A wicked “smart” workout

This would be the smile of a girl who just put herself through a wicked “smart” workout:

And this would be the waaaay creepy version of the same girl…trying (rather unsuccessfully) to capture the post-wicked-smart-workout “afterglow” in the car after class:

(totally creeptastic, right?)  

But back to the moral of this story – that wicked “smart” workout of mine last night.

I say “wicked” for two reasons…
1 – I’m from Boston and say “wicked” instead of “really” (i.e. instead of “really awesome”, in Boston it’s “wicked awesome” — don’t knock it till you try it…)
2 – Last night’s double session at barre n9ne was wicked hard.
…but it was wicked hard because I was working smarter.

After Sunday’s intensive and the (rather humbling) smack of reality that I could indeed work smarter in class for even better results and even more of a burn, I was all about focus. Focus on quality, focus on intensity, focus on the burn and the shake.

And holy sh*t did the working smarter thing kick the crap out of me last night. But funny story? I LOVED every single second of the ass-kicking. I was practically beaming through the pain — talk about creepy, right?

It’s a good thing the first class I took last night was an “express” version of the barre n9ne long & lean legs class I normally take because 45 minutes of leg work was about all I could handle — the intensity was SO SO SO high given the focus I put on the moves.

Another good thing? The second class I was taking was an hour later — as in, I had time to zip home, eat a quick dinner, and zip back to the studio for round 2.

And round 2 was what did me in – it was the barre n9ne signature class: barre n9ne method. Hands down my favorite class of all.

After the warm-up and upper body sequence (which included an awesomely killer plank series, thank you Julianna!!), we went straight to the barre. Game face on, I was ready to embrace the shake and to stick each move for as long as I could…without losing good form, of course. I was amazed. It was almost like once I fully succumbed to the shake that I was able to really get into the zone, to push deeper into the plies, to tuck a little bit more, to hold on just a little bit longer.

And after all was said and done? I walked (rather sorely) away from that barre with a huge grin on my face. I tried to contain myself leaving the studio, but once I got outside, it was like I was walking on air (or perhaps, on cloud n9ne, hehe).

This, my friends is what I’d call a barre n9ne high — as close to runner’s high as you can possibly get without actually running….annnnd reason #5,678 why I heart barre n9ne. (not that I needed yet *another* reason or anything…)