HEY. I talk about Body Pump like, all the time, I know. I did my certification a little over 4 years ago and it was an awesome experience. Loved it. I think it’s probably like childbirth where you forget how painful it is because you’re so in love with the outcome, which is more Body Pump in your life.

No? Okay.

So I’ve been obsessed with Body Attack for almost as long (Pump = barbell workout, Attack = aerobic, sports training, strength). I’ve wanted to get certified in it for a while but have been super poor (still really poor, just slightly above the poverty line) so I FINALLY signed up and did it.

It pretty much hurts to type right now but, again, it was so worth it.

I did the training in Wilmington, DE which involved an absurd amount of driving. Approximately 14 hours in total. I stayed in Baltimore so I got to see the GS for a few hours of it, but training was essentially all day Saturday and Sunday. Both days were really intense physically, but you also learn a lot about being a good instructor and connecting with your participants. I thought a lot of it might be repetitive from Pump training, but it really wasn’t.

If you can’t tell, I have totally drunk the Les Mills Kool-Aid and I don’t plan on ever going back to the generic brand. It’s actually shocking to me that you can get certified to be an instructor through an online course because there is SO much feedback that you can get from having a professional watch you.

We had a small group which was nice because we worked together really well and got a lot of personalized tips. Plus our trainer, Adam, described us as a whole as being “stupid fit.” He was really awesome. I want us to be BFFs.

I’m justifying this post on this here blog because I did have to be very strategic about the food I was packing. We were burning a crazy amount of calories, but I also didn’t want to scarf down a ton of food because then I’d be all crampy when I was running/bouncing/jumping-jacking around.

This is what I packed:

Clif bars and frozen Gatorades galore. I also ended up grabbing a small bag of pretzels for Day 2. It doesn’t seem like a lot but they were pretty filling snacks so I was okay. Plus I drank a ton of water- probably 4-5 Camelbaks worth (3-4 liters) each day.

I won’t give too many details about what we actually did because I think part of the fun of the training is not knowing exactly what to expect. I read a few blogs before I went because I wanted to know what food other people had packed, and there were some spoilers. Still, it was unforgettable.

Next step is to memorize the entire release (I only had to present 1 track) and film a video teaching it to a group, and then submit it to Les Mills for review.

Who wants to come to Rochester and practice with me?!