Fitness Class Review - Garage POUND at Canalside

Class name - POUND by Garage Fitness Studio (Wednesday nights during the summer)
Where they are located - Canalside on the lawn
What it cost - Free!
Level of difficulty - low - very accessible

Review -

Last Wednesday, after a long day of work, and then painting a room, I decided to run (well, drive) downtown to check out one of the Canalside classes that had piqued my interest. I had already taken a few classes with Judy from Garage Fitness Studios, and knew that it would be good, and that I would definitely get a workout.

POUND is a partial-cardio, mostly strength-based fitness class that employs "weighted" drum sticks (not exactly weights, but they are heavier than a typical drum stick) called RipStix. Make sure that you do get there early for this class - I actually arrived uncharacteristically early for the class (read: about 3 minutes early), and all of the stix had already been handed out (thankfully a kind woman offered up her stix to me, saying she would do the workout without them - as with Kangoo Jumps, the equipment is a free loan during the class, but if you don't get their early enough to get boots or stix, you can still work out).

The class is set to up-beat music (dance music, hip hop, and some rock - see the Rage Against the Machine in the video below), and involves some typical strength moves. The added bit is the hits to the beat that you make with the RipStix - tapping them against the ground, or against each other with the music. Although, as I mentioned earlier, they don't add a ton of weight to your workout, they do offer an element of fun. More than that, however, they incentivize you to use proper form - getting lower into the squat to hit the ground, reaching those arms fully overhead to click the sticks together, etc.

All in all this was a rather lower-body and core focused class, with the arms being part of the movements, but not worked quite as hard (at this session, anyhow). I knew that I would be feeling it the next day, but I was honestly surprised - I was anticipating some muscle ache in my quads and glutes, but what really hit me was the hip adductors on the insides of my thighs - I honestly didn't think I had hit those muscles that hard, but I could feel a twinge each time that I walked over the next 2-ish days.

The one thing that I didn't know coming into this one was to bring a yoga mat.  This class does incorporate ground work for core, glutes, etc, and you will be uncomfortable if you don't have a mat to sit/plank position on (if it was grass down there, it wouldn't be that bad, but much of the grass is worn away and there a lots of small rocks... not pleasant). Thankfully I lucked out and a kind neighbor offered to share her mat with me =]

Despite the very extreme heat and humidity that day, this class was fun, I enjoyed moving to the beat of the music, and it is a very accessible class for beginners. Yet another excellent Garage fitness class that I would recommend people take if given the chance.

Curious what it look like? Take a look at the video (below) of the core workout that we did.