Today's class was another Aqua workout. This time it was more of a mixed bag of activities and seemed to focus more on cardio and arm work. The class was decent; I feel like I got a good workout in my arms, which I probably really needed. When I compare it to the Aqua class I went to on Tuesday however, it was pretty bad. By comparison, Tuesday's class was pretty awesome because the instructor did not stop talking (I bet you're thinking to yourself - why is that a good thing?). Well, I'll tell you. When the instructor is constantly talking, it most likely means they are offering you encouragement, feedback, and maybe even different options on how to do a particular exercise. They are quite possibly explaining where on your body you should be feeling the stretch - despite what you may think, where is often not self-evident and you can get into a lot of trouble stretching the wrong area with an exercise because it means you are doing it wrong. They are paying attention to what you are doing and correcting you if needed. They are monitoring the "newbies" in the class and ensuring they have it done right. And they may just flat out be pumping up the energy in the class with their own enthusiasm. There is a lot of benefit to an instructor talking you through what you are doing.
For example, on Tuesday we did this move where we traveled by scooping our hands while running in place. It's easy to use your legs to move you and the arms are just periphery, but you could hurt your knees that way. You run straight up and down, and use the arm movement to propel you in the right direction. Did the same move today; no explanation. Actually, every move we did had zero explanation. The only talking the instructor did was to call out movement names here and there or tell us to switch directions. There was the occasional "yeah! You feel it right?" and that was about it. There were a lot of times where she did not even call them out, but literally just changed movements and if you were not looking at her, you would not notice the switch. And sometimes she would only demonstrate it for one or two repetitions and then you either needed to get it or too bad (so no room to look back and make sure you had it down the right way because she was standing at the front nodding).
I am really glad we went to the Tuesday class first because this one was pretty bad. Again, my background knowledge of how to do this stuff may have contributed to my negative outlook on the class - because I know what it should look like. It may have been fine for someone else, but I was not impressed. I would say I'm not the only one with this perception because the Tuesday class was nearly packed, and this one has maybe ten people in it. The exercises were decent, my arms got a good workout, the only thing the instructor was good for was to tell me which thing to do next a.k.a. I could get the same value workout from a TV broadcast on silent (except you can't really do that with Aqua fitness). Even most of the taped shows will still go through the "here's what this should feel like" and "here are some modifications to make it easier or harder". I tried to do a booty-shaping-dancing-cardio-workout video once. My kids got a kick out of it, I just couldn't keep up. I say once, but it was like three months ago, not even that far back in the "distant" past.
We used resistance weights to work the arm muscles. Basically, it's a dumbbell-shaped floating foam, since it floats getting it under water and keeping it there in place takes effort because it is always trying to float back up to the surface. Moving it around really engages the arm muscles.
Mistakenly I picked up the harder-to-use set. Perfect for a newbie! Another thing an experienced instructor could have foretold; "hey, you're new, the difference between the yellow and the blue is that the yellow offers more resistance." I grabbed yellow. I was fine with it. My mother, not so much. She gave up using it in the first two minutes and would have benefited from the blue set.
Oh well. I got something out of it in the arm exercises and then went out to meet a friend for lunch. It was a good day.
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