Fitness

Themed Spin Class Playlists

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I write this post while blasting Jason Derulo in my earbuds. You may ask me why. What a great question: A. I’m hiding from construction noise at work. And B. I’m creating a theme playlist for Spin next week! DUH. Next Monday, 3/5/18, all Jason Derulo. I have been teaching fitness classes for more than 11 years, but I haven’t talked about it too much on the blog yet. One of my favorite types of Spin classes to teach is a theme class. Here’s why:

  • Costumes. Y’all know I love any opportunity to dress up.
  • The hype. There’s nothing I like more than gloating about my upcoming classes on social media. Like here where I posted on Instagram about my upcoming boy band playlist. Or here where I showed everyone my amazing talent of keeping my “Happy New Year” tiara on my head the whole 60 minutes during my “Top Songs of 2017” playlist. I also tweet about themes in the hopes that the Dodge YMCA will retweet me some day.

  • Groupies. People love a good theme. Advertising in advance means more people will come. And sometimes I can even get people to create the whole playlist for me! Remember when Tim created a playlist for my Guest DJ Ride?
  • Easy to make the playlist. I just type “hot” in Spotify and BAM. I have a playlist. Ok it’s not that easy. But it is easier than pulling 15 random songs out of thin air.

Sometimes a theme playlist is based on current events, sometimes it’s an artist I want to highlight, sometimes it’s a trip I’m about to take, sometimes it’s a holiday that is coming up, and sometimes it’s just when the mood strikes me. Like almost every Thursday when I decide to throw in some throwbacks (#TBT, ya know?).

Sometimes my themes are specifically requested, like the Jason Derulo class coming up next Monday, 3/5/18. I am always trying to get people to give me requests, and some of my best themes have been suggested by participants, like Britney v. JT. This particular theme was requested by my best friend, who happens to be a special guest next week. Monday, 3/5/18. (Have I said it enough times yet?)

Here are themes I have used in the past, including links to my Spotify, once I started using it. Feel free to follow my Spotify, or follow those individual playlists if the theme moves you:

Photos from My Theme Classes of Yore

I am always accepting new ideas for Spin class themes, song requests or theme requests. If you have any, leave them in the comments! And if you’re in the Brooklyn area, don’t forget to come to my class, next Monday, 3/5/18, at 7 pm. Wear your Jason Derulo fangirl outfits.
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Fitness

Spiderbands

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You know what I always dreamed of? Using bungee cords hung from the ceiling for an hour-long cardio and toning class that kept me engaged and sweating the whole time. JK, I never dreamed of it because I didn’t even know it was possible, but FitForFreeNYC made my non-dream become a reality, because she came through yet again with a freebie at Spiderbands!

Ever since I took a free yoga class and free BollyX class from following Alexa Lippman’s blog and Instagram, I have been keeping a close eye on her posts, and it has paid off again and again. This past week was definitely the best yet. On November 27th, she posted a boomerang and said that if you created an account during the month of November, the first class would be totally free until December 28. That meant I had 3 days to claim the class! I dropped all of my Macy’s Parade and Thanksgiving plans and signed up STAT. I also told 8 of my friends to sign up. Five of them did, too! We decided to take a class together and we even set calendar reminders to sign up right when the spots opened, because all classes for the week open up at 1:00 pm on Mondays. Long story short, all of my friends bailed (literally, all 5 of them), but I went anyway, by myself, and it was a BLAST. AND a fabulous workout!

Generally the first class is $20. You may have missed the opportunity for a free class, but the good news is, for the month of December, it’s BOGO! (I picked this tip up from FitForFree as well.) At $17/class, that’s even less than the first class special. And trust me, you’ll want to do it more than once.

The Spiderbands location has two studios in it, which have different bands in them. The downstairs studio is for Spiderbands, the original band. There are five different possible classes with those bands. The upstairs one is Spider Flyzone, where the pace is slower so you can perfect your technique and work on acrobatic skills, either with or without a partner. When I walked into the Union Square location, they were super nice and inviting, gave me a tour of the studios and the locker room (VERY modern and clean), and explained the lockers to me. They also informed me that cell phones were not allowed in the rooms at all, which made me thankful I was early so I could snap some quick shots of the place before we started!

Even on the original Spiderbands, there are five different options of classes, some using trampolines and even boxing bags! Since it was my very first class, I decided to go for the Signature Spiderbands, taught by the one and only CREATOR of the band itself, Franci Cohen. The bands have only one adjustment: the height of the handles on the bands can either be on high, or low. Being 5’11”, clearly I was high (DUH LONG LEGS big city). Then I was ready to go. Franci explained that to keep things simple, each segment of the class would be four moves, and she would teach one, practice it, and add one on at a time. We started with a cardio warmup, which followed the same 4-move format. We began by jumping with our hands on the bar of the band, doing different movements from things like spider jumps (like a side to side skater jump), and jumping jacks, and running forward and back, all while pushing on the resistance of the bands with our arms. I found out quickly that the upper body and cardio were going to be the tough parts. With all of my spinning, the squats were nothing compared to the constant resistance on my shoulders and arms from the pressure of trying to hold the band down against the resistance from the ceiling. The four-move-max really helped because I could concentrate more on the movements and good form than on remembering the next move. I did enjoy the fact that it seemed a little choreographed, since I am a fan of step aerobics and other dance-y-type things, it kept things interesting to change up the moves. However, since it was a max of 4 moves to remember at a time, it didn’t take a very coordinated person to catch on.

