It’s amazing how such a small thing can demand so much attention. I’m speaking of my neck or more precisely about a painful crick therein. For the past two days I haven’t gone more than a few minutes without being acutely aware of that body part.
The crick appeared on Sunday morning when I was still in California and woke up from a deep sleep….apparently so deep that I didn’t notice how poorly aligned my head had been all night. The stiffness from that morning slowly worsened throughout the day on Sunday and continued downhill on Monday. Still, I managed to get in two classes on Monday without too much trouble.
Today I was planning on going to a Step class in the morning but my neck was such that I didn’t think I should risk it. I had a chiropractic appointment at 2:30 with Robynn Zinser, who I’ve seen regularly for more than 20 years and who I have complete faith in.
Dr. Zinser worked on me long and hard and got all the vertebrae in my cervical spine pointing in the same direction but the muscles were still pretty inflamed. She knows about the quest and that I planned to do some classes later on – she just said, “don’t do any headstands in yoga”.
This is a long introduction to today’s cycling class but I’m going into it because I know that all of us get derailed in our exercise program from time to time by such things. Maybe it’s a nasty cold or a sprained muscle or a relative visiting from out of town but life sometimes gets in the way. The best advice I have is to not get too discouraged by these derailments and to re-engage the process as soon as possible.
If I wasn’t on “the quest” I probably wouldn’t have exercised today but then again maybe I would have…I’m pretty stubborn about getting it in every day. Besides, there are certain classes, like cycling where the head doesn’t move much and in those, the crick isn’t much of a factor.
In today’s class, I’m meeting the teacher for the first time. Her name is Adiel (pronounced a-deal, like Bob Barker would say it) and she is full of energy with a great personality and an easy laugh. She knows everybody else in class and gets us started by warming up and easing us toward our base level.
The class is a mixture of gradually increasing sprints (90 rpm’s, 95, 100, 105, 110 and back down by 5’s) and standing runs with a few high resistance, lower rpm climbs. Adiel’s style is to call out the number of gear levels from base that she wants us to increase for each exercise. I’m able to keep up with the suggested levels on all but one exercise where I sheepishly back off because I’m not quite keeping up with the pace.
Adiel keeps up a regular banter of encouragement and checks in with us after each exercise to see how we’re doing. I think I hear her say “eh” a couple of times like “that was a tough climb, eh?” and I idly wonder if she’s Canadian. Later, though she peppers her comments with “y’alls” so I revise my guess to southern Canada (or northern Arkansas). This, by the way, is the sort of mental drift I often observe when I’m distracting myself from the work at hand – I have no idea if it’s helpful or not, it’s just a habit.
It turns out (I just read her bio) that Adiel Looney is from Little Rock, a good ole home-girl. She’s been teaching at the Club for about a year after having participated in classes for a long time. She is certified in group exercise through AFAA (Aerobics and Fitness Association of America) and was trained in teaching group cycling through the Keiser M3 folks.
Adiel (pictured below) is an accomplished triathlete having completed three Ironman competitions and preparing for her fourth one (Ironman Arizona). An “Ironman” by the way, is composed of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile run (i.e. a marathon). It is a grueling event and my hat’s off to anyone who’s ever done one or even thought about doing one.
Along with teaching twice a week, Adiel has a full time job with Novo Nordisk as an Institutional Diabetes Care Specialist. Since diet and exercise are critical aspects in the treatment and prevention of diabetes, Adiel is walking the talk. With her delightful, motivating personality I’m sure she’s great at her job and will help a lot of folks who suffer from diabetes.
As I’ve mentioned before, music is a critical part of the bike class experience and it’s amazing to me how many teachers have selected great songs that for the most part I’ve never heard (I gotta get out more). Adiel is no exception in this regard – her music is happy and snappy and helps me break out of my torpor on numerous occasions during class (I’ve copied her play list at the bottom of this post).
Okay, time to move on – I’m going back to back tonight and I’m off to Sherry’s Intermediate Yoga class next.
The $25 gift certificate in Adiel’s class goes to Lisa Costa.
PLAYLIST
Tuesday: 5:30 PM-3/9/10
Wild Boys-Duran Duran
Fallin For You-Colbie Caillat
Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love-Coldplay
You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)-Dead or Alive
Take On Me- A-Ha
Walking On Sunshine-Katrina and the Waves
Born To Be Wild-Hinder
Meet Me Halfway-Black Eyed Peas
Whataya Want From Me-Adam Lambert
Going On-Gnarls Barkley
If I Had Eyes-Jack Johnson
You are My Sanity-Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds
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