Class #104 Sculpt Class Tuesday 9:40 a.m. (Beth)

Some of the biggest classes in the Club are ones we call Sculpt. The one this morning, taught by Beth Cirwinski and held in the gym is indeed a large class with around 30 in attendance.

The protocol, I’ve learned, for Sculpt classes on the gym floor, is to read the white grease board above the stereo system. On that board, the teacher has written what equipment is needed for class. Today I see that we need a step, two sets of hand weights, a heavy bar and a mat.

These classes are a non-stop assault on all the various muscle groups. We start with squats, move on to biceps, triceps, lunges, chest presses, shoulder raises, flys, push-ups and so on. In each exercise we do a LOT of reps so selecting the right sized weight is important. Too light and nothing is gained, too heavy and you can’t make it through to the end. Over the length of the quest, I’ve managed to gradually increased my weight amounts – not that the poundage is anything to brag about. I have clearly gotten stronger though so I know these classes are working.

Lunging

One of the things that’s helpful if you want to teach a class like this is to be able to maintain a smile while doing all the exercises and counting out the reps. This requirement would be somewhere between hard and impossible for me but Beth is great at it. She beams out a beautiful smile the entire time she's teaching – it’s impressive.

Beth Cirwinski teaching (note the smile)

One thing I should point out and I’m definitely not complaining here but somehow we get through this entire class without doing any abs. Glory Hallelujah. My poor midsection needs a break and I’ll happily accept this small crumb.

The rest of class though is plenty hard and there are times I’d really like to scream but I’ve learned that no one does that here. I’m still not sure why. We are a group of stoics and that’s cool with me.

Tricep Kickbacks

The class, as usual, is filled mostly with fit, strong women although there are a few fellow hombres trying to keep pace this morning. The $25 gift certificate goes to Sandy Copeland.

Class #103 Water Aerobics Monday 7:00 p.m. (Mary Lu)

At one minute before seven no one has shown up for class and I’m trying to decide how I’m going to handle a ‘forfeit’ in the blog. Mary Lu and I start asking parents watching their kids swim if they want to take class – “you’re guaranteed a $25 gift certificate”, I say. For one reason or another though no one can take the class. Just then, a sweet little lady walks in and says, “I’ll do it”.

It turns out that the ‘volunteer’ is in town from New Jersey to visit her son (Roman) daughter-in-law (Alexandra) and her grandkids. Miss Helen as we came to call her is totally game to take class even though her original intention had been to come sit in the whirlpool.

Small Class (Mary Lu, me, Miss Helen)

Since it’s just the three of us, I tell Mary Lu that it’s okay with me if we cut class a little bit short. To tell you the truth, I’m secretly pulling for this outcome because I’m pretty tired. The thing is, Mary Lu is so passionate about teaching water aerobics that once we start, I feel certain we’re going all the way till the end.

Mary Lu has brought some special ankle and hand gizmos for me to wear to increase resistance in the water. Sure enough, with those devices on, everything is about twice as hard to do. I’m trying my best to keep up but it’s a struggle. We do some exercises where our feet are to stay off the bottom but with my doodads on I can barely keep my head above water and occasionally I slip just beneath the surface.

Mary Lu on shore

Miss Helen hasn’t done water aerobics before or at least not in a while and so she’s not familiar with the exercises. On some things it’s clear that she’s completely lost but she just keeps bouncing in the water and smiling or giggling the whole time. She tells us that she has a 5 a.m. flight in the morning and I keep thinking at any minute she’s going to say ‘that’s enough’ but it never happens.

Before you know it, eight p.m. arrives and I’m all but worn out thanks to Mary Lu’s new resistance toys. Miss Helen though is all smiles and fresh as a daisy.

After class, Miss Helen and I sit in the hot tub to warm up and she tells me that she’s Ukrainian but spent most of her early life in Poland. I learn that she speaks four languages and has lived in the U.S. for almost fifty years. We’ve only just met but somehow she seems familiar (and adorable) to me. I tell her how glad I am to have met her and wish her luck on her future journeys.

I go in to change clothes and when I come out I find an e-mail address written down. My first thought is, how sweet, Miss Helen has left her address for me but it turns out, she’s given me her daughter-in-law’s e-mail. She’s done the class, at least in part, so Alexandra Ratycz will win the $25 gift certificate. I find all this out from Alexandra who’s been taking Beth’s Sculpt class. I recognize Alexandra because she’s been in five or six classes with me but never won the drawing – until now.

