 When Catherine Miale debuted her new exercise class with an offer for a free workout, I thought I would go check it out. I haven't been to a group exercise class since I was in doing “PT” in the Navy in the 1990's, and I knew that the clientele would be mostly women. In the back of my mind, was picturing Jane Fonda-esque leotards and leg warmers. What I found when I entered the Covenant Hills club house (which is a fantastic and beautiful place to work out) was the typical Ladera Ranch moms in work-out wear from sporty-spice to Rocky Balboa. Everyone seemed to be there for their own reasons and everyone was raving about the workout. Miale teaches a style of workout called R.I.P.P.E.D., which is an acronym for Resistance, Interval, Power, Plyometrics, Endurance and finally, Diet. For the workout I attended, Miale had invited Co-Founder/Co-Creator of R.I.P.P.E.D, Terry Shorter. Shorter is my age, and when I saw how “ripped” the guy was, I was both a little embarrassed and a lot motivated. As the workout progressed, Shorter was sweating as much as I was, so I knew that this was a workout in which you could not plateau. A plateau in a workout routine is when the exercises become “normal” for your body and you have adapted. I was interested in this type of workout after engaging in the widely popular P90X workouts. Similar in some ways to P90X, R.I.P.P.E.D keeps your muscles and body guessing as you progress through each of the steps. In about an hour, we moved through a high-energy workout that had me, at times, bent over breathing very heavy with my hands on my knees. I barely had time to look around the room during the workout, but as I did, I noticed that everyone was working very hard, taking brief breaks to towel off and sip water. Even with the doors open, the room was getting quite warm. You could almost see a cloud of lost calories wafting through the steamy air. Miale says that she is ramping up for “Back to School”, with a twice-a-week workout at 9:00AM Mondays and Wednesdays (right after kids get dropped off at school). Costs are $120 for 8 weeks. Although most of the attendees are women, men are more than welcome, and let me tell you, guys: it is a lot tougher than you think. The bouncy aerobics class images have been washed from my mind and been replaced by a sweat-soaked vision of a high energy workout. Bring a towel, water, some exercisebands or light weights and an exercise mat... and bring your “A” game!
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