Full Contact Pilates

There’s a class here at my fancy gym called “Group Cyntergy”. The idea is to combine Pilates and Yoga, and put it to music, and do it with a bunch of other people. Harmless suburban exercise, right?

My Cyntergy class is run by a lovely lady named Michelle, who is twenty years my senior (guestimating from the skin around her eyes) but looks about ten years older (guestimating from the rest of her physique). Random facts she’s shared in class lead me to believe my former guestimate is correct. She could kick anyone’s ass.

In class she does.

There are all of these moves — it’s like a game of deranged twister. I mean, take your left foot, and put it in front of you. Crouch down in a lunge, with your right foot far back. Take your left hand, extend it down and to the right as far as you can. Take your right hand, extend it ceilingward as far as you can. Got that? Now hold it. Hold it while your muscles begin to shake, and then reverse the pose, exchanging your lefts with your rights. Repeat. Ok now do it faster.

Then listen to some Red Hot Chilli Peppers while you are laying on your back, with your legs in the air, in a slow scissor motion, and doing something not quite unlike an awful crunch.

Keep doing things like this, while your muscles twitch and burn and hurt, for an hour.

Then you go home, and your collarbone hurts like mad.

Now, I KNOW I haven’t broken my collarbone, because there has been no impact, and no one rammed into me with a small Rugby team when I was in the QFC afterward. Ergo, it’s not actually the bone.

It *isn’t* actually the bone.

Apparently if you’re a woman, you’re used to having these semi-pendulous things hanging from your chest, they cause your head and neck to angle forward if you’re not paying attention. Then, add the Personal Pain Olympics that is Group Cyntergy — further pulling forward (again you’re not paying attention though you should be). Viola, strained musculature around the collarbone.

I will go back, but I think it’s time to find other other classes.