#PropelFit Work Out With Friends Challenge: SLT with Liz Barnet

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by FitFluential on behalf of Propel. I was compensated and all opinions are 100% my own.

As you know, I love working out with friends. I’m a really social person, and I love working out, so kill two birds with one stone? Yes, please!

Propel’s challenge to us for this month was to work out with a buddy—doing their workout.

I’ve known Liz for a while through Uplift. We really became buddies, though, around last Christmas. I was about to head home for the holidays, and I was idly flipping through Twitter. I saw her tweeting about a yoga studio that was a mile from my parents’ house.

“Are you from Franklin Lakes??” I asked. Turns out she is, and is from less than a mile from where my parents live. We immediately became Facebook friends and discovered we had half a million mutual friends from both the NYC fitness scene and from Franklin Lakes.

She teaches at both Uplift and SLT, and we’ve been trying to work out a time I can come to one of her classes. I decided this challenge was the perfect time to take her up on it!

SLT has been described as “Pilates on crack.” I guess it’s good I’ve never done “regular Pilates” because I don’t have a frame of reference.

I showed up ridiculously early, because I wanted to make sure I had time to get comfortable.

WELP, you walk straight out of the elevator into the studio. A class was going on, so I sat awkwardly on a bench in front of the class, messaging LIz.

She showed up a few minutes later and gave me the lay of the land.

The Megaformer has two platforms on either end. On one end, there are springs, where you can  either add or remove tension. There’s also weights hiding out under the “carriage” (the scary middle thing that moves) and several bands that are used for arm torture.

Liz knew it was my first class in a long time, so she taught me how everything worked…and go. I set my Propel out on one end of the Megaformer so that it’d be in easy reach at all times. The studio was already a bit warm, and I saw the other women from the previous class drenched in sweat, so I knew I’d need it.

It’s always funny taking a friend’s class. It’s so rare that we see our friends at work, so it’s fun to see them in their work habitat, being all serious-like. Except fitness instructor friends get to say stuff like “yeah, you should be feeling like a rap star right now” when you’re dropping your booty low. I guess I could probably say that at work too, but it’d probably be a little out of context.

And because she was my friend, I felt way less awkward about corrections. She was just my friend coming over to help me. What, don’t your friends grab your back and push it down? No? Weird.

The class started off with some crazy stuff like inchworms to warm up our…everything. We moved into a leg series for what felt like forever, focused on some core stuff, and then did an arms and back series. Each time we began a new series, I took this as a chance to grab some sips of Propel. It was HOT in there, and I was dying. A 30-second Propel break was much-needed!

I giggled and grunted my way through class, and before I knew it, we were done, and Liz and I exchanged sweaty hugs.

Do you work out with friends? What’s your favorite workout when you don’t want to work out solo? Do you turn your fitness instructors into friends, too, or am I the only creepster who does that?