This post is written by a guest blogger, my husband Anthony. He is very involved with the studio and I appreciate all he does to help out.  Usually he comes to the studio to change light bulbs, paint, or take photographs for the web site. But, he recently went for a different reason – his first fitness class!

Not so long ago, my Comfort Zone involved my La-Z-Boy recliner, a beer and my TV remote. While I can still be found now and then relaxing with a cold one, watching a game, the Comfort Zone I’m referring to is what I do for exercise.

I like to think of myself as runner and cyclist. While I don’t burn up any courses, I’ve done a bunch of 5K & 15K road races and managed to cycle a few 100K group rides. Doing those things is my idea of fun.

For various reasons, my level of fitness is not as good as it should be right now and like millions of others, I’ve restarted my exercise regiments after the New Year. So, I’ve been hitting the gym and been trying to take long walks at lunchtime with my friend Jayne Robinson. It’s coming back but it’s going to take work and I really don’t want to get in a rut.

Last weekend, I did a photo shoot with Gail and Tenicia (T.) Trask at Albany Dance & Fitness. Those two are working on a new workout routine, which if you are a regular reader of this blog, you will find more details about very soon.

I needed a lot of lighting gear for the shoot, so I decided to show up early and get ready while T taught her Sunday morning Pilates Ball class. The class looked fun and since I’ve done a lot of abdominal work with exercise balls, it looked like something I would enjoy. Yeah, this was in my comfort zone!

T’s class ended and the photo shoot went great. We made a lot of wonderful images that will be showing up on this web site and T’s in the near future. That night, I mentioned to Gail that I wanted to give T’s class a try. She laughed that knowing laugh and encouraged me to give it a try.

So the night before the class, I pumped up my green exercise ball and the next morning I woke up determined to get a great core workout.

During breakfast that morning, Gail asked if I planned on taking T’s class. I said sure and then tuned out the rest of what she told me, which was that today’s class was going to be Ballistic Abs. “Uh-huh, sounds good honey,” I said as I slugged down my second espresso of the morning. I should have paid closer attention to what she was telling me because Ballistic Abs and Pilates Ball are not the same thing! And I would have known this if I had bothered to read the class description on the AD&F web site. In fact I could have even seen a video that would have shown me what to expect! So what is Ballistic Abs? Well, it’s “A high impact interval workout involving both aerobic and strength work.”

The class was all of that and frankly very challenging for me and the three ladies who took the class with me. T came up with challenging groups of aerobic and strength sets that really made me sweat. Since I never took a class like this before, I felt really uncoordinated at times and out of sync with what I was supposed to be doing.  But, I got through it and I want to go back and try the Pilates Ball class next week. I’m not sure I will be there every week but I’m going to try it some more.

So, trying something you haven’t tried before, while it may be challenging or even a little embarrassing, is good for us. In my case, it taught me a whole new way of looking at working out.