The floor of the studio was very bouncy, which is helpful for knees, but I was a little bit worried about my ankle stability on the one leg jumping movements, since I had a double sprain earlier in the year. Overall, though, the floor made it more fun, and we were able to do a larger range of things, with bigger range of motion. For example, my favorite move of the class was when we held on the bar, walked backwards, dropped our butts down to the floor, rolled back like we were going to do a backward somersault, touched our toes to the bar, and then rolled back up to standing position, all without letting go of the bar. I got stuck on the floor the first time, but Franci cued that if we backed up further, the bands would have tighter resistance which would help us get back up, and sure enough, it worked. There were 25 available spots in the class, but we only had about 14 people, which was great because Franci could walk around and help each of us out! 4 of those empty bands were from my friends who bailed! THANKS FRIENDS!

Overall, I left the class super sweaty and I had a BLAST! The class went by FAST, ended with 5 minutes of tough ab moves, also utilizing the Spiderbands and arms, by sitting on the floor and doing different moves like variations of reverse crunches, and I was sore for a few days. I would definitely recommend going back. In fact, I may snap a BOGO 2 more class before that deal expires in 4 days!

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Fitness

CPXperience at Sky

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Friday night I died 5 times. But here I am, risen from the dead, very sore, and here to tell the tale.

Backstory: I heard about a gym called Ripped from Well and Good (review coming at another time), and at the class last Tuesday, the trainer, Courtney Paul, plugged this “super fun fitness event” he was hosting on Friday. He said the venue would be “bougie AF” and there would be “lots of hot guys there.” I was intrigued. Then he said it was FREE. My favorite price. So I RSVPed. But then I got terrified and so I invited 10 of my closest fitness buddies to come with me, and out of 10, one said yes. Shout out to Mary, my ride or die. Mostly die.

This event was a collaboration of Life Time Athletic at Sky, with Courtney’s special fitness baby called CPX. As he asks on his website, “are you ready for the CPXperience?” Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was. But his Instagram made it seem like it was going to be cool, there was a post-workout pool party, and I was interested in seeing the outside, all-turf space, 11 stories above ground. Plus, it was a breezy 70 degrees so I couldn’t even use the weather as an excuse. Oh, and did I mention it was FREE? I did.

But still, I was intimidated. Courtney was featured on the Bravo show Work Out New York, and he can sometimes be fun and playful, (lots of sexual innuendo), but can sometimes be f*cking terrifying, screaming at you to get your treadmill to 9.0 MPH for the sprint or he will do it for you. Luckily there were going to be no treadmills on Friday night, so I felt a little bit more at ease going into it.

A little about the workout: CPX is an “ultimate fusion of body conditioning with a circuit flare.” He says on Instagram that it is meant to “redefine HITT.” HITT is usually used in the military as “high intensity tactical training,” and I’m not sure if he really meant HIIT, or “high intensity interval training,” but either way, it was definitely high intensity. His workout (and he) has been featured in a lot of articles and magazines, you can see some links here on his website.

I arrived at Sky, where I went in a revolving door to a bougie AF lobby (he was not exaggerating). I had to sign a waiver on an iPad, check in, and receive my wristband. I felt so official. Mary and I took the elevator to the 11th floor, where we were some of the last to arrive, as usual. We grabbed mats and resistance bands, Mary got a complimentary energy drink, and we set our mats at the very back of the AstroTurf in the corner. I would ballpark about 80 people there. Not too shabby. The music started bumping and we started squatting. A lot of Courtney screaming in the microphone to keep our weight in our heels, and what seemed like 3 hours later, we moved away from legs, and on to abs. I think in reality, it was only 10 minutes. For the next 25 minutes we did squats, lunges, plank walkouts, butterfly kicks, crunches, etc., then we grabbed our resistance band for upper body toning. We did 10 minutes of bicep curls, upright rows, tricep kickbacks, partner rows in squats, etc. Finally, I thought we were getting a break. Joke was on me. We dispersed to the areas surrounding the turf where they had various benches and couches. They were not for sitting, though. They were for tricep dips, step-ups, and squats. For some reason this was my favorite part. Maybe because I just like being in proximity to seats.

We capped off the workout with some partner patty-cake planks, and partner core exercises. Check out my boomerang! Clearly staged, since I am smiling. I am a wuss and I probably stopped and didn’t do 10% of the workout. But to be fair, every time I looked around, there were always a few people taking breaks. That’s the nature of an interval class. Work as hard as you possibly can, then take a break when you absolutely must. I woke up the next day with a lot of different, obscure muscles aching, so I would say it was a success, even if I only did 90% of the workout. Ok, 85%.

Anyway, the workout was over just as the sun was setting, the apartment building/gym lit up, and we proceeded to the pool for the after-party. I had packed a swimsuit just in case, but it was a little too cold to hop in. The pools had an amazing view of the Empire State Building, PLUS they had one of those massive blow-up swan/flamingo floaties. (Check out Courtney flailing around on his Instagram after I left, LOL) I was very tempted to go in. Oh, AND they were hosting the 2017 Ultimate Hoops National Tournament. BALLIN’! It turned out this was a fancy-type bougie club. Too bad I was in spandex, with no makeup and covered in sweat. Also, the drinks were $16/piece. We stuck around for a bit for some Class A people-watching, saw some people (bball players?) getting interviewed on the step and repeat, then we took a photo of ourselves, duh, and found a place with more reasonably priced cocktails (read: cheap margaritas).

Overall, it was a successful FREE night of fitness in beautiful weather, and Calvin, the Studio Manager at Life Time Athletic gave us a free pass to try another one of their classes. I will definitely be taking him up on that! Go check out Courtney Paul’s CPXperience if you wanna get your butt kicked.

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