Pump it Up

My gracious and generous parents have contributed to the get-Therese-back-in-shape fund for Christmas and on Monday, I eagerly went to Costco with a friend and grabbed a 2 year membership to 24 Hour Fitness for $319. If my math is correct, that's just over $3 a week. AMAZING!!!

I went with a friend yesterday to walk on the treadmill for a bit and today I went to Body Pump. I have been wanting to go to this class like crazy for a while now. It's a group weight lifting class very similar to the 24 Lift classes I was taking at the gym in Ft. Worth.

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I'm actually really proud of the strength training I've been doing at home lately and it allowed me to more or less keep up with the class today, but the only way I'm going to get in 1 hour of strength training at a time is if it's in an encouraging environment with someone telling me what to do next and that's exactly what Body Pump is. I'm hoping to go twice a week now.

What I love most about strength training is, well, the feeling of strength that it gives me. Not just externally, but internally. Whenever I've gotten in a good routine with weights, I'll jokingly flex and ask Ross if he can tell I've been lifting weights. He always laughs but then says yes. But one time he said, "I can also tell you've been lifting because you're more confident." SO TRUE.

Here are some beginner's tips and a great summary of Body Pump from a few other blogs I read. Like Olympic snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler says, “It's not about being sexy but about being strong and powerful and showing girls it’s OK to have muscles. … And that strength and power is beautiful.”