Burn Calories By Sitting On a Chair? I'll Take It!

Or at least that's what it sounded like. The ghetto gym I just joined advertised Zumba Sentao on Wednesday evenings. When I asked what that meant, I was told it's Zumba using a chair. Well hey, I was all over that! I have something to sit and lean on (translation:exercise without putting in too much effort). I decided to give it a try last night.

The chair ended up being my worst enemy. We did push ups using it, jumped up and down on it, squatted with it, crunches on it, and I don't even remember what else. By the end of the class my thighs were cramping and my arms were trembling! This morning when I woke up I have pain in muscles I never thought existed. I guess that means it worked, so that's a good thing.

Luckily this chair Zumba is only once a week so I have a chance to recover before my next hellish session. Regular Zumba is tonight and I think I might actually go. I've done regular Zumba enough to know where I can slack off and get away with it. Much more my speed....

Want to check it out for yourself? This is what it's all about!

http://www.zumba.com/sentao

Backyard Zumba

As I pop leftover Hershey's candy coated chocolate eggs into my mouth one after the other, I am writing to tell you how excited I am that a fitness center just opened up practically in my back yard. That wouldn't be enough to get me to join, but I saw that they have Zumba and Yoga classes (pretty much the only forms of exercise I will even consider doing) in the evenings! That means I can come home from work, let the dogs out, change into my workout gear, then take a 2 second drive (I'd walk but it's not though the best of neighborhoods) to get to my workout destination. I believe it was divine intervention that caused this to happen...since I have been whining about how fat I am and how much I want to find a convenient, affordable place to do Zumba. Ask and you shall receive, I guess!

I stopped by the place last night and signed up. Yes, I gave them my debit card as payment, and they will be automatically be taking $20 out of my account every month. Then they tell me that there is an annual $59 fee, but I can live with that too. The way I see it, I haven't found anywhere in the Fresno area where I can take a Zumba class for less than $8 each time, and some places are even more than that! So with the annual fee I'm paying about $25/month for this place, so if I go to Zumba 5 times every month it will be worth it. I was hoping to go more like 15 times a month (stop laughing, I'm serious), so that comes out to less than $2 a class! How can I beat that?

Sadly, when I posted on Facebook about my exciting new find, I got all kinds of warnings from other people who have been members of this gym. It's filthy, smells like BO, half the machines are broken and it's impossible to break your contract. Hmm. Glad I did my research before signing up. I did check the BBB and there were only 64 complaints against the place and they had an F rating. F is for fantastic, isn't it?

The good news is that I think I would have still done it had I known about all these bad reviews. I don't really care about the machines, I'll hardly ever use them. I just want a place where I can go take my classes that's cheap and isn't further than 200 yards from my house. Because if it was, I'd never go.

So wish me luck. I start tonight! Zumba Sentao....which apparently is Zumba using a chair. I have a feeling I'm not coordinated enough for this but I'll give it a shot!