Class #102 Step Class Monday 5:30 p.m. (Ronnie)

When I started this whole thing back in February, this class was in the top three of classes I was most nervous about taking. I had it in mind from the beginning to wait until the last week of the quest before tackling it.

Ronnie’s Monday night prime time Step class in the gym is one of the longest running and most popular classes on our schedule and has a reputation as being hard and requiring some ultra fancy footwork. There are only six pure Step classes on the weekly schedule and I’ve done the other five. I’ve also learned that in certain other classes like CardioSculpt, teachers often use the steps and risers for the cardio portion of class. So, I’ve been in and around the Step world enough now to fake my way through a hard class – even Ronnie’s – I hope. Since this is the last Monday of the quest, if I’m not ready now, it’s too darn bad and too late to do anything about it.

Ronnie Stone leading Step class

In almost every Step class I’ve been to so far, even the Basic ones, there have been times that I’ve gotten completely lost. It’s a surprise then when in Ronnie’s class tonight I notice that I’m able to follow just about everything. There are times when he shows a Level 1,2 and 3 movement and often I have to go with the easiest one but still, I’m doing it (look maw no hands)!

The logical but unexpected consequence of being able to follow all of the movements is that I’m huffing and puffing – getting a better workout than in previous Step classes. As I think about it, I realize that in the past I’ve had to slow down or stop when the choreography got too hard to follow. In this class, Ronnie’s movements are physically demanding with plenty of squats and jumps but the choreography (except for Level 3) is mostly within my grasp.

Poetry in motion (that's me in the foreground)

My handy-dandy Polar watch tells me that I burn a little over 400 calories in the 45 minutes of cardio that I measure. During that time my heart rate averages 120 and peaks at 140, both pretty strong numbers for me.

After class I tell Ronnie about my experience and he says that he’s purposefully making the choreography easier to follow for two reasons: 1) To attract newcomers to Step and, 2) Because it’s easier for everyone to get a good workout (just like I did) when they can follow all the steps. Furthermore, he says, that by showing Level 2 and 3 movements, he can still challenge the Step aficionados. Sounds like a good plan to me.

There are about twenty-five in class tonight with about five guys in the mix. The $25 gift certificate goes to Karen Mourot.

Class #101 Yoga for Kids 3:55 p.m. (Stacey)

Consider this bonus coverage since Yoga for Kids wasn’t on the schedule when I started the quest – still, I wanted to check it out and do a quick write up about it. Stacey Swanson who teaches a regular yoga class on Thursday at noon, recently received her certification to teach yoga to children and she pitched the idea for this class to see if it would fly.

The class is geared for young kids ages 5 – 12 and is a complement to the Zumba for Kids class that takes place on Tuesday/Thursday in the afternoon. Today was the fourth installment of YFK’s. Stacey mentioned that the kids were pretty wild at the first class and she wondered what she had gotten herself into. Each week since, however, the wee ones have gotten quieter and more attentive while obviously enjoying the class.

Today there are about 12 children in class along with four adults (Stacey, her husband Dana, Martha Plaster - training to be a sub – and me). The class works for kids because of the cleverness of the teaching. Instead of traditional names for poses – Stacey offers something more inventive and fun, for instance, instead of cat/cow pose (see pic) we do ‘moo’, ‘meow’, making the sounds as we take the pose. It’s pretty cute.

Cat pose (in cow the head comes up and the back dips down)

Some other poses include – ‘elephant’ – where our arms become the trunk as we bend over to ‘drink’ and then rise up to spray water into the sky. Then there’s the ‘hot air balloon’ where our breath is the fire that lifts our basket (body) off the ground as we float around the room. Another one, perhaps my favorite, is the ‘peanut better sandwich’, which even has it’s own song to accompany the pose. In this technique we sit on the floor, our legs straight out in front of us, reach our arms up high to grab some peanut butter, then we slather it all over our body before bending forward to ‘make a sandwich’.

Peanut butter sandwich

In the traditional final resting pose – Stacey puts a small rubber ducky on everyone’s belly so they can watch it rise and fall with the breath. It’s a simple awareness exercise about noticing our breath, which is an integral part of practicing yoga.

