I was watching a clip on YouTube recently where someone was discussing embarrassment as a child vs as an adult. They were saying that embarrassment is felt so incredibly deeply when we are kids but as adults there is far less that will bring us that same level of embarrassment. To some extent I believe this is true; when you are a kid you think that if your friends don’t do something, that you must be the only person in the world who does. I guess the invention of the internet and specifically social media has made this a little easier; on any given day you can search up whatever thing you think makes you a true dork and find a video singing its praises. I know after college and muddling my way through my early 20s, I made some really cringey mistakes that I shudder to think about now. At the time, I could have cared less- I was just doing whatever I thought I should be doing. Embarrassment usually tried to creep in when someone attempted to check you on that preference or behavior; unfortunately if you are anything like me I would never admit embarrassment to someone’s face. I would play it off as more of a yeah so what; I’ll own this like a badge of honor before I let you think I was unintentionally embarrassing myself.
This whole schtick works for a while- put on a brave face in front of people while dying inside. I think as women we probably do this more than men because as you enter the workplace the notion of gender becomes more and more apparent- but that’s a whole other topic. I was able to ride the wave of false confidence for a while but then….
I had kids.
Kids take you to a whole new level of embarrassment, the type you had no idea existed until that very moment. It is a mixture of having the full realization of what is happening, not being able to stop it and then needing to take ownership of the perpetrator(s) because, well, they belong to you. I know this feeling all too well because my son was always up to something. From the time he could move he was getting into things and causing havoc. I would give time outs, talk to him, demonstrate but we would go out and ultimately nature would take over. We were thrown out of our fair share of gym child cares, mommy and me events, and even story time at the library. Before then I didn’t anyone got kicked out of story time at the public library. He kept getting up and touching the projector screen they were using as part of the story. I would wrangle him back (my younger one was maybe 2 or 3 months old, so I had her to attend to as well) but as soon as he could, he would make a break and start messing with that screen again. At one point the man running the projector and I made eye contact- I knew that look. I remember telling him that we would leave and his reply was yes that would be best for everyone. Tax dollars be damned, there is no story time for this kid (or at least not at the library!).
I tell this story because I had a full circle moment this week at his first trimester conference. We had the option to do the meeting in person or over Zoom and I chose the latter (honestly, I don’t know why anyone would go through the trouble of driving all the way to school for a 20 minute meeting, but I digress. I hope Zoom conferences become a permanent thing). I joke around about my son but he is a really great kid; he is always well liked by teachers and polite, respectful, friendly and social in the school environment (for the most part). So I am sitting in my kitchen, listening to the teacher say all kinds of nice things about my 6th grader but all along waiting for the other shoe to drop because it can’t be all rainbows and unicorns. He is a middle school boy; they are all somewhat annoying as a rule. She finally pauses and says that we may want to talk to him about not following along with the boys and some of the group jokes. I guess these jokes get out of hand (not in a physical sense, just getting loud and rowdy) and the boys don’t always know what they are actually saying. I tell her I can see that happening; I have heard him on FaceTime and in person with some of his friends. I’ve also had him come tell me some of the jokes where I won’t even let him finish. These kids see and hear a lot of things but like a game of telephone, the message gets misconstrued and what one person might understand, the rest have no clue. The teacher then asks me if he told me what she spoke to him about the other day.
Oh no…no he did not.
She says it was one of those moments when everyone was talking but got quiet at the exact moment when he blurted something out. It wasn’t a swear word or any other kind of colorful language, but she described it as ‘a word we shouldn’t be using at school’. What word is this you ask?
Y’all, he yelled the word condom in homeroom. FACE PALM.
My immediate reaction was to put both of my hands over my face to maybe try to block the whole thing out. It’s not a bad word but goodness does he always have to get caught doing such stupid stuff??? She explained that she took him and another boy out in the hallway and my son was very worried he was in trouble. She said she explained to the boys that while the word they said wasn’t bad or wrong, there are some words we don’t need to use at school and that was one of them. Oh and of course neither boy had any idea what the word meant. When I finally glanced at my face in the little box on Zoom, I could see it was BRIGHT red. She was very nice about the whole thing but I finished the call still embarrassed for that whole situation. I asked him about it later and he played it off as no big deal- OF COURSE. If I’m embarrassed, why does he need to be!? Never a dull moment, I tell you. I take comfort in knowing most of my son’s friends are as clueless as he is so I am hopefully not alone in feeling mortified. He and I discussed trying to be a leader rather than a follower and hopefully some of it sunk it. You never know, this could be a learning moment or another story time at the library situation. It is anyone’s guess at this point.
