Body Pump!

I recently got certified with about 20 other fitness teachers to teach a 60 minute barbell class that focuses on total body strength training.  I have taken the class at a gym in Sacramento for almost 3 years.  When I moed to Gridley and found out they were going to start the class at the gym here and only had 1 instructor, I knew this was my chance to try my hand at teaching it.  I love the class, have developed more muscle tone from it and find it is a challenging, tough, calorie burning, awesome workout!  To find out more about Body Pump, click on the link.

   I came out of my 2 day training feeling exhausted, inspired, challenged, and fired up!  We learned some of the tracks and had to teach them to the class and be videotaped and graded by our trainer.  Jeremiah flew out from Georgia and travels around the country training new instructors for Les Mills.  He is the best instructor I've ever taken a class from and is approachable, friendly, gives great feedback and advice, and  lifts some serious weight!  He gave us the best training I could imagine.  The first day we went through a whole class and then broke down each move to perfect our technique.  We learned a track, practiced, and then taught the class.  We reviewed our videotapes and feedback and then did it again. 

    The next day we taught the same track to the class, learned a new one to teach and then it was on to the instructor challenge!  We more thean doubled the weight we normally lift and for over an hour we were squatting, lunging, curling, crunching, rowing, and pressing more weight than we knew we could.  I found myself doing bicep curls with so much weight, my muscles finally gave out and I could squeeze out one more rep!  Same with all the exercises, and especially overhead presses.  My muscles were so fatigued I literally could not push the bar up one more time.  It was the hardest workout I'd ever had on top of a previous day of full exercise.  But, it felt AWESOME!  I've never had sweat dripping and pooling around my feet like I did that day!  I loved it!

Here's our trainer at a massive Les Mills conference.  How could you not feel inspired by this man?!

He taught a class to this group once.  A-MAZE-ING!  He's that good!  So far I have taught one class in Marysville, am teaching another one this week, and will start my own couple of classes here in Gridley in a few weeks.  I've always had knee pain with prolonged exercise, both weight-bearing and running.   I pray I can teach my classes well without the complications of annoying knee pain.  So far so good!