Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Les Mills workout classes: Auckland Invades and it's Glorious

As I've written before, my gym (Bladium) participates in the Les Mills group workout classes. This is not your mother's Jazzercise. The Les Mills company develops innovative ways to help people work out more effectively and have more fun doing it (maybe I should market for them, but they do just fine on their own. Checkout out the info page on the company - the video alone makes you want to jump in.)

The class I got Terri to was Body Pump which is a group weight workout class. It's not as over the top as the indoor cycling RPM class that I'm so hooked on, but it's more what she's looking for as a good general fitness class. I like the class as I really don't like making the time to lift weights and yet weightlifting is pretty critical to truly staying in shape (even if you're in great aerobic condition.) Doing the class helps as there's music, an instructor/trainer, and other motivated participants all of which make it work better for me.

I was thinking that it's so important for the elderly to do some resistance based workout that I wonder if they could make a specialized version for seniors. Terri pointed out that while Baby Boomers won't have a problem with such a concept, it will likely continue to be a hard sell to current elderly women as it's way outside their normal realm of experience. (Sweating and pushing weight around is so unladylike ya know?) But with Boomers aging that is destined to change and someone on KFOG (who was probably quoting someone else) said "60 is the new 40." And I continue to say "Age is attitude."

Back to the class. I talked for a little while to Bryce who was the instructor this time as I'm wondering if the weight workout in Body Pump would be enough to get in shape for skiing this winter. She said that Body Pump combined with RPM (which she remembers me from) should get one in fine shape for skiing. I'm not sure if mountaineering trainer Courtenay of Body Results would agree, but she could probably suggest some supplementary exercises if she thought that was necessary.

I find it pretty funny that a major contributer to many Americans fitness is from Auckland, NZ. We export McDonald's (I refuse to put a ref in for it :) and obesity and they export the Les Mills and fitness. I love the irony.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

testing anonymous reply