No Pain, No Pain...

Since my last post was on food, I thought I'd maybe move on over to exercise. On Monday I started taking a class called the Dailey Method. There is one located just up Piedmont Ave. right near my house. I decided to sign up after hearing about it from some friends and reading about it on Yelp. The Dailey Method is an hour long class of strength training through small isolated movements and Pilate's, ballet barre work, and stretching.

I showed up early my first day and the instructor was really friendly, showing me around and giving me the low down. I did feel slightly out of place, as all but a few people in the class were stick-thin, but muscular blond women. Anyway, the music started pumping as we lifted up our knees in a step aerobic fashion. We grabbed our tiny 1 lb weights and work our arms in every way possible to the point of exhaustion and burn. Not anything too awful... that was until we popped down to the floor going straight into plank position and then push ups. Three minutes in and I heard my inner voice saying, 'What the $&#%!! did I get myself into.' But soon my arms were relieved by a moment to stretch. Not for long though, we had to move on to gluts, legs, abs and 50 more muscles I never knew I had. An hour later, hanging off the bar with my legs in front of my spasming and shaking uncontrollably, it was finally time to rest.

I hobbled successful down Piedmont back home, proud for sticking with it. The soreness didn't hit me until the next day when the task of moving became agonizing. I went again on Wednesday, after popping some Advil to make sure any residual soreness wouldn't influence my workout. I was slightly worried that I the class would be harder and I wouldn't be able to keep up. In fact, I think it probably was harder, but that wasn't a problem, as they encourage you to listen to your body and do what you can.

Maybe that's what I love about this class. There is no boot camp style yelling to go harder or kick higher (like that horrible kickboxing class where I torn my hamstring out of fear of not kicking 'high enough'). I think the difference is that everyone in the is there to work hard and do their best. Heck, I was doing this pretzel bend thing and couldn't even lift my knee off the ground. The instructor came up to me and told me (by name!) that I had great form and that it was better than getting my knee high with lousy form.

Anyway, enough with the rant. I'm debating if I need one my rest day today, or if I should run over for an afternoon class. For the first time this week I am not sore... to bad it is so darn addicting!