There’s a few of us who enjoy exercise and can’t wait to get into the gym and “feel the burn”!
For the majority of people however, this is not the case.
Lets face it most of us would rather sit at home on the couch tucking into some cookies while watching your favourite drama. (Fair city)!
So people have rightly capitalised on the ‘fun’ part of exercise and so you have everything from Zumba to dance and group classes designed to be fun and also burn some calories.
These are more towards the recreation side of things than exercise. I’ll explain the difference below.
But there are some things to consider. How many people get injured from doing high impact Aerobic type classes?
Are these classes personalized to you the individual who has some mobility or posture issues or poor core strength?
Is the class based on a thought out logical progression of exercises?
Is the instructor correcting your technique?
Those are a few considerations. I see people go to lots of random classes but see little in the way of visible results.
I’m not saying some people don’t get results, of course they do, but it’s like anything. Doing something at least is going to get you some form of results, especially if you are quite new to exercise.
Exercise should be a planned, structured and progressive process in which significant physical exertion is applied to create a positive physiological response. Doing a set of Leg presses to muscular failure isn’t exactly fun, but it’s going to stimulate your body to improve and adapt!
Physical activity or recreation is defined as any form of movement. One compliments the other and exercise should help compliment your recreation, but there is a distinction.
So, to summarise, I think group classes definitely have a place, and some people just wouldn’t exercise if it weren’t for the group motivational environment. The small group classes are probably better so there’s more attention to detail. Packing 20 something people into a class with one instructor obviously comes with it’s risks.
But it all depends what you are looking for.
Do you want to have some fun Exercising with friends or do you want to train to get results?
Hard, intense exercise might not be fun, but the results you see in the mirror will be worth it.
Then again, I get a strange kick out of pushing to my limits and leaving the gym feeling great! Is that just me?!
Nigel