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!