Body Pump!

       The other day I jumped at an opportunity to enhance my professional development and my fitness by participating in a body pump fitness class at the Antigonish Goodlife Fitness Centre. Not knowing what I was entirely getting myself into, I loaded up my exercise short bar with weight, grabbed my step and a mat and went to work. Long story short, it was an awesome class! It was filled with fitness enthusiasts and even one guy whose biceps were actually bigger than mine! (haha).

  The class focused on a high number of reps with lower weight. The class hit the larger muscle groups first, followed by the smaller muscle groups near the end. It was the way a good strength based class should be structured. Fatiguing the larger groups of muscles first is a good idea as they should be worked before your smaller muscles. For example, your thighs, quads and glutes (butt) are areas which house much muscle. Therefore, it is good to work that area for example, before you work your forearm muscles.       The class focused on compound movements throughout, meaning every time we were doing an exercise it was working more than one muscle group (eg. legs, core). The intensity changed as the movements changed along with the instructor's commands. The tempo went from lowering the weight counting "1,2,3" and then switched to faster reps (which is fine as long as the weight is low and you do not compromise your form). The end of the workout saw us doing a clean and press which you can also see on my blog in one of my videos!
      Ultimately, I recommend you try a body pump class or something similar at your local fitness center, community center or wherever else you may complete group exercises in a safe environment. It is often awesome to have someone else do all the exercise preparation so all you have to do is show
up and keep up. It is kinda cool!

Ryan Fahey
B.A Human Kinetics
CPTN Canada
Canfitpro FIS, PTS
NCCP