Reflection On Taking Fitness Classes

Over fall break, I went to visit family and friends in Los Angeles and used my vacation as an opportunity to take three free classes at a nearby LA Fitness. I actually have access to all LA Fitness nationwide, but I had never taken any group fitness classes because I was always working out with friends or lifting at different times then the scheduled classes. However, during this fall break I was able to take some classes for free.

The first class I took was MoveIt, which was a circuit training class and later learned it was a favorite among members. Ryan, the instructor did not introduce himself at the beginning of class because all the members already knew him. I did however ask for his name after the class was over. At the beginning, he warmed us up for 5 minutes with both static and dynamic stretches. He took a few minutes to go over each circuit that we would spend 1 minute at. He explained that we would visit each station twice. There were 16 stations and a ton of equipment, including a pull up bar, bands, free weights, sandbags, medicine ball and trampoline, a box, rowing machine, sliders, battle ropes, speed ladders, and more. He explained modifications for the more difficult and advanced exercises. If a person could not do a pull up, he would put a band underneath their feet so that they can step on the band and lift themselves that way. He also explained that if your form is not perfect with the squat, you can set up a tall box behind you to sit on. He explained each station in full detail with everyone circling around and he showed how to do each exercise. After the first round of going through all of the stations he let us have a minute water break and rest. In term of the music, Ryan played popular, upbeat music the whole time that was fast-paced like our circuit training. He would yell things like “15 seconds left!” and “five, four, three, two, one seconds!” to keep us going until the end of each circuit. He was constantly walking around and looking at everyone’s form. I noticed everyone in the class had a lot of the movements down and Ryan went around trying increase the intensity for each person. When I was doing the weighted squats, he saw it looked pretty easy for me, so he told me to do a lunge every time I got back up. Unfortunately, we did not do a cool down because we ran out of time and the next class had already been waiting some time.

The second class I took was Flow with an instructor by the name of Michelle. She introduced herself at the beginning of class because since she was fairly new and ensure everyone knew her name if case of questions. She told us to take off our shoes and leave them outside of the class in a cabinet. We had to leave our socks on. She also did not want any phones in the room so that it would not disturb anyone’s relaxation. She said we could drink water whenever we needed to. We only used a mat during the entire session. This class was meant to be super slow and restorative, so there was no obvious warmup. The entire class seemed like it was a really long stretching session. I had read on a gym flyer that Michelle was known for her really relaxing voice that helped sooth the mind and body during the class. She kept us very engaged as every time we switched to another movement, she would say the name of the move and to flex or extend certain body parts to accurately match the pose. When we did a half split, for example, she told us to sit on our knees, extend our right leg, and put our head down to our knee. After about 20 seconds she said we could sickle our right foot inward if our ankle was flexible enough, or just keep our foot flexed if we could not do that. She was always giving different variations of each movement to make more challenging. Stacey did not necessary call us out and correct the class, but at one point I did see her walk around and grab someone’s foot and fix their position. At the end of the class she told us to get on our back and breathe deeply with our eyes closed. We also sat in a cross legged position at the end with our hands on our knees and she finished off by giving us a calming talk.

The last class I took was called Intense Conditioning with an instructor by the name of Terron. He introduced himself and told us we would need to grab a ball, a mat, and two dumbbells of the same weight. He started off by telling us that if we needed any water during the class to take a break, walk outside of the class and come back in. We did not stretch but we warmed up with many fast-pace side stepping movements that included reaching and bending lower to warm up different body parts. Terron like Ryan also played really upbeat music with no lyrics to keep the class interested and moving. He talked the entire time and did all of the movements with us, showing us exactly how to perform them. Terron also counted out loud which made it easy to know when we were finishing and switching to a different exercise. He would also yell “Are you feeling anything?” and we would cheer back to him so he would know it was at a good intensity. Something that concerned me was that he did not really explain easier versions of each skill, he would simply just demonstrate them and yell out tips as we went but did not really show easier versions for the less advanced people. For instance, when we were doing bent over rows with one hand on the ball, he would remind us to keep our backs straight and tight. She monitored the intensity by giving us a 30 second break after every few minutes and told us if we wanted to switch to a heavier weight of dumbbells we could. Something that was strange to me was that she yelled to everyone that we had “great form”, but he never got up to walk around and actually examine every individual. We cooled down by laying our back over the ball and holding that position, coming down from that position, and going into that position again. He thanked us at the end and let the class know about other times and days he would teach again.