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Posts tagged with: cardio
Nov 11, 2008    |      0 comments

Row, Row, Indo-Row

Almost a year ago, I donated to KCRW, a subscriber-run local radio station in Santa Monica. In return, I received a few music CDs, and a 3 session gift certificate to Indo-Row classes at Revolution Fitness in Santa Monica. The year had past, and the expiration date just ended. I called Revolution Fitness if they would still honor it, and fortunately, they did.

Since I’m on this cardio phase right now, I gave it a shot and reserved a spot in the class online last week. Coming into the class, I was a little nervous because the last time I did any type of rowing was during a personal training session at 24Hr Fitness maybe 6 years ago. I never attempted to do it again since because I wasn’t confident in my form to do it by myself in the gym.

Revolution Fitness is in the old town type shopping area of Santa Monica off Montana. If you didn’t know the address, the sign wasn’t that obvious, and the actual entrance to the place is not exactly at the street. The staff was very friendly at the door, accepting my expired gift certificate, and directing me to the correct room. The actual place itself is a bit small, but it’s known for the Indo-Row class, spin, yoga, and pilates. It wasn’t the usualy 24Hr Fitness I was used to. The class itself only had about 7 people including the instructor, Brian, who will be traveling to Japan next week for a rowing competition. He was very helpful in getting me started, showing me the correct form, and explained the rowing machine. Everyone else were 4-5 time repeaters of the class, but I think I was able to pick up very quickly. I wasn’t paying attention to the intervals of the training, but they were definitely intervals, going from very slow, to fast. He broke up the training with strength training with weights, and sit ups. We would go back and do sprint-type rows, and slower motion rows. There was a team aspect to all this, meaning we all had to keep up at the same pace, which is especially important when doing actual rows in the water.

The class was almost exactly like how I pictured it to be. I thought it wasn’t as cardio intensive as my spin class, I felt the muscle burn all throughout my body. I’m excited to go back next week and mix up my cardio training while I wait for the next marathon season!

10 Benefits of Indo-Row and Rowing

Aug 2, 2008    |      0 comments

Turbo Kick Boxing In The Mix

This morning was my second time trying out 24 Hour Fitness’ Turbo Kickboxing class. I admit, the first time kicked my ass because I didn’t have water, which is VERY important in these high intensity workouts! I figured, since I don’t do as much running on pavement anymore because of my TNT break, I should at least keep up my cardio. The video above is a good representation of the class. I was in the groove of things this time around. I was more familiar with the moves, and was hydrated. I think this will be a good Saturday morning routine for me now.

May 17, 2008    |      0 comments

In The Habit

I woke up VERY early this morning to check out some strength cardio class at 24 Hour fitness, but when I got there the class was full. What the? Oh well, so I just did a little cardio on the elliptical machines and some weights. Wow, this is good. 6 out of 7 days this week I did something cardio-related. I came to the realization that I’m in the habit in all things active. Shaweeet!

Feb 26, 2008    |      0 comments

XTraining With Crunch

Crunch Gym In the beginning of February, representatives of Crunch, a gym in Hollywood, offered to give all employees a one month complimentary pass. February flew by so fast, and time’s running out! I finally decided to go since today was scheduled to be a “rest day” or a “crosstrain day”. It’s somewhat on the way home, it’s free, I’ll get some cardio in, and there won’t be traffic when I’m done. How can I resist? I looked at the classes online and at 8pm there was something called “Raw Groove.” Fair enough, that’s what I decided to do.

The gym is somewhat small, but seems to have a wide variety of things to do. It had all the machines and weights of what you’d expect from a gym. What sets itself from 24 Hr Fitness or LA Fitness is the amount of classes they offer, multiple rooms for classes, they have a boxing ring, and it has that sense of “Hollywood” style. Not sure if that last one is a good or bad thing. No one really hassled me about signing up for a year contract which some gyms do. I had some time to kill before my class, so I worked on my shoulders with some of the machines.

I felt a little weird when I first entered the class because aside from the instructor, there were only 2 other guys… and there were oh, 30 other girls. 10 girl to 1 guy ratio? Oh darn, right? Who am I to complain? Once the music started though, I knew I wasn’t in a “beginner” class. I eventually got used to the moves, after a few moments of just standing there, and some times when I’d spin the wrong way. Damn, they were making some difficult “U Got Served” moves to Justin Timberlake, Flo Rida, Mary J Blige, and more. I came to realize how uncoordinated I am, but it was really fun. Watch out now, I’ll bust some of these moves out in the clubs! There were so many 8 counts, jumps, spins, and hits for a whole hour.. it was a well worth cross train session and was a good break from the running monotony. Tomorrow night’s classes: Cardio Tai Boxing, or Pole Dancing?