Will Sweat With the Oldies for Cheap Cardio

Kelly and I sized up our classmates for Step Aerobics while sitting in the waiting area of the Greentree Community Center.  There was the older lady in the spandex shorts (ick!), the older lady with the flawless 80’s bangs (ick!), the older lady with the giant purse that matched mine (how dare she!), her high school age daughter in a ripped up muscle tank top (not very ladylike if you ask me), and then there were two very large women who kept their eyes downcast.  We were feeling pretty good about this class since we thought we were a couple of the most fit in the group. 

When Zumba was over and everyone was clearing out, we went in to the room to set up.  We grabbed the step and only one level of the risers; this was after all our first class, no need to kill ourselves.  That’s when I started feeling a little strange about our classmates.  They were getting two levels of risers for their stairs.  I considered this but thought, “Eh, no big deal.  These old ladies have been doing this for a while.  No need to compete.”  Our instructor looked Kelly and I up and down and just went to the front of the classroom without saying anything to us.  But that was all it took for us to make up an opinion about her.  Kelly quickly leaned over to me and said, “Did you see her?!  She looks just like Angela from ‘The Office’ only she is buff!” 

“Yesssss!  She does look just like her!” I  said.

“She’s buff Angela!”

“Ha!!  She must teach Geriatric Aerobics on the side!

“Alright let’s get started!” Yelled buff Angela.

We started with pretty basic stuff, marching in place, jumping jacks and then we moved on to the step.  Step up, and off.  Easy right?  WRONG!  There is much more to this than just stepping on and off a riser.  Kelly and I were pouring sweat before the warm up was done.  But the worst was yet to come.  Buff Angela had us stepping and turning while on a riser and landing facing a different direction and then reversing it!  I cannot even describe the strange moves that she was making us do.  I was so lost most of the time I was just stepping up spinning and hoping that I landed like everyone else.  Kelly and I were a disaster in this class.  As if my non-coordinated pride didn’t hurt bad enough, then the old ladies started in on us.

“You are younger than me and you can’t even keep up with me!  Hahaha!” laughed spandex.

“I’m not even breaking a sweat and you two aren’t even stepping anymore!” said bangs.  (To her credit, her bangs were still flawless.)

“Ha, yeah.  This is our first class,” replied Kelly in the nicest way you can manage when you are sweating buckets and being made fun of by old ladies.  “We’ll get better.”

“You are really good! “ I said still attempting to make friends.  But I noticed something when I was at the Greentree Center dying, Buff Angela looked at us, smirked and then looked at the mother and daughter combo.  The mother and daughter rolled their eyes towards buff Angela and then went back to work.  They were rolling their eyes at us!  Rude, rude, rude!  (Honestly, there are mirrors everywhere in a workout room, how much did you seriously think you were going to get away with?)  I looked at Kelly and saw that she had seen the eye rolling too.  Now we were mad.  And one thing that you old, spandex-y, 80’s-bang-loving, snide-body-building-grannies need to know about Kelly and I is don’t make us mad.  We locked eyes and out of the depths of our exhausted bodies, we got our second wind.  For the first time since we had been there, we were nailing the moves!  Step, step, turn, leg up, hands in the air, step, jump, spin, whatever!  We were finally getting it.  Then we ran out of steam again.  We were once again at the mercy of buff Angela and her drones.  Luckily, we had made it all the way to abs.  If you have ever been in a work out class before, you know this is the part where you can rest.  If you are tired, no one is watching so you can just lay there.  But since we were still mad we kept with it.  That buff Angela is no joke either, she did a full ten minutes of abs before she let us go.  She was brutal!  For the next four days I ached and thought of buff Angela every time I laughed, sneezed, or coughed.

The Greentree Center was not a bad little center.  Since Kelly and I are not residents of their city, the price was just too much for us.  We would have to continue our search for a good, cheap gym with nice people.  Buff Angela really did put on a great class, she was just a…..well, nevermind.

Kelly snapped this picture during class.