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Thursday, June 15, 2006

Water Aerobics

This morning I attended my first class in water aerobics, and I feel as though I got a good workout. I spent the first twenty-five or thirty minutes feeling completely lost, and I'm pretty sure I was just randomly kicking instead of doing the prescribed movements, but I assume that portion of class was meant to get your heart rate up, so I think I accomplished that even if I couldn't master walking and kicking at the same time (elementary gym teachers can probably attest to my lack of coordination -- I was the kid who was always tripping and falling down or running into the wall during capture the flag).

But the second half of class I understood and it was pretty challenging. We did lots of ab work and arm work with floaty weights, and lastly, the instructor walked us through some yoga-pilates types of moves. I have a feeling that my abs will be a little achy tomorrow and I can already feel how challenged my muscles in my shoulders were by a couple of the exercises (it's surprisingly hard to move styrofoam through water, especially while trying not to float up yourself).

Plus, being in the water for the workout was refreshing. True, the water is nearly the same temperature as the air, but the wet quality makes it a little better, and it's such a relief after running and sweating so goddamn much. (Last night, I ran at 9 pm and it was still 88 degrees outside and I was a sweaty monkey.)

All in all, it made for a good workout on a non-running day and I really do feel as though I helped in some toning; I'm such a cheater with my strength training that it probably was the hardest weight session I've done in awhile!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love water aerobics, but haven't done them since college....a long time ago! I should check and see if there are any places around my town that offer them.

Anonymous said...

I also love water aerobics but I was always bringing the age of the class down immensely. Plus, who knew you could do pilates/yoga in the water?

Liv said...

Cool! Your gym has some interesting classes! Definitely a nice way to get out of the heat.

Iron Jayhawk said...

Awesome! I've never done water aerobics...I may have to check it out now or something...

hmmm!!!

Jess said...

It should be noted that I did not take the class at my gym; it was a class through community ed, which is where you can find a lot of good classes like that, and they're usually pretty cheap.