Branching out beyond the adorable-yet-small-thinking tiny tots with their eyes all aglow crowd, Santa Claus made a pit stop at the YMCA this year. In an effort to reach an older and more lucrative crowd, while coal was not on the agenda – although I’m sure the resourceful and charitable Y folk would have found some use for it that would not have ended in pollution (new class! Functional fitness by pitching coal!) – lots of good fitness girls and boys were rewarded with exercise toys galore. A full line of TRXs were hung by the chimney with care and visions of kettlebells danced in the air. (And that, friends, is the closest to poetry I will ever get. I hope you enjoyed it.)

New fitness gadgets! Be still my heart. As you will recall, the versatile TRX is my number one recommendation for people looking for a home or traveling strength training system and kettlebells are one of the best workouts combining strength training and cardio that I’ve ever tried. So I was very excited to see that the fitness director was offering free classes throughout the month of February in not only the TRX and kettlebells but also something else I’ve long fantasized about: the Pilates Reformer. I promptly signed up all the Gym Buddies and myself for the Reformer and the kettlebells classes. (Seeing as my TRX Great Fitness Experiment was so recent, I didn’t do that class.) I was specifically interested in pitting these two classes back to back – on the same day, even – as I get so many questions on this website about the opposing training methodologies that underlie each type of training.

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3 Comments

  1. Great read. I’m kettle enthusiast so there’s not much I can say bad about it. Pilates I must try now. but, I have always found a way to incorporate pilates like exercises into my daily routine

  2. What a great article! I do both…I started kettlebell training a couple months back and I’m amazed at the changes I’ve seen in my body. Pilates is equally fantastic.

    I’m seeing more black and brown girls at the studio I go to which is fantastic!

  3. tight lipped mary

    i love pilates.

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