Hurt Pride, Hurt Rear

This morning my friend (who is really cute and single, by the way, so if you know any decent single men HOLLA) and I decided to try a new exercise class.  Trying a new class is usually a good idea.  I mean, it gets you out of your routine, works different muscles and can even break an exercise rut.

The class we selected was labeled a strength training class, and we figured it would be challenging.  We thought so because most of the other classes we have taken at our gym have been challenging.  Both of us were ready for an intense workout: Sweat big or go home.  We were pumped.

We busted into the workout studio right on time, and suddenly we faced ... a room jammed full of silver hair.  Now, I'm not talking about a variety of ages in the room or simply a handful of silver-haired ladies.  No, the average age of the more than 40 ladies in this class was probably 60.

I want to be clear, 60 is not old, in my opinion.  It's just that there was not one woman in the room who was less than 15 years older than we were. We kind of panicked.  My friend asked if we were in the right room, and we were.

So being ageist egoists, our next thought was, of course, "This class is going to be easy!"

We arranged our equipment, feeling confident and preparing to outdo our more mature counterparts.  The instructor started the class, and she had us pick up our exercise balls with both arms and make a figure-8 shape in the air.

If you've never held one of these stability balls, they do not weigh much, maybe 2 lbs.  Those figure 8s, I have to tell you, were just not difficult.  My friend and I looked at each other thinking "This class is a joke."

And then, God decided to punish us for our cockiness.  

The instructor went into turbospeed with arm weights.  We both had to downgrade a size from the weights we usually use.  This lady made us do about 50 repetitions of each and every impossible exercise, and all of it was done while sitting on the ball.

But that was nothing compared to the leg exercises.  Leg lifts. In every direction. Hundreds of reps. Hip flexors, glutes.  Muscle exhaustion.  Ouch.

As we hobbled out, my friend and I looked at each other again.  We came up with excuses.  We decided not very many of the "old ladies" actually did all the reps.  We said we'd rather do 10 reps correctly rather than 100 reps too fast.  We complained about the lack of cardiovascular exercise we did.

I left the gym feeling better. My pride was healing.

Until this evening.  This evening, I cannot walk.  This evening, my rear hurts so bad I am not sure I even can make it to the gym tomorrow.  

This evening, I admitted to myself that some silver-haired ladies kicked my twenty-something butt.  And it hurts.