Back in the Saddle

That would be a funnier title if I attended the spin class at work. Alas, I don’t do spin, since the one time I tried it, I managed to rotate one of my vertebrae. I have no plans to try spin ever again — even though that was a couple years ago.

What I am doing is getting back to my normal fitness routine. When I’m not being a total slacker (as I was over the holidays), I typically attend fitness classes at the work gym over lunch once or twice a week, then do weights once a week. I’ve been mixing it up recently, though, and throwing in some treadmill instead of strength training, just because tracking my cardiovascular fitness with my new Fitbit Charge 2 is a new fun thing for me. #datanerd

(Also because I’d have to adjust my lifting plan to my post-hiatus fitness level, and I haven’t felt motivated to do that yet, truth be told.)

Monday was kickboxing class.

Max heart rate: 156

I didn’t throw myself into it quite as much as I had the week prior. One of the other attendees has a strong background in dance, though, and something about having a West Side Story interpretation of kickboxing within my field of vision makes me want to kick the imaginary things’ asses so much harder.

About halfway through class, I started backing off the jumping moves: substituting low-jacks for jumping jacks, doing normal slow lunges instead of the jumping fast lunges the instructor called for, and generally protecting my lower back. I also bowed out of the five minutes of ab work at the end — my abs had done enough work staying engaged to protect my back — and headed for the showers.

Tuesday was my Weight Watchers meeting, which I decided should trump working out. Wednesday was our department lunch, which also trumped a workout… although my Fitbit seems to think that the 15 minute walk to get to the Spaghetti Warehouse qualified as activity.

Thursday was Barre Sculpt class, which is a relatively new addition to the fitness center schedule. For lack of an actual barre, we used the spin bikes as handholds for balance. Part of the class was barre work, and part was core work down on a yoga mat. I wasn’t sure while I was in the middle of class whether it was doing anything for me — but the next morning, my glutes informed me that, yes, something good had transpired. Thankfully, nothing tweaked my lower back (which can sometimes happen if I’m not extremely careful with core workouts).

I had originally planned to do some dumbbell work at home on Friday evening, since I had a chiropractor appointment over lunch, but I decided to let my Fitbit’s assessment stand: I’ve been active three days this week, even if one of those was “just” a walk to lunch and back.

Feeling good. Right at this moment, I’m tired from a week of work and my ass is still stiff from barre class… but I’m feeling good overall.

Got something to say?