Stacey Swanson

The class is only thirty minutes long so it’s over before I know it, seeming short to me but perfect for the kids. If you’re looking for a fun way to introduce your children the world of yoga (and a little exercise to boot) this class is worth checking out.

Class #100 Hard Core Stretch 5:30 p.m. (Kris)

As I hit triple digits (yea!) it’s a coming of full circle in a way. After all, my very first class on this jaunt was an early Monday morning smack-down (Kickboxing) by Kris Mougeot – so it’s only fitting that on this Sunday evening Kris should get the honor of kicking my abs for class number one zero zero.

It’s my second time to take the misleadingly named Hard Core/Stretch class with Kris. Actually two of the three words in the class title are apt (i.e. Hard and Core) leaving only “stretch” to dangle before us as a tantalizing mirage.

This is a dangerous class to watch the clock in but as a reporter I feel it’s my duty to check in occasionally with the time. In today’s class, Kris starts us off with a twelve-minute set of rapid-fire crunches from the supine position. Every forty-five seconds or so she has us change our leg position or the angle of the crunch but there’s no pause between sets whatsoever.

After the crunch set we flip over to our knees to assault the abs from a kneeling position. We begin with an opposite leg opposite arm pose (see pic) that’s moved through various planes and contractions before doing plank, side plank, forearm plank, you name it, if it works the abs, we do it.

Opposite arm/opposite leg core exercise

Now mind you, less than two hours before this class, I attended baby Mougeot’s (Jessica) Power Pump class, which of course, wore out most of my muscles. Therefore, my arms are shaking within the first thirty seconds of holding plank but complaining or backing down is out of the question. I know that Kris would never whine in similar circumstances so I do my best to tough it out.

There are only two others in class this evening and both of them are splendid endurance athletes (Betsy Meachum – 3^rd in the LR marathon and Stephanie Tharp) who I know won’t quit or complain. Apparently, this Sunday evening version of Hard Core has attracted a large contingent of elite runners who “enjoy” this kind of punishment. Kris tells me that typically there are twenty in this class and she has no idea where they all are tonight.

Finally, in the last five minutes of class we arrive at long last to the stretch portion of things but even that part turns out to be challenging. Kris moves us from downward dog to plank to chaturanga (she calls it crocodile) to upward dog back to down dog and so forth and so on for about eight repetitions. Leave it to Kris to make the stretch part hard too.

chaturanga dandasana (aka crocodile pose)

This class is an awesome workout for the core muscles. Newcomers may have to rest occasionally to keep their form in tact but there’s no shame in occasionally crying ‘uncle’ in this class. Just know that Kris will keep on going and going (and going).

After this workout it just doesn’t seem right to do anything but offer up the $25 gift certificate to both Betsy and Stephanie. It would be too depressing to get through that hard a workout and then lose a coin flip for the gift certificate.

I’m down to my final ten classes and five days. This will be a full week but come Friday at 12:50 p.m. – the end of Krissa’s cycle class – you can stick a fork in me cause I’ll be done.

Class #99 Power Pump Sunday 3 p.m. (Jessica for Beth/Betsy)

“A whole bunch more like that,” she says. Uh oh, I think, this cannot be good. We’re doing plié squats and we’ve already done like a thousand when Jessica offers up the ‘whole bunch more’ directive. Specifically, we’re doing pulses – little baby movements of only a few inches – while maintaining the deep squat. Heretofore, she’s been saying “pulse for seven” or five or three so I know that a 'whole bunch' has to mean more than seven maybe its even the biblical seven times seven meaning essentially infinity. That’s what it seems like. And feels like.

This is how Power Pump goes with a Mougeot (Jessica is Kris’ step daughter) at the helm - lots and lots of repetitions. I already know, from previous experience, to put a small amount of weight on my bar but no matter how light I go, the sheer number of reps is going to burn out the targeted muscle every time.

After a five-minute warm up where we essentially get a preview of the whole class, Jessica has us put on our “heavy” weights for squats. From here we do non-stop squats with a heavy bar on our shoulders for about seven minutes. We do single squats (down/up in one motion), two counts down, two counts up, three counts down/up and pulses – three, five, seven, etc. All of these variations are mixed, matched and blended in an effort, I suppose, to distract us from the painfully obvious fact that we’re doing the same movement over and over again until the quadriceps muscle is (French) fried. Then we move on to the next muscle.

