her severe physical ailment was something she was going to successfully address with some spandex clad office drones.  For myself, I was just trying to burn off my lunch while jumping around a little in a 6:15 Body Attack.  This was going to be an experience. 

Again, she was working out in her sunglasses because of the excruciating pain.  And not workout sunglasses.  We are talking massive Jackie O' like shades.  She also announced that she could not see the people past the front row due to her vision, and she refused to wear glasses while working out (clearly sunglasses were the exception).  She also never intends on wearing contact.  She said this as if she had some moral issues with them - I don't know what  Acuvue did to wrong her, but she did encourage us to all introduce ourselves, so she could say hi to us when she sees us around the gym later (how will she see us?).  We began our warm-up, which went fine.  It involved a lot of jogging in place and grape-vining, which is essentially side-stepping while alternative which foot goes in front of the other.

We then moved into our first cardio interval.  Our instructor pumped up the music…and visibily winced.  We were running in place with high knees, doing jumping jacks, and doing some football runs in place.  She pumped up the music volume and encouraged us to scream…silence. 

You cannot tell a room full of people that you are in horrific pain from a migraine and then ask them to scream at you.  It just is not going to happen...unless you are in a room full of assholes, or you are known to be a masochist.  No one in our class wanted to be the dick that screamed at her and watched her fall to her knees in pain…however, that did come later.

After our first cardio interval, we moved down to the floor for push-ups and planks.  This was great for the workout…terrible for the instructor.  She held her forehead doubled over on the ground in pain.  I have encountered a lot of awkward things in my life, but this was up there.  We should have probably all walked out to give the poor woman a break, but she was not willing to stop.  I suspect she might have stayed and worked out even if we had left.

We got back up for our next cardio interval.  We ran circles around the room, did jumping jacks, power lunges, etc.  At that time, our instructor informed us that she was in so much pain that she could not keep her balance and took a few stumbling side steps; however, she simultaneously cranked up the Katy Perry and kept screaming enthusiastic things at us.  Keep in mind, she is still in giant beach sunglasses and periodically grabbing her skull in pain. Weirdest. vibe. ever.

Finally, we ended the class by taking it back down to the floor for various core exercises, mostly crunches.  Thank goodness the class was over.

I had a migraine once in college.  I did not understand what was happening to me, and I went to the health center because I thought my brain had burst.  I give credit to anyone who deals with migraines or even headaches. 

I appreciate the instructor being a trooper, but next time, cancel class.  We can all find a different way to hop around on a Wednesday night.  I am going to check out whether the instructor is wearing shades before I take my next class of any kind.

Tracy Anderson Precision Toning - Why do people hate (February 28, 2015)

People seem to have strong feelings about Gwyneth Paltrow. I'm not sure why. I like to see what celebrities are wearing, but otherwise I don't really concern myself with their personalities or daily activities (except for who Bradley Cooper is dating, but that is likely on the radar of many women).

Anyhow, people seem to dislike Ms. Paltrow because she gives a lot of lifestyle advice. She has a blog, GOOP, or Goop, or goop.  I have no idea how it should look.  She also has a cookbook, which I made the error of purchasing a long time ago.  It was not an error because the recipes are terrible, but because I am a terrible cook and couldn't recognize half the ingredients, but don't worry, as she says "it's all good."

Putting subjective opinion regarding her personality aside,she does seem to have her shit together.  She is in excellent shape, has a great career, and seems to always be dating (or marrying) good-looking, successful men. Okay, those might also be subjective opinions, but she is friends with Beyoncé and Jay-Z.  That is just about the most empirical measure of success out there.

I'm getting distracted. The purpose of this discussion on GP is that she works out, like a number of celebrities, with Tracy Anderson. They all love Tracy, and I can see why.  Worth noting, Tracy loves Tracy. Literally, her pants have I love Tracy written all over them. That is self-confidence.  I don't even know where I would purchase pants professing love for myself, but I guess that is what makes Tracy a woman worshiped by the likes Gwyneth Paltrow, and me a minion doing a Tracy DVD at home.

Actually, before Gwyneth went on and on about Tracy, my dear friend Yasmeen told me about Tracy Anderson, and I have purchased a number of her DVDs over the years.  Thanks, Yasmeen.  These DVDs come in handy while travelling...or, this winter when Princess Elsa seems to be stuck in the mid-Atlantic.

Today, I did the Tracy Anderson Precision Toning DVD, which is broken down into four parts - arms, legs, butt, and abs - the same muscles targeted in barre. I actually don't know if barre or Tracy's workout came first, but they are very similar.

This DVD is fantastic.  Each segment is roughly 15 minutes and focuses on one key body part. This allows you to only do one body part if you are short on time, or you could do two workouts and comeback later and do the other two workouts.

Tracy will leave you sore, but I think that is what most people are looking for in a workout routine. She provides my favorite arm workout of all time (yeah, bold statement).  The moves are subtle, and it is all in the details...or so she says. I can't really see anything subtle in what she is doing, but I like the exercises and the results regardless of whether I am catching the Tracy nuances.  Among the exercises in this segment are arm circles, reaching forward pretending like you are grabbing and pulling on a rope, biceps curls, overhead presses, etc. You use light weights (2 to 3 pounds), or no weights.  Honestly, the workout is great with or without the weights. She has you do eight count reps of each exercise.  Her thing is that you work the accessory muscles rather than the big muscles when you do her workout so your body develops lean muscles instead of bulk. I don't know if that is just some shtick, nor do I care. Even if it is in my head, I think her arm workout does the best job at giving me lean arm muscles.

Next, Tracy moves on to legs. These exercises require having a chair nearby, mostly for balance.  You will do a lot of leg kicks behind you and to your side. When you hit legs, she ramps up the repetitions to 25.  The leg workout is effective, but pretty par for the course as far as leg workouts go.  She doesn't reinvent the wheel.  She just makes you do a shitload of  kicks and squats.

