I love body pump classes.
As I’ve mentioned, most of my life I was a 30 minutes-a-day of cardio kind of gal. I didn’t do anything else. About four years ago, my husband talked me into lifting weights and after a bit of an initial struggle (ok it was more than a bit), I was hooked. Now I am in endless pursuit of cut triceps and bulging biceps. Last year I discovered body pump classes.
I normally work out at Flying Horse and the weight plates are incremented in pounds – a unit of weight with which I am very familiar. Today, I went with a friend to her gym, Villa Sport, to take a body pump class and the plates were measured in kilograms. Now most runners know instantly the conversion from miles to kilometer or vice versa, right? A kilometer is about .62 miles and a mile is like 1.6 km – duh. But kilograms? I vaguely recalled that I used a kilogram conversion to figure out my protein intake. But let’s be real, I figured it out once and deleted the formula from my head (kind of like all that high school algebra). Oh well, it was time to wing it. I grabbed the same plates as the instructor and followed her lead. This strategy led to a bar that was a bit heavier than I am accustomed to – especially for certain sets (my poor triceps). But the thing is, the weights were not so heavy that I couldn’t get through the set. Sure I will be sore tomorrow, but that’s a good thing, right?
Oh and I looked up the conversion. 1 kilogram = about 2.2 pounds. I am guilty of going to pump class, selecting the same weights each time and moving through the exercises. Today I lifted a little heaver, my heart rate a little higher because I was in unfamiliar territory. That’s kinda cool. I will be grabbing an extra plate or two when I go back to my regular class. :-)
