Calorie Killer? More like Calorie Kill-Me

On one somber Monday night, I made a decision that would change my life forever. And by forever I mean a couple of days. After having spent my whole day catching up on chem work, I was so relieved when it was finally time for me to return to my ever welcoming bed. Caught up in the moment, and feeling ever so productive, I stupidly asked my roomie if she wanted to go to a fitness class with me the next morning. What I didn't know was the only class we could both go to was called Calorie Killer. Now, I'm not completely unfit. I swam and played tennis in high school, but over the summer I didn't keep up with either of these sports and slowly but surely I became more and more out of shape. I should also mention that my roomie is an amazingly in shape dancer and runner who can probably lift a car and run with it if she had to.

When my alarm went off the next morning, I realized the terrible mistake I had made and immediately regretted it. I slowly rolled out of bed and reluctantly put on some clothes for the gym. With a name like Calorie Killer, who wouldn't be scared? The whole way to the gym I imagined the different ways this class could end. Would I be sprawled out on the floor at the end of the class? Would the class actually be a breeze? As I walked into the room, I was met by a group of about 10 girls and a peppy instructor. Judging by her bright smile and the glint in her eye, and the fact that she voluntarily taught a 10 AM Tuesday morning class, she was definitely a morning person. 

The instructor quickly introduced herself as Paige, and then asked if we were ready to start the class. Justin Bieber's "Where are U Now" blasted out of the speakers as we started our warm up with some easy zumba moves. At this point I was feeling totally comfortable and internally laughing at how hard I thought the class was going to be. Little did I know, the worst was yet to come. 

After the first song, Paige told us that we were done our warm up and that we would be starting our first cardio set. When she said cardio I thought of some nice running in place, maybe some jumping jacks, but nothing too extreme. Boy was I wrong. She started demonstrating the "frog jump" which is when you bend and touch the floor and then jump up with your arms up in the air. You repeat this jumping motion in a square. At first, this exercise seemed completely doable. But then Paige explained that we would be doing this exercise for a minute, and then we'd switch and do a plank for 30 seconds. Then we would do the frog jumps again for 30 seconds, and a plank for 15 seconds. And then the frog jumps for 15 seconds, and finish it off with a minute long plank. After the first 30 seconds, I could definitely feel the burn in my thighs. And actually, I'm still feeling the burn in my thighs, two whole days after the class. Every step that I take reminds me of how sore my muscles are. I sincerely hope that no one has noticed my weird walking lately, because I feel like I look like an obese duck, slowly waddling from place to place. Anyways, this first cardio set was absolute torture. My legs felt like there were on fire the entire time. And it was only the FIRST set. 

Next, we moved on to some muscle toning. Paige instructed us to grab some weighted bars from the back of the room. The muscle toning wasn't as intense as the first cardio set. We just did several sets of squats, deadlifts, and bicep curls. But soon we were starting our next set of cardio. This set of cardio included us doing sprints across the gym room. Once again we followed the structure of the last cardio set. Except this time we alternated between sprints across the room and wall sits. Paige referred to the wall sits as "active recovery" but let me tell you, I don't think an activity that makes my legs shake can be classified as recovery. After this set of cardio, we did another set of muscle toning, and we finished off the class with a final set of cardio. Our final set of cardio alternated between half burpee's and bear crawls which was just high knees with your opposite arm going up in the air while your knees are up. Throughout this class, I sweat more than I have ever sweat in my whole life, and that's saying a lot when I live on the fourth floor of Atherton (which has a tendency to get ridiculously hot). Our last exercise of the day was a minute long plank. At this point, everyone was  exhausted and dripping with sweat. In fact, my roomie pointed out the trail of sweat left on the floor underneath her after the plank. Paige finished off the class with a nice stretching session, and after collecting our things we all left. 

My body felt completely useless as I told myself to put one foot in front of the other so I could make it back to my room and collapse on to my bed. This hour long class was definitely the most difficult exercise class I have ever taken. However, it was an extremely effective class. Paige was a great instructor, helping all of us with our form and keeping us going with encouraging statements!

Overall, I would rate this class a 10/10, and give the difficulty level a 10/10 as well. I would definitely recommend this class to anyone who wants to get whipped into shape. Just know that you'll be sweating buckets, your muscles will probably be extremely sore, and you might be walking like this for a while

Until next time! (when I'll hopefully be walking normally again)

Hali