The butt is the third section of the workout. Again, she ups the repetitions without warning.  Sneaky, Tracy.  For your butt exercise, you do 40 reps of each exercise on each side. This really burns after 40 reps on one side.  Tracy says there are six muscle parts to your butt.  My whole butt felt it - again, I could be missing a detail, but I am assuming I hit the 6 parts.  You can also add ankle weights while performing the butt exercises. All of these exercises involved being on a mat on all fours, either on your forearms or hands, and lifting your legs in various directions -  to the side, straight back, or straight up in the air. Again, these moves resemble barre moves (or barre moves resemble Tracy moves - chicken vs. egg debate).

Finally, the last section works your abs. I am also a big fan of Tracy's ab workout choices. She has you do a variety of creative crunches.  For example, you do crunches with your legs completely flat.  Sometimes, you cross your legs and crunch.  She has you lift your legs about six-inches off the ground and move them side-to-side like a windshield wiper, which is also effective. Finally, she will have you do a number of plank variations.

Tracy knows what she is doing.  She has earned her pants.  Though you might hate Gwyneth, or celebrities in general, they know a thing or two about working out.  Tracy Anderson Precision Toning can be purchased on Amazon for roughly $9.  I highly recommend giving it a try if you want to do something a little different.  Also, I included a picture of some flowers because some day Spring is going to get here (so they say), and I am going to exercise in the land of the living.

Piloxing at home - "You want strong feet" (February 20, 2015)

So remember that absurd DVD collection that I mentioned? Well, I am indulging in the collection quite a bit this winter because it is cold as shit outside.  What is going on with this winter? This morning when I checked my phone it was 3 degrees outside.  That shouldn't even qualify as a temperature.  I felt bad because my former roommate came down from Boston for the weekend, and I am guessing she hoped to find some respite from the cold travelling a little farther south - nope.  Terrible snow storm.  I will say she sent me this picture of an icicle she pulled off of her house the other day.  You could take down a large animal with what she is holding (I'm am talking like mythical creature large), so I  guess it could be worse. I have included the picture of my former roommate and her icicle so you understand that I am not exaggerating.  You could take down a sphinx.

Anyhow, because it has been miserably frigid, going outside seems like a terrible life choice (except to pick up the giant take-out pizza).  I love exercising, but I also love not succumbing to frostbite.  I was not going to go to the gym in 3 degree weather.

I unwrapped the Piloxing DVD. :Look at that woman.  I knew it would be interesting.  Piloxing is one of those new workouts that just involves squishing together two pre-existing workouts. I like Pilates, and I like boxing. It sounds like a weird combination, but the two exercises actually come together well.  However, nothing else about this DVD comes together well.  The word “awkward” is what comes to mind when I think of a description.

The instructor had a pretty thick accent. I kept picturing Arnold Schwarzenneger. Though I find accents really cool, her accent was not ideal in this situation because it is hard to learn something, particularly something fast-paced, when you cannot understand the instructor.  Beyond the misunderstanding, when I did understand what she was saying, it was...awkward.

  

The instructor obviously loved dancing, which is fine, but she opted to throw this in as a third (and large) component to the workout.  She first brought the dancing in as her transition between the Pilates and the boxing, which worked, but then it became clear she was just going rogue and dancing whenever it made her happy.  You would think going rogue would be impossible in a pre-taped DVD, but this instructor was able to make it happen. In general, there was clearly not a lot of post-production editing done to this workout DVD.  You could hear a lot of wooing and screaming and chuckling in the background, but not the appropriately- timed, scripted kind.  But I guess that is what I get for purchasing my DVDs from the $5 bin at Target, and at least everyone (who I could not see) seemed to be having a good time.

When the instructor was not incorporating random dance moves and mumbling about how every little girl dreams of being a ballerina someday (I did not – I think she was throwing in her own baggage), we were doing traditional boxing moves like hooks, upper-cuts, jabs, etc.  There were also a lot of what seemed like barre moves instead of Pilates, but she did throw in some Pilates.  

One of the more interesting moves in the DVD (aside from the dancing) was something the instructor called “serving the platter.”  You put your arms in a bicep curl position and stick out one leg and then squat while pushing your arms forward.  Basically, you look like you are serving a platter while squatting on one leg.  The name made a lot of sense, but she said it over and over - sometimes in an uncomfortably sexual way, and sometimes in an aggressively loud way.  Either way, I did not want to serve the platter.

The instructor also kept repeating her two goals.  First, she wanted sexy.  She kept saying "I feel a sexy coming on.”  I don’t know what exactly that means, but good for her.  Maybe everyone in (and near the filming of) the DVD were "feeling a sexy coming on."  That would explain some of the sounds.  She also said at one point “sexy and feminine is femininity.”  I’m not sure where she was going with that phrase.  She just kind of blurted it out...like a lot of things.  For the record, Merriam-Webster defines femininity is the quality or nature of being female.  The instructor was nice, but she definitely needed to stick to Piloxing (or really Piloxancingbarre) and not providing vocabulary nuggets.  

Her second goal was strong feet.  You see, after you grow out of your dream of being a ballerina (or it dies because you become a Piloxing instructor), you just really want some strong feet.  That is the most important part of the workout, making your feet sexy and strong.  Actually, the more I type this the more I wonder if this woman has some type of fetish. 

Other than the instructor being a little strange, the workout was pretty good.  According to the internet, you will burn between 400 and 900 calories doing Piloxing.  That is incredibly useless information, so just assume you are doing your body good by doing some Piloxing, and get ready for some sandals in the 3 degree weather because you are going to want to show off your sexy feet when it is all said and done.