Again, this has absolutely no connection to Peloton aside from the fact that throwing myself into my workout is a way to try to shake off some of the embarrassment. As I said last newsletter, I finished the playlist for last week’s challenge and moved on to this week’s. While I’ve had to table some cycling classes I really want to take, the addition of some yoga and strength classes has been good for me. There are a lot of different classes in the first half of this week’s workouts; between the cycling, yoga and strength there is hopefully something here that piques your curiosity. Let’s get this party started, here are the workouts for the first half of this week-
Sunday-
Day one of the new challenge week is here! As I mentioned, this week I have to take an hour of stretching or yoga and two bike (or tread) bootcamps. When I got to the bike on Sunday morning I didn’t know how I was feeling or what I wanted to do. Normally I try to have some idea or inkling of what class I want to do or at least what instructor, but this Sunday there were no ideas. For me when I don’t know what to do or I’m struggling to figure out the workout, I go right for Cody. I know that any class I take with Cody will springboard me into the workout- and I was right. I took this 30 minute Live from LA 90s Ride from two days prior (at the time it was his newest class) and it did not disappoint. Cody always puts a smile on my face and brightens my mood. Since I needed to start thinking about yoga for my challenge I decided to start rather than end my workout with a yoga class. I picked Denis’ Evening Yoga Flow without reading the description- I was thinking it was a way to knock out half of the yoga/stretch part of the challenge playlist. Once I got into this class I realized this class is intended to relax you from your day (hence the ‘evening’) and get your body ready for a restful night’s sleep. Pretty much the opposite of what I was going for that day since it was the first piece of my workout! Regardless, I started the class and decided to go with it. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class the practice here is pretty standard but the emphasis is more on winding down than on those dynamic sun salutations. Denis does a really great job explaining the exercises and walking the user through the practice. If I had paid more attention and tacked this on to the end of my workout, it would have been the perfect way to finish. The emphasis here is on elongating those muscles and settling your systems down to rest. Overall I got a nice stretch that had me ready to work out but in hindsight should have picked something more dynamic. If you are having trouble unwinding from a long day (maybe you were traveling or stuck in the car, or just had a long workday) this would be a great way to release some of that extra tension from the body. I bookmarked this class to have when we travel and I don’t have any place to put that excess energy.
After the yoga practice I made my way to the bike and jumped into that 90s Ride with Cody. The vibe in these classes is always a lot of fun and definitely got me more in the mood to exercise. The playlist in this class is so good- lots of Janet Jackson (this was part of his Janet week prep) as well as a lot of other dance-y pop tracks from the 90s. The ride is a true all level class; Cody combines a lot of different cycling exercises in the roadmap for this class. He programs a challenging class that could definitely be modified to meet the rider’s needs. There is plenty of built in recovery; he gives several short, 1 minute recoveries at the beginning of some tracks that help you get your life together. He combines a nice mix of speed work, jogs, HIIT and a slightly longer climb toward the end of the ride. The ride has a lot of nice balance and doesn’t lean too heavily on any one metric. This is a fun class that will make you forget you are actually working out.
