Step Up: Penn State Fitness Class Edition

After spending all of Halloween sleeping and eating candy, I went through my usual cycle of having a sudden burst of motivation and decided that it was time to drastically change my life and have a super productive Sunday. So, as my active roomie left to go to a step class on Sunday, I sadly put down my bag of popcorn and paused the Vampire Diaries episode I was watching, and followed her. Now, both my roomie and I are notorious for having problems with getting places on time, and this problem was only amplified by the fact that it was early on a Sunday. There were clothes flying across the room as we tried to get dressed and out the door on time. We got to the gym just before the ten minute deadline, when they stop letting people into the class.

The room was filled with about six or seven middle-aged women, and one older looking college student. They all made eye contact with us in the mirror as my roomie and I wandered around with a deer in headlights look on our faces, trying to locate where the steps were. The instructor decided to help us out by giving sideways glances towards a closet, where we easily found all the equipment we needed. What I didn't know was that the step had to be assembled, and we had to get the black and blue plank part separately from the purple square-ish steps. The plank piece proved to be a lot larger than I had anticipated, and being short and having limited arm muscle, I was struggling to refrain from accidentally dropping all the pieces on the floor and disrupting the class. By the time I had finally assembled my step, the class was already in full swing.

There was upbeat remix music playing in the background as the instructor went through moves choreographed to the music, similar to Zumba and Power Remix. In the class time that I had missed, she had already gone through three steps and defined them. The first was stepping up on to one corner of the step with your inner leg, and then bringing your outside leg to your butt. Then you step off with the leg of the knee you brought up, take another step on your other leg, and then step onto the other side of the step and repeat (shown from 5:24-5:30 in this video). The second was the same concept as the first, but instead of bringing your leg to your butt, you brought your knee toward the ceiling. And finally, the third step once again followed the form of the first two steps, but you kicked your leg back in an arabesque form when you stepped up on the step. The instructor had already given each step a term, and would quickly state the step coming up before she switched. However, since I had no idea which step was which, I ended up flailing my arms around and messing up the steps, having to just stop on the ground and wait until the next round of the move came around. I looked a bit like this:

I tried to just laugh it off, and looked over at my roomie who was struggling just as much as I was which made me feel better. All was well until I ended up making eye contact with the instructor who giggled a bit as she told the class "Keep up the good work guys, we'll all get the steps!"

After finally getting the first three steps down, of course this was the point when the instructor decided to add in more steps (V-step, Around the World, and Across the Top). By now, I had learned to embrace the fact that I looked a lot like a baby deer trying to stand for the first time, as I tried my best to keep up with the class.

All the stepping is actually an insane amount of cardio, and at the end of the cardio session, I was dripping in sweat, regretting all the candy that I had decided to eat over the weekend. As if all this cardio wasn't enough, We continued to pick up our weights. The instructor noted the fact that some of the students had decided to pick 5 and 10 pound weights, stating ominously that we might consider switching out our weights. We started out with harmless bicep and tricep curls, but we repeated these for a lot longer than I had in any other class. Then, she told us to extend our arms straight out so they were parallel with the floor, and raise our weights up into right angles and back down. By this time, everyone was regretting the weights they had grabbed, and the instructor encouraged us to switch out the weights to our needs, and even told us that dropping the weights completely would be fine. Being the weakling that I am, I immediately dropped my measly 3 pound weights completely and just did the rest of the exercises without any weights. We finished off the arm section with small arm circles. 

Finally, we finished off the class with a short ab section. We held side planks and normal planks with our hands positioned on the step, and also did a short series of mountain climbers. We then laid down on the step and did leg raises and toe touches. By this time, the class was over, and we finished out the class with the typical stretch cool down. 

This class proved to be a lot tougher than I had expected. It's a great way to get cardio, and still workout your abs and arms a bit. So if you're looking for a change in pace with your normal workouts be sure to give this class a try! Just don't do it right after Halloween, because I guarantee you'll immediately regret your decision.  

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