And so it goes through bicep curls, tricep extensions, bench presses, upright rows, shoulder presses, dead lifts (lots of dead lifts), lunges, bent over rows, plié squats etc. Each muscle group gets its five to seven minutes in the spotlight before limping off to lick its wounds.

I’ve said it before – if you want to get your weight lifting workout done in a group format with a motivating teacher and some pulsating music, this isn’t a bad way to go. It’s going to hurt no matter what – might as well do it with company.

I’ve had two other classes from Jessica, both of the kickboxing variety but it doesn’t surprise me that she’s qualified to teach Power Pump. It also doesn’t surprise me that her version would be hard. By the way, she does every single repetition with us, in fact, she does quite a few more than me because she changes her weights more quickly (between sets) and she never stops in despair to roll her eyes toward heaven while imploring ‘how many more?’ like I do on occasion. She did at one point say, “this is hurting me too”, which I took as a small consolation.

Jessica is 'stylin' in Komen's Ace for the Cure

At the end, we do abs of course – there will always be abs to do. The thing is I’ve got to be back in this room in 90 minutes to do Kris Mougeot’s “Hard Core” class, which is an abstravaganza of the most extreme kind and I need to conserve a modicum of juice for it without being too obvious about dogging the end of Jessica’s class.

This is class #99 and to tell you the truth, it sorta feels like it. This will be my last Sunday on the quest as I count down toward Friday and the magic number 110. Then I’m really going to dog it – for about two weeks. Well, one week for sure.

There are about 20 folks in Jessica’s class this afternoon and an unusually high percentage of men (maybe 40%). The $25 gift certificate goes to Heather Neal.

Class #98 CardioSculpt Saturday 9 a.m. (Michelle)

Michelle’s Saturday morning sweatfest – called CardioSculpt – is one of the most popular classes on our schedule. Our members, I’ve noticed, really flock to the toughest workouts on the schedule and this one qualifies. Actually, I should say, the female members flock to these tough classes because there are only three guys present this morning. I’m still not sure why guys don’t attend classes like this in bigger numbers because I think men would love this workout if they tried it.

The CardioSculpt and TBC (Total Body Conditioning) classes are designed for a fit population. I purposely held off taking these classes until I was four or five weeks into the quest and had prepared my body to withstand such an intense workout. I suppose one could use a class like this to get into shape – it would just require a willingness to back off and modify some things when it gets too hard.

Even after training hard for almost ten weeks, I still have to modify some things. For instance, Michelle has us doing jump rope drills during much of the class. She is very skilled at jumping rope and, alas, I am not. I cannot maintain as quick a pace as the one she sets nor can I do some of the fancier footwork drills with the jump rope so I just bungle along doing the best I can. Sometimes, when I’ve missed connection three or four times in a row, I just keep jumping and doing the arm movements without the rope at all.

The basic format of this class is to alternate some form of hard cardio work (i.e. jumping rope, running around the gym or burpees) with using handweights to do flys, tricep extensions, bicep curls, etc. There’s no meaningful rest between sets but we are switching over from a cardio exercise that leaves us gasping for air – to a calisthenic set where the heart rate drops a bit while some poor muscle fills with lactic acid (sounds fun, eh?). It is hard but it’s also a smart way to workout each system in a rapid-fire manner that keeps one from getting bored. Tired yes – bored no.

Michelle also likes to use the Bosu ball (see pic) and a step in the training. For instance, we may jump from the floor onto the Bosu ball, do a squat and then jump back to the floor do another squat and repeat. This is a form of plyometrics along with core work that challenges all kinds of muscles and produces explosive strength and speed. On another set, we put our hands on the step to support our weight as we jump both legs from one side to the other over and over. You guys are wondering where you can sign up now, aren’t you?

Squat on a Bosu Ball

This class lasts for 75 minutes, which is 15 more than a typical class. In the last 15 minutes we do all ab work before finishing with a smidgen of stretching.

I wear my heart rate monitor to class but turn it off when we get to the ab work. In the first hour I burn about 600 calories, maintain an average heart rate of 126 and max out at 152.

Michelle Wilkerson - Cardio Sculptress

There are about 30 in class today. The winner of the $25 gift certificate is Sally Stokes.

With this class I have completed all of the classes on Saturday. I have a total of six days and twelve classes until completion. Tomorrow I’m doing the 3 p.m. Power Pump and the 5:30 p.m. Hard Core/Stretch (in case you’re bored and want to come keep me company).