Body Attack

I took Jaykay's advice and gave Body Attack a go. It was great advice. The class wasn't too crowded, and I was the only beginner. There was another lady about my age and everyone else was young and thin. I was hoping my cardio fitness was up to the challenge. Fortunately, it was.

The instructor explained that it was ok to do the low impact version of the exercises and to do the exercises without the arms. She also told us that there were two blocks of cardio, and if we weren't fit enough, we could bale after the first block. I thought she was saying that for my benefit, but some people did leave half way through.

It's always interesting doing a new class. They all seem to start off at different paces. Today, we did a couple of stretches, really fast, and then we were into it. Totally different to Yoga and Body Balance. The instructor talked about the low impact option, but she always started off high impact. In most cases, it wasn't until she saw people struggling that she'd show the low impact option.

There was a lot of jumping in the first fifteen minutes, and I ended up having to take an emergency toilet break. That's never happened to me in a class before. I think I would have struggled on until half time and left then, but luckily someone else dashed out to get water, so I figured I could dash out too. I apologised to the instructor after the class, and she told me about a move in the last program that she had to take the low impact option for because it affected her the same way. The other thing that I'll know for next time is to wear a more supportive bra. Usually my standard sports bra is fine for the gym but not today.

The second half of the program had a fair bit of running in it, and some agility work. I was thanking the running course as I did really well in this section. I also managed to do the high impact option most of the time, and there were only a couple of times I didn't do the arm movements. There was one move that was particularly satisfying for me. I used to do walk aerobics at home, and I had a walk / jog program that included a kind of kicking to each side and swapping feet move. I used to just jog through that on the DVD as my knees weren't up to it. I have no idea what to call it, but we did exactly the same move today in the class, and I was able to do it comfortably.

The calorie burn for the class was excellent. I'll definitely go back and do this one again.