Now that I was fully in exercise mode, I wanted a little something extra to finish off the workout. I saw this 15 minute Climb Ride with Hannah Frankson and knew this would be the perfect finisher. As you all know by now, I love climb rides; these short climbs are a great addition to any stack. They add a little more cardio without prolonging the effort- plus it shows how much you can achieve in only 15 minutes. These short climbs will often make you feel like you’ve worked out for double the time. If I only had 15 minutes to devote to my workout, I would, without hesitation, take a Climb Ride. Lately Hannah has been mixing it up with the climbs and not just serving your standard 15 minute progressive add. The class plan for this particular climb is fairly dynamic and interesting for an all resistance ride. She starts with a 3 minute quick flat road warmup before jumping right into climbing. The class is made up of 3 separate climb exercises- climb intervals, a longer progressive climb and finally a heavy climb with sprint pushes to finish class. The programming and metrics are fairly aggressive but modifications could absolutely work in this class as it is only 15 minutes. She accomplishes quite a bit here and left me pretty gassed by the end. Most of the instructors have 15 minute climbs on demand; I gravitate toward Hannah because she is entertaining and designs a consistently challenging workout. If you need a little extra something for your workout or want test out a climb without too much commitment, this type of class is for you. It isn’t too long but you will surely get a nice sweat in just 15 short minutes.
Monday-
If this stack looks stupid difficult, you would be 100% correct. For this week’s challenge I need to complete two boot camps (bike or tread) as well as this 20 minute Full Body Strength with Rad. Going into this workout I was thinking I could just knock a nice block of the challenge out if I buckle down and get through these two classes. They are both full body weight training- I’ll just keep the party going from Jess Sims‘ class right into Rad’s class, right!? HA! I don’t know if I forgot how difficult Jess makes these Bike Bootcamps (I’m not sure how this could ever happen) but the whole thing was not designed thinking about my body- or whether I’d be able to move the next day! Kidding aside, this stack was a beast and left me insanely sore but it wasn’t impossible. I really enjoy both of these instructors which helped make something that could be truly awful a little more easy to digest. The biggest obstacle for me is both of these workouts, while being full body, hit the legs really hard. I started the stack with Jess Sims’ 45 minute Bike Bootcamp from 11/1. She and Tunde both teach a really tough bootcamp but I tend to gravitate toward Jess’ classes more as she doesn’t kill you on the bike sections the way Tunde does. As with most 45 minute bootcamps, the class is divided into 4 sections- bike/floor/bike/floor. She starts class with a 4 minute progressive build warmup with a couple quick cadence intervals. The twist with this bootcamp is that both of the bike sections focus on resistance work. The first block of bike work is made up of six 45 second on, 30 second off resistance intervals. In the introduction she tells you the rest period is only 15 seconds but corrects herself once you begin the first interval (a small win for the rider). The second cycling block consists of ten 30/30 power jogs out of the saddle. A power jog is supposed to use less resistance than a full on climb so that the rider can up the cadence in the interval. When she went over these in the introduction I didn’t think much of 10 intervals but once I was actually in it, these were insanely tough- especially in the back end of class, coming off the first strength block. I struggled getting into the groove but my body got the hang of things by the third or fourth interval. Jess balances these resistance efforts on the bike with a solid full body strength workout. In the first strength block she programs a 6 minute, unilateral AMRAP- there are three movements each done for 5 reps. She spends 3 minutes on the right side, takes a 1 minute break and then does another 3 minutes on the left side. She wraps up the strength circuit with the ever popular plank party. I found the second weight circuit to be the more challenging of the two. Here Jess programs a 7 minute EMOM with two different sets of moves- A and B (each having two exercises, 8 reps apiece). The user spends the first minute on circuit A getting in as many rounds of those two movements as possible. Then she flips over to B and continues to alternate through the first 6 minutes. The seventh minute she puts all four movements together into one mega EMOM. I never finish any of Jess Sims’ bootcamps and wish for more- she always delivers a consistently difficult workout. I think of all the things Jess teaches, I enjoy her hybrid (bootcamp) classes most of all; she is really good at keeping balance in and bringing fresh perspective to the workout. Plus there are no shortage of shoe store analogies/stories as far as I am concerned! This week the shoe store was happy Halloween was over but getting ready for the holidays. The work here is tough but broken up into four pieces makes things a little more manageable. I think with enough modifications this workout could fit a variety of riders. I love the mashup of strength and cardio- I say this all the time- you get your cardio fix while sneaking in weight training. It’s a win win!
