How We'll Run Each Class and What to Bring
let's get practical. you know why you're here and you know what your corner of the garage or living room needs to look like. now let's talk about what actually happens when we're together, and what to have with you when we start.
what a typical class looks like
nothing fancy. we start with a few minutes of just checking in — how last week felt, anything that's sore in a bad way versus a normal way, questions that came up when you were on your own. i'd rather spend five minutes on that than skip straight to exercises, because most problems get caught in conversation before they get caught in a rep.
then i'll demonstrate whatever we're working on. i'll do it a couple times, slow, and talk through the one or two things that matter most. not everything that matters — just the one or two things that matter most for that movement, that day. then i hand it over to you. i'd rather watch you try it and get one piece of feedback than stand up here doing it perfectly ten times while you watch.
after that i'm mostly quiet. i'll walk around, watch, and say something if there's one specific thing worth fixing. i'm not going to lecture over you while you're mid-set. if you drop a weight or get turned around on which foot goes where, that's genuinely no worries at all — it happens every single class, to somebody, and we just reset and go again.
we'll end with a few minutes of writeup. more on that in a second.
what to bring
- water. we're at elevation here, the air's dry, and people underestimate how much that affects a workout indoors, not just on a hike. bring more than you think you need.
- your bands or dumbbells, whatever you landed on from the equipment lessons.
- something to write on. an index card, a notebook, whatever. this matters more than it sounds like it should, so let me explain.
- shoes with a flat, stable sole. nothing squishy. you don't need special lifting shoes, but your regular running shoes with a lot of cushion under the heel can actually mess with your balance on things like squats.
- clothes you can move in. obvious, but people show up in jeans more often than you'd guess.
that's it. no gym bag full of gear, no supplement shaker, nothing like that.
the notebook thing, seriously
i keep a small notebook for my own training, same as i do for baking — hydration, timing, what went wrong, what i'd change. for a long time i didn't think it was doing much. it felt like busywork tacked onto the actual workout.
then one week i flipped back through about six months of entries, back to back, and it was the first time i actually believed i'd gotten stronger. not because it felt that way in the moment — it rarely does, week to week, you're too close to it — but because the numbers on the page said so, plainly, and i trusted the numbers more than i trusted my own sense of things.
so we're going to do a version of that in class. nothing elaborate. weight or band color, reps, how it felt on a simple scale. two minutes at the end of each session. you'll thank yourself in a couple months when you can't remember whether you're actually making progress and you've got a page that tells you.
one opinion, since we're here
for what it's worth, i'd rather see you do a bodyweight movement with clean form than a loaded one that's falling apart. so in the early classes, don't be surprised if i ask you to drop the weight, or set the band aside entirely, and just work the movement. that's not a step backward. the weight is the last thing we add, not the first thing we chase.
a quick word on pace
i'm not going to push the room to move faster than the slowest honest rep in it. if something needs three extra minutes of just talking through a position, we'll take it. nobody's getting graded on speed, and there's no clock that matters here except the one keeping us roughly on schedule so we all get home for dinner.
if you need to modify something — bad knee, bad shoulder, whatever it is — tell me before we start rather than pushing through and hoping it's fine. that's not a big deal to bring up. it's a much bigger deal to find out mid-set.
before next time
bring water, bring whatever equipment you chose, and grab something to write in, even if it's the back of an envelope. we'll start the actual movements next class, and i'd rather you show up with a notebook than show up having overthought your workout clothes.