Love That Burning Sensation

A manly GO staffer takes a shot at four consecutive days of traditionally feminine workouts—and lives to tell about it.

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Day 0—Preparation

I worked out this morning at my usual time, 5:30 a.m., and did my usual 20 minutes on the StairMaster. I’ve been working out regularly for about nine months and have managed to lose about 20 pounds. But over the next four days I have a feeling I’m going to feel pain I haven’t felt in a long time.

I hesitate to tell you this because I’m going to catch hell from my friends—but I started Weight Watchers last week. I’m now in my second week and have already lost five pounds, which brings me down to a trim 305. So as I prepare for the next four days of workout hell, I’m excited to see how much weight I’ll lose, but also frightened I may pass out on my Spin bike and have the entire class laugh at me. But what hell, here I go.

Day 1—Body Step, Ozark Fitness Center

At 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, I find myself at the front of the class, with all the women behind me, and reality sets in that I am about to get my ass kicked. I have no water bottle, no towel, no nothing. It’s just me and my step. The room is full of women, and they have their game faces on. Thank god the instructor came over and removed one of my steps. She said I should start at just two, not four.

As the instructor starts class, I’m feeling quite confident because I’m keeping up and still smiling. But as we move past the warm-up and get into more complicated step moves, my legs slowly start to feel really heavy. It’s a different feeling than I have ever had, probably because muscles that have been hibernating for 26 years are now awake and pissed. After about 20 minutes I’m sweating profusely and my eyes are burning from sweat. As we move on to the third song, I start feeling good enough to start incorporating hand motions, dance moves, clapping— but as soon as I get cocky I trip and almost fall down. Things go downhill from there. By the last song I was so lost I looked like a tourist in NYC. I just kept looking around in amazement that people could actually follow the instructor.

Now it’s cool-down time, but to my surprise the cool-down is not sitting in front of a fan and watching TV. The instructor leads us into triceps raises, crunches, push-ups, and then some stretching. I’m 300 plus pounds! I just did an hour of step and she wants me to do triceps raises and push-ups?

I finish and sit in my car for about five minutes to gather my thoughts and contemplate the sanity of people who do that class more than once a week. I ask myself could I do it more than once a week. Probably. Do I want to? No freaking way!

I’m just glad it’s over with no serious bodily harm. My legs are looking forward to sitting and resting at my desk for the rest of the day.