The "beach" torture chamber
Aw man, I was completely finished with this blog post for today and then technology decided to be a sneaky little bitch and deleted everything before I could post. This post might be a little short since I HATE TECHNOLOGY and am really cranky now. This has nothing to do with my workout today.
A couple of evenings ago I was watching an old episode of ABC's SharkTank and SandBox Fitness was doing an update. Mark Cuban invested and put a bunch of classes in Crunch Gyms. Looks like it is really expanding because SandBox has many of their own standalone stores now. I chose to attend a Surfset class in Sherman Oaks, CA. Pretty nuts, they have covered the entire floor with sand! I have a difficult time imagining the class in a gym because we did a lot of jumping (jumping, my fav!) from side to side. On the gym floor I would imagine this would be a little hard on the joints. I definitely appreciated landing on the super soft sand.
I thought this class was going to be easier for me. A few months ago I told a modeling job that I could yoga on paddle board even though I had not ever actually yoga-paddleboarded before. In the end, I took a class, and turns out I was pretty freakin good at yoga on paddle board. But it also turns out, that Surfset class is NOT yoga on a paddle board.This is a full-out bootcamp class with high intensity cardio and sprinkled with a few holds and strength training. SandBox fitness does offer yoga, TRX, and bootcamp minus the boards. MY class today was spent entirely on the surfboards.
Cow-a-bunga (sp?)
We began the class with 40 second cardio bursts. This included jumping across the board. Jumping on the board. Mounting the board like on an actual ocean. Burpees. After this we took a little time to do some strength training, like push ups, arm presses, ect. THEN we did the whole cardio section but this time we did everything for a minute. A minute may not seem very long, but a minute is eternity. A minute on an unstable board doing mountain climbers takes it to a whole other level.
Side note- Don't wear short shorts to Surfset class. Too much jumping and sand involved. Wasn't thinking. Sorry if I mooned you today.
My instructor, Minna, made it look pretty easy. She did the whole routine with us, and talked and explained the entire way through it. Like it was as easy as brushing her teeth or something. I wonder how many classes she has to teach a day? Does she do all of them? Is she a freak of nature? WHO ARE YOU, MINNA?!
Let's get real here for a second. Getting dirty is not my favorite thing to do. I was nervous that I would have to wash my hair afterwards and I pretty much base most of my workout decisions on if it will make me have to wash my hair. I am not sure what I was thinking because luckily, my hair never touched the sand. I can go another day! The sand comes off your bod fairly easily too. Not like beach sand, it was very soft and my toes really dug it. But you WILL sweat bullets in the class, so expect to get a little messy because sand does like to stick to sweat. But bathing is fine, just no hair washing.
I am still curious about how often they change the sand out. It cannot be cheap to pour that much sand in the room all the time. I was sweating an awful lot and everyone else was too...so...hmmm..I am just going to put that out of my mind. At least it wasn't stinky!
Pretty sure my previous post was funnier and longer but I can't do this any longer. please save, please save! If you're in the LA area you really should check out SandBox because it's very unique and unlike any workout I have ever experienced. So freaky lucky I live in a city with cool shit.
why did I choose to wear such short shorts? Sand likes to creep up certain...areas. Wear pants people.