Daily Archives: April 1, 2012

An Afternoon at Equinox

As a blogger and a social media strategist, I love companies who “get” social media and work with bloggers–and it seems like a lot of companies have been stepping up their game lately.

One of those companies being the gym I work out at, Equinox. One of my former coworkers (not to be confused with Former Coworker Abby) works in their marketing department now, and asked if I thought bloggers would be in for a free, private class at Equinox to sample some of their classes. Um, yes!
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She put together a 90-minute class that sampled three different classes–MetCon3, Barre Burn and yoga.

We started with MetCon3, with Frank Salzone which was definitely everyone’s favorite. The fact that he was pretty cute didn’t hurt, either.
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MetCon3 (which stands for Metabolic Conditioning) seems like just another boot-camp style class on the surface, but there’s very specific science behind it, apparently, which is supposed to lead to maximum fat burning. It’s designed to give you an elevated heart rate, a balanced workout and the ability to use “all three metabolic pathways more effectively.” (More info on those here.)

The workout consists of 10 different exercises (written on the mirror up there) that are each done for a minute, and the cycle is repeated three times. It was a fun, high-energy class with great music. We did a strength move like squats or reverse flies and then a cardio move to get our heart rates up. I’m not much of a sweater, and I was drenched by the time this class was done.
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Next up was Barre Burn with Jordanna Dworkin. I’ve taken Barre Burn a few times before, and it’s one of my favorite classes at Equinox. It’s really similar to Core Fusion/Physique 57, usually, but yesterday’s class far too intense and advanced for all of us–especially after the intense first class.

So we were psyched that the last class was yoga. (And having all these instructors come in to teach us, I totally felt like I was at a fancy adult summer camp.)
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Our instructor was the very sweet Francesa Bove. Her style reminded me a bit of Tara Stiles‘–chill and not taking herself too seriously. My kind of people. Also, her soft-spoken British/Italian voice was very relaxing. We did some very gentle, flowy yoga.
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Bug.
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The group! Celia, Meggie, Jocelyn, Jill’s friend, Erica’s friends, me (no, I didn’t get the memo we weren’t doing a V-shape.), Jill, Erica and Melissa.

It made me a little self-conscious to work out in front of only people I knew and not hide in the back of a class, but I got over it once I realized everyone was too preoccupied with their own workouts to stare at me.

Afterwards, we all sat in the steam room for a while and hung out. I think I’m probably going to cancel my membership when it’s up this summer because I don’t use it enough for what I’m paying, but yesterday’s awesome classes and hanging out in the eucalyptus steam room definitely made me give second thought to that decision.

It was so much fun to work out with all of these ladies and to meet Jill! I need to get some more MetCon3 in my life.