Group Session

As mentioned before I've joined a gym when I came back to Malaysia for my summer holidays. So since the group fitness sessions are free and already part of the gym membership, I thought to myself... 'what the hell, I should try out some of these classes.' After all I wouldn't pass off a chance to try something free. So off I went to my first group fitness class called RPM. I should give you a bit of background knowledge on these group fitness classes, firstly they are called Les Mills classes... Les Mills is the brand name of the company that developed all these group fitness sessions, and obviously its named after a dude named Les Mills. Les if I'm not mistaken is some medal winning athlete from New Zealand, and these sessions were produced by him.

Anyway, there are a few types of classes, and to my knowledge... They are bodypump, bodyjam, bodyattack, bodybalance, bodystep, bodycombat and RPM. The classes are structured according to loud music beating in the backgroud, so the music coupled with the instructor shouting his or her lungs out is supposed to be motivational to its participants. So as I was saying, the first of the fitness class I attended was RPM, and that’s a group cycling class. I'm not entirely sure why its called RPM, but I’m guessing it stands for rounds/revs per minute, which is a bike riding measurement of how fast you're cycling. Well anyway, the class was pretty good and the instructor was a lady... so I guess there wasn’t much eye candy for me.



But whoa, the work out was very intense... In a mere 50 minute cycling workout, I must have sweated at least a small glass full of sweat. At the end of the session I was absolutely drenched in sweat and very tired. But none the less, I felt it was a really good workout. Since that first RPM class, I've been to a few more... And they really did give me a great workout. On a side note, the other few RPM classes I attended were with guy instructors, in tight lycra bike outfits :]

The next group fitness class I tried out was bodypump... And just the other day was my first class... Most of my muscles are still aching from that classes, I reckon they are taking so long to recover because they aren't muscle groups that I usually train, and the class really left me with real sore muscles. Anyway, pump is a class whereby you exercise to the music with a weighted bar. The difficulty isn't in the weight, but more of the high reps that is involved in pump. The same action is repeated over and over again at different speed according to the beat of the music, and if my fitness knowledge doesn't fail me, high repetition exercise is great for muscle toning, where as heavy weight low reps are good for building bulk. Since toning is my main fitness goal (It isn't like I don't already have enough bulk) I felt that pump is something I'm very likely to do again.




Anyway, the class was a bit embarrassing for me, because some of the girls there were carrying much more weight than me. I started the warm up with three and a half kilos each side... and then moved up to five kilos each side for two song tracks. Then embarrassingly I had to move my weights back down to three and a half kilos for the remaining of the session... I felt kinda sissy, cause there was this girl that remained with five kilos throughout the session.

So that’s my group fitness experience so far, I have yet to try the other classes and not sure if I'll try them... Since the time slots are quite odd and don’t fit into my schedule... But I'll definitely continue to attend pump and RPM classes. Okay...

Time to come clean I guess, another reason i attend these classes is because I know a lot of my gay friends, both here in Malaysia and in Melbourne love to attend these classes. And I must say that after attending them for myself, my gaydar was tingling like mad, and I think its safe to say that most guys attending these fitness classes are gay. I'm not saying all are gay, just most :] some of my gay friends are a real sucker for these classes, and I even know a few that attend several a day. But I’m wondering if they are actually doing the classes right? Coz maybe they aren’t using enough weight or putting enough resistance when they are on the bike??? Cheers

Signing out.