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I was exhausted when we got done with the warm up portion of the class. Five minutes in and I was considering walking out and getting a sausage, egg, and cheese. But I didn’t.
“THIS IS WHAT YOU CAME HERE FOR!”
My SWEAT instructor bellowed this phrase no less than ten times over the course of the 40 minutes full-body workout that I had foolishly signed myself up for last Monday night. Why I signed up for an 8:30 a.m. workout class on Saturday morning, after spending all of last night drinking Rumplemintz and vodka-sodas is beyond me. Last Monday night I was feeling motivated and thought “Hey, why not?”
“This won’t be too bad,” I said to myself. But it was bad. Like, really bad. I am now at working questioning the nature of my reality. My legs feel like rubber. My head is pounding from the alcohol I drank last night and all that workout class did for me is make me tired.
My grandfather fought in the Pacific so that me and thirty other millennials in overpriced athleisure could listen to a sped up version of “Snap Yo Fingers” while an overly enthusiastic trainer screamed at us to pick up the pace.
All thirty of us spent 40 minutes doing various exercises in this warehouse-like gym, and when I wasn’t keeling over from doing the burpees I was actively avoiding the gaze of our instructor. I could tell she was silently judging my half-assed form, and the last thing I wanted was for her to come over in the middle of me doing jump squats and tell me I need to get my butt lower. The group fitness class has become a phenomenon with my generation. There’s nothing twenty something love more than doing these boot camp type workouts and then spending twelve dollars on an acai smoothie bowl at the bar in the front of the gym.
And I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful or upset with the class. I signed up for it. I knew it wasn’t going to be fun. And My instructor was great. She was enthusiastic, helpful, and motivational, but this kind of thing just isn’t my cup of tea.
Credit to her for doing that as a job. I could not imagine having to do three or four of those classes every single day. Between all the corny shit you have to say to people and the terrible top 40 playlist I’d lose my goddamn mind. But credit to me as well for getting through what I just did. I deserve an award of some kind. Or some Chick-fil-A. Either or would do just fine.
I hate to say it but I think this may be my last visit to group fitness class for quite some time. I hated every second of that workout. I’d rather spend an hour in the gym by myself lifting weights than fighting for space at the kettle bell station with a bunch of girls who still have their makeup on from last night.
It was peak millennial culture in every single way. The bass thumping, sped up music. Lululemon as far as the eye can see. A promise from our instructor that if we can complete this full body workout the rest of our Saturday is going to be “kickass.”
I want to curl up in a ball and sleep for the rest of the afternoon. Enjoy the day. I’ll be having nightmares about burpee’s for the foreseeable future..
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
It’s beyond me how you can do burpees on Saturday morning without shitting your pants worse than Hillary did on Election Night.
Delete your account
“I play sports. Not trying to be the best at exercising” -Kenny Fucking Powers