Since I already had my mat set up and the weights out, I decided to rip off the bandaid and get this Full Body Strength class with Rad checked off my playlist. This was chosen as the ‘crowd’ class this week- the specific class that everyone in the challenge is supposed to take. I was pretty spent after the bike bootcamp but I had the time so I decided to get it done. I really enjoy working out with Rad- his classes are sneaky hard. He’s upbeat, energetic, positive and then lays out an absolute dumpster fire workout. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this class but knew whatever Rad cooked up was going to be challenging. He starts with a three minute warmup and then moves into the first of this three part workout. The first block of the workout is devoted to lower body (aka more legs); he programs a 3 round leg and glute circuit. There’s a short break and he moves into an upper body AMRAP; there are only two moves in this AMRAP but it is not easy! He finishes off class with a 3 move pyramid, starting at 10 reps apiece and working down to 1. While that upper body AMRAP was kind of a disaster for me, I surprised myself by finishing the pyramid before time was up. There is not much of a cool down in class since he uses part of the cool down for the pyramid, but at that point it didn’t matter much. I was too spent to care! Every time I work out with Rad I am seriously impressed with how much he manages to accomplish in such a short amount of time. He programmed three blocks of work in this 20 minutes and none of it felt rushed or overdone. If you like strength training and you haven’t worked out with Rad yet, you need to bookmark some of his workouts. If you don’t like strength training he may convince you to give it a go- he has fantastic advice for modifying the workout and always demos all move variations. I definitely bookmarked this class to take again when I am a little less tired but overall it is a fantastic, quick, full body workout.
Tuesday-
It is no secret that I am a big fan of Emma’s 45 minute 90s Rides, no matter what the music genre. She has a knack for reaching back into that decade and pulling out all sorts of gems, guilty pleasures or songs we thought we would never hear again. I went back and forth on Tuesday morning between this 90s Ride and Kendall’s Pop Ride from Sunday but ultimately the playlist in Emma’s ride was too good to pass up. While it is not that 90s Rock playlist (probably one of her best playlists EVER) it is a solid lineup of 90s pop hits. It also could be that I was still riding the wave of Cody moving to the semi finals on DWTS or the laundry list of Janet Jackson songs that were currently stuck in my head. Sidebar and totally unrelated- I showed my 9 year old daughter the video for Janet Jackson’s If the other day. I told her the choreography was so cool at the time and all these people tried to copy it; y’all she watched maybe a minute of the video and told me I had to turn it off. She told me it was ‘cringey’ and gave her ‘second hand embarrassment’. Parenting fail.
Long story, short the playlist in Emma’s ride was speaking to me and I knew that it would be a solid endurance workout rather than a ton of sharp peaks and valleys. You can always count on Emma to deliver, especially in a 90s ride- she more often than not turns these rides into HIIT and Hills. She does a really good job of balancing the intensity and working in recovery, whether it be a full track or extra time between intervals. The workout starts with a 4 minute flat road warmup where she gives the roadmap for the rest of class. This ride is made up of 5 climbs with 4 cadence tracks in between. The class starts and ends with a climb and most of the resistance work is done in the saddle for a multi-minute stretch. Anyone who rides semi-regularly with Emma will be familiar with how she handles climb tracks. The cadence work is mostly done in intervals and a nice contrast to the longer, steady work done in the resistance tracks. My advice in this ride is try to not go too hard in the first half of the ride; the final climb of class is fairly long and you will need something in the tank to take you across the finish line. Overall this class is a tough one- but not as tough as some of the 45 minute 90s rides have been in the past. Alternating between climbing and flat road speed work lessened the intensity a little (for me anyway). There is room for modification but you’ve got to be committed to multi-minute seated resistance work. Otherwise a reduction in resistance could make the ride a little more accessible for a less experienced rider. As I said, Emma is consistent and always delivers; the ride is a fantastic pairing of tough work and 90s pop music.
I still had 30 more minutes of yoga/stretching to do for my challenge so I decided to tack another yoga class on to the stack. I enjoyed Denis’ yoga class I took on Sunday (even if it was a little slow) and decided to try a Flow class. This is a pretty standard yoga flow class; there is a warmup, he runs through sun salutations and then shavasana. The instruction is excellent; I couldnt always see the screen (I ended up with my back to the screen at one point) and was still able to follow all the voice prompts. I have taken yoga classes in the past and practiced pretty regularly before I had kids; I don’t know if that made a difference or not. It was a nice way to end my workout and definitely got me to focus on my body instead of running headfirst back into life. I’d be interested to try some of the other classes and possibly a longer class to get more out of the practice.
