On My Toes

One of my favorite classes to teach at the gym is boot camp.  There are so many different ways to do it and many of the exercises can be done without any equipment so people learn that they can exercise anywhere...at home, while staying in a hotel, in the park.  There's often a look of surprise when new students see me for the first time. I don't exactly look like a typical fitness instructor.  I'm really short and although I'm pretty strong, I'm not thin and don't look muscular.  And I'm very self-conscious about not looking the part. 

Yesterday I went to a free offering of boot camp at a gym nearby.  One of the exercises in the circuit was diamond pushups; so called due to the hand placement which makes a diamond shape.

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These work the little triceps muscles on the back of the arms (the ones hidden by our "bat wings" or "granny arms").  This muscle is small and that makes these pushups harder to do. 

I've always had a relatively strong upper body.  In elementary school I'd not only climb the rope to the top of the gym but I'd do it repeatedly until the gym teacher made me stop.  I have large-ish shoulders (not linebacker large but big for a tiny girl) and can pound out quite a few pushups...on my toes.  Remember when girls did pushups on their knees and boys on their toes?  Yeah, not me. I do them on my toes and always have.  In 10th grade or so I did more pushups than any other girl in my grade.  The gym teacher didn't believe I did that many (we were working in pairs and counting for each other) and made me do them again.  A boot camp instructor I had overseas used to say, "Good, you're doing them boy-style," and I'd reply, "No, I'm doing them girl-style!"

So yesterday, in this boot camp class I was doing diamond pushups on my toes (okay, to be honest, I can't do as many of those as I can regular, wide-arm pushups but I can still do them) and the instructor saw me and said, "Look at you doing them on your toes!"  Of course, she did not know that I'm also an instructor and, not looking the part, I can understand why she would be surprised. 

My blogger-friend Angie posted just the other day about body image and not meeting image standards (check it out, it's a great piece...and if there was a poster of me on the door to the gym I'd go into hiding so good for her getting past it!).  It's not easy.  I know I'm strong and fit even if I don't look it.  But that doesn't stop me from wondering if people don't come to my class because they feel like they will get less of a workout from an instructor who doesn't look like she lives at the gym.  I worry about not looking "good enough" to be an instructor even if I can out-pushup the guys in the class.  I want to be satisfied being strong and fit but I'm not sure how to get there mentally.

How do you feel about body image or about what expectations you have from fitness instructors? Have you overcome body image issues?  How many triceps pushups can you do (on your knees or toes)?  Challenge yourself!

What Makes a Good Workout?

When you've been taking workout classes for years it can seem like it would be pretty easy to be an instructor...heck, you practically have the entire class memorized yourself.  Then you stand in front of a class for the first time!  When I taught my first class years ago I had no idea how much extra effort was involved simply in having to give instructions out loud the entire time.  When I started planning classes I couldn't believe how hard it was to come up with an hour's worth of material and then to do it again and again in new and different ways. 

Sometimes you spend hours drawing up a plan that looks great on paper only to have it completely not work the way you thought when you're there in class.  Other times you pull something out of your mental arse at the last minute, fully expecting it to bomb, and everyone loves it.  One thing I learned early on is that you can't please everyone!  I've had plans that one class loved and repeatedly ask for and then used that same plan with a different group and received very negative feedback (one woman actually yelled at me).  It's so hard to know sometimes what will go well and what won't. Some students want the security of knowing exactly what they're going to be doing while others don't want to see the same thing twice. 

I'm not a yoga instructor but I taught a yoga (-ish) class.
Recently I went to one of my weekly yoga classes and the instructor didn't show up.  Being an instructor (not normally of yoga) I told the other class participants that I could lead them in *something* yoga-ish if they wanted but warned them that I normally teach boot camp, not yoga (and th end result was probably a boot-camp-ish yoga class).  It was definitely the most stressful yoga class ("stressful yoga class" is not a phrase you want to use) I've ever done.  I've taken yoga for years but as soon as I pulled my mat to the front of the room I suddenly couldn't remember more than a couple poses. And interestingly, I'm very used to saying "right" but using my left when facing the class (if I say "right" and use my right they will mirror me and use their left) when teaching other formats but I could not do it in yoga.  Probably partly because I was so nervous but even when I realized what I was doing I couldn't get it right (or left!).  I'll say with certainty that it wasn't the greatest class ever but the participants seemed grateful to have had something and I learned that pulling a yoga routine out of my arse (much like trying not to fart in class...seriously, read this article, it is HILARIOUS!)  is Really. Freakin. Hard.  I'm sure, though, that they were almost as relieved as I was the next week when the instructor was there!

This week I was having trouble coming up with something new to do in my water aerobics class.  I'm still not quite sure how I even ended up being a water aerobics instructor.  Back when I applied to teach here locally but before I was assigned a class I got a text message asking if I could fill in for an aqua class (a class that started in 1.5 hours not really leaving me a lot of time to prepare).  I replied that I've never even taken an aqua class, let alone taught one.  I was told it was just like teaching on land (for the record, it's not).  Sure, I said. I'll come up with *something.*  And I did.  And I was terrified. And it went surprisingly well (I've actually used that plan many times since).  I was asked to teach again the next week.  And then I got my assignment and didn't teach water again for months (which was actually just fine with me).  When the classes at the gym on post were all canceled (the contractor who offered the classes pulled out of their contract and we were all out of a job) I signed on with a national chain.  The first availability they had was a water aerobics class.  So I took it.  And it turns out I like it. 

But this week I was struggling.  I came up with an idea that I feared would bore them to tears but gave it a shot anyway.  I'm pretty honest with my students and told them that they should tell me if it was really boring and I'd figure something else out.  They liked it so much they asked me to do it again when I sub on Saturday.  I was surprised.   I'm still surprised. 

So, what makes a good workout?  Damned if I know! There's no magic formula, that's for sure!

Do you workout? How do you define a "good" workout? What are your favorite class formats?