How to prepare for your first group class at clear cut fitness
Joining your first group class may be intimidating. You don’t always know what you’re getting yourself into and you may be asking yourself things like “What are the workouts like? Are the people going to be nice and encouraging? Or is it a competitive, everyone for themself kind of attitude? Are the workouts even right for me?” and many more.
So we wrote this post to help you understand what you need to know coming into your first group class with us!
What kind of workouts do we do?
All of our group classes are strength training based workouts and the exercises are based on full body exercises/movements. For example, squats, presses, rows, lunges, deadlifts, abs. There’s usually some time near the end of the workout to focus on any muscle group you might want to specifically target. Say you want to work your arms, we can add some arm isolation exercises like biceps curls. Alternatively maybe you want to work on your glutes, we can add in a glute specific exercise like hip thrusts at the end as well.
This is one of the benefits to small group training vs large group - we have the capability to make adjustments on the fly for all members. That’s not limited to just the end of the workout. Let’s say you have a bad knee and it hurts to do lunges - NO WORRIES, we’ll suggest alternative exercises that you can do instead.
How hard are the workouts?
They’re as hard as they need to be! If you’re a beginner for example, you’ll let the instructor know and they’ll ensure that you are working out at an appropriate intensity for your fitness level.
Every small group workout can easily be personalized and adjusted for your on individual needs. The easiest way to do this is by always selecting weights based on relative strength. We don’t expect everyone to be able to lift the same weights. So we use a system that allows you to start easier, and increase weights over time as you gain strength.
We also use a simple method called “RPE” (Rating of perceived exertion). Rate of perceived exertion (RPE) is a scale from 1-10 that’s used to measure how hard your body works during physical activity. Research shows that you attain great results by training at roughly 8-9/10 on the RPE scale. This is near max efforts but not needing to actually reach total failure to do so. This makes sense because you can’t expect your body to go all out every single time you workout but you still need to work hard enough to stimulate your body.
We recommend applying the RPE scale to your workout sets. For an example of RPE CLICK HERE.
At Clear Cut Fitness we’ll never have you do something that you can’t! The exercises can always be adjusted for your fitness level. One of the easiest examples is simply select a lighter weight. If squats are in the workout, let’s say 4 sets of 6 reps, more experienced people may be adding impressive loads onto their barbell. If you’re a beginner, we’ll select a weight that’s slightly challenging but still totally doable for you to complete. That might even mean switching from a barbell to something lighter such as: goblet squats, bodyweight squats, etc.
For more intermediate/experienced people - we want to progressively get stronger and build more work capacity so we encourage you to select weights that are challenging, but still doable.
What’s the environment like?
This is a tight knit community where everyone is here to improve their health and fitness! So naturally, there is a great vibe full of encouragement and camaraderie. Knowing that should ease your nerves a bit, but just wait till you actually try a class!
What’s the flow of the class?
When you first come into the gym you’ll be greeted at the front room. You can put your bag down hang up your jacket and walk to one of our washroom/changerooms.
When you’re all set to go, you’ll walk onto the gym floor and the instructor will take you through a warm up.
After the warm-up, the main workout begins! The instructor will have the workout written on the board and will demonstrate the exercise as well as give any progressions or regressions if necessary.
The pace of the workout is generally guided by the instructor however sometimes the natural flow of the workout can dictate the pace
At the end of the workout, everyone wipes down their equipment, drink some water and relax after a job well done.
Thanks to the My Main Street Initiative for helping us add new equipment and marketing material to our small group classes!
This project is supported by the My Main Street program, the Canadian Urban Institute, and the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).