Wednesday-
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, no one programs a classic rock or 80s playlist quite like Denis Morton. He pulls music from multiple genres over one or more decades and always gives the rider/listener a good mix of mega hits (aka the songs you expect to hear in a particular ride) and solid jams that no one else is playing. I like the diversity and meticulous nature utilized to create these epic playlists. When I saw Denis was teaching a Classic Rock Ride Tuesday afternoon I knew this would be the workout for Wednesday. I said this on IG, this class should have been titled ‘Classic Rock Giants’ because Denis plays track after track from some of the biggest artists in the history of rock. Think The Stones, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and plenty of others. He pairs this heavy hitting playlist with a challenging yet not impossible workout. One of the things I like most about riding with Denis (aside from the winks and double entendres) is how he designs the workout. His workouts have a tremendous amount of balance; there is not a lot of frenzy when taking his classes. He focuses more on managing the peaks and valleys of the workout and offsetting heavy duty resistance work with quick fast cadence pushes. He starts the workout with a 12 minute warmup or what I like to think of as a preview for what is to come. The first three minutes or so start with a flat road adding small amounts of resistance; he then moves into a spin up track and a short climb to finish out the warmup. Denis designs this workout with a little bit of everything- there are climbs, jogs, choreography, and all out sprints. He’s got something for every type of rider plus, as we all know, Denis only makes suggestions. I keep coming back to the music because that took this ride from great to amazing; Denis does a fantastic job of pairing the work efforts with the music. There were times where I got lost in the music and almost forgot I was supposed to be grinding it out on this bike. I think the class has a ton of room for modifications; resistance can be added or taken away and efforts done in the saddle. While there is no one full recovery track, Denis sneaks recoveries in throughout the workout- there are some longer breaks between intervals or he doesn’t immediately start an effort when the track changes. There are plenty of opportunities for the rider to get their life together while still staying in the game. I don’t know if I can say any more great things about this ride or any of Denis’ other Classic Rock/ 80s Rides (particularly the 45 minute ones). It is a quality workout and listening experience (and the view isn’t bad either!)
I had just a little more yoga/strength to do to wrap up my challenge so I tacked on this 15 minute Yoga Flow with Chelsea Jackson Roberts. I’ve never taken one of her classes (I don’t do a lot of yoga on the platform) but have heard wonderful things about her and her practice. My first impression- Chelsea oozes good vibes and positive energy. It practically leaps off the screen and engages the user. This was a solid 15 minute yoga practice; it is not a lot of time to get in a lot of sun salutations but we worked through a couple. She does an excellent job focusing on strengthening and lengthening our bodies. In taking the yoga on the platform, my biggest takeaway is what a fantastic job the yoga instructors do walking the user through the practice. In some classes I feel like I need to see the screen to have the moves click in my brain; here the instructors use clear verbal cues and walk the user fully through the exercises. It is nice to be able to move through the poses and not always strain to look at the screen to make sure I am doing the right thing. These shorter yoga classes are a nice opportunity at the end of a workout to take a moment, stretch, move through your body and dial everything back. While I don’t necessarily get into shavasana for an extended period of time, it is a nice stopping point between that intense cardio and getting back to real life.
That is it for me! I cannot believe that we are coming up on Thanksgiving; someone asked me the other day if I was ready and I may have blank stared them. Of course I’m not ready! In my defense, we had some moving parts in terms of who was going to be here and who was not which would have made a difference in the amount of food needed. For right now it is going to be a small gathering with my husband, kids and in laws and that is fine with me. Thanksgiving is one of those days where most leave me alone to cook and drink wine in the kitchen by myself. No one wants me to pull them into anything I’m doing or give them some type of assignment. My husband is pretty good, he will do a lot of the necessary picking up around here before the guests arrive. It might be part picking up, part watching football but as long as it’s getting done, you won’t hear any complaints from me!
I will see you all back here this weekend where we wrap up the rest of this week’s classes. Have a wonderful weekend!