wtb-week 18

Holy cow, I hurt for a couple of days!  Last week I saw a yellow sign at Lincoln Park advertising bfitdc.com (read a WaPo review of the studio here).  For some reason I remembered the sign and checked it out when I got home.  A combination Pilates and ballet-barre workout developed by a dancer who was injured and wanted to get back in shape.  I was intrigued and convinved my friend KK to check it out with me at the basics class.

The workout wasn't quite what we expected--it was awesome.  We used the ballet-barre only as support during the different Pilates poses and as resistance during one of the ab sections.  I was sweating hard within the first ten minutes, much like I would be after a three-mile run.  I loved the concept of striking a dancer's pose, holding it and then isolating muscle groups in a surprisingly hard workout.  It worked my muscles on whole new levels way deep inside that I didn't even know I had.  I couldn't do every repetition or hold every pose.  I needed a lot of help finding the right pose and techniques.  I pushed and did as much as I could plus a little more.  It was satisfyingly exhausting in ways that only hard work can be.

It was the hardest workout I've had in a long time.  Turns out that we weren't at the basics class, we were at a regular class with one of the hardest instructors in the studio.  When KK and I found this out, we were impressed with ourselves and after seeing that we really could do more that we had to do more.  We'll be back next week.

Remember me writing about working out with my team before heading to Afghanistan, aahh, pyramid pushups--that's how my body feels now.  The feeling the next morning when I woke up and tried to move, that deep muscle soreness and burn that sticks around for days afterwards reminding me that I'm a bit of a wimp.  I have to say I love that feeling of having worked hard.

P.S. You can see some of the moves on this website.  It's not the same studio, and has more photos of the moves.