DISCLAIMER: This might be a tough read especially for you diehard group ex participants out there. As you know, I love group ex but this article was written based on my experience and is just a cautionary tale on over-abusing it.
As you may have gathered from past articles, I am a strong believer and advocate of group exercise, especially for beginners. Group ex offers variety and allows you to find your particular exercise passion, and is a great choice for social interaction. I’ve made some long-lasting friendships through group exercise classes.
Classes introduce fitness novices to the swing of gym life and offer a simple way to get your feet wet. Many group ex classes are great for beginners in that they provide an initial fitness framework. They can prove especially useful if you’ve never engaged in any type of resistance training, as they introduce you to a broad spectrum of compound and isolation weight bearing exercises. And these are vital, especially for women.
So, with all these positives, how can there be any negatives? Unfortunately, there is a downside, and that is rooted in over-abuse. My own story illustrates this point perfectly.
I embarked on my group ex journey back in Toronto in my early twenties. I had moved to the city for career pursuits and knew very few people there. I decided to join a gym to meet people and combat some of the initial loneliness that comes from uprooting to a new city.
Given I was a fitness rookie at the time, I decided the easiest route would be to start off with group ex. I began with a host of classes - including Body Pump, Body Combat, spinning, low and high impact aerobics, and skip rope. I fell in love with them, and started to increase the frequency of my class visits from 2-3 per week to 2-3 per day.
After 6 years in Toronto, I moved to London, and once again I was thrown into a brand new city with very little by way of security or stability. The one thing I knew I could count on was the gym – and in particular my favourite Les Mills classes. These included Body Pump, Body Combat, Body Attack, Body Step, RPM, etc., and, as they are offered around the world, I was able to literally jump back in where I left off in Canada.
With all the change and flux in my life at the time, it was great for me to know I could walk into any Les Mills class in London and know the routine, choreography and moves. My obsession spiralled and I started scouting classes around the city, clocking up 10-12 per week whilst holding down a full-time job.
And then it got worse. I started experimenting with other classes whilst continuing to fuel my Les Mills addiction. Okay, so where’s the problem? Surely there are worse addictions than group ex?
Foremost it is important to understand that “more does not equal more.” I have been guilty of this myself, which is why I can speak with authority. A lot of women falsely believe that more classes translates into more rewards. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
When it comes to group ex, there is a mathematical inverse relationship where more actually equals less. This equation is due to a number of different variables:
Most classes are cardio-based. Yes, whilst cardio helps in shedding and trimming fat, it also has the unfortunate by-product of eating away at muscle if over-exploited. The body will do whatever it can to keep hold of fat, so when you over-abuse cardio, it will naturally start to eat away and cannibalise muscle. To conserve muscle and any gains achieved via weight training, the cardio output needs to be more moderately contained.
Excessive cardio can offset any gains achieved during weight training: I touch upon this in the point above but if you are weight training regularly whilst doing loads of cardio-based classes in parallel, your net gains will likely be reduced and cardio will be counterproductive to your weight training efforts. We want to try to conserve as much muscle mass as possible especially given that women over the age of 30 lose 1lb of muscle mass per year. Whilst cardio has a place, and we definitely need it as part of our fitness regime, we need to be conscious about the extent by which we use it. Basically, when you are abusing cardio and group ex classes the way I was, you are simply overtraining your body and gleaning little or no results by proxy.
Lack of aesthetic results: I slogged it out with classes for years, and whilst initially there were perceptible aesthetic results, I soon plateaued and my body failed to yield any real distinguishable results. Whilst I was lean, I did not have the definition I yearned for, nor could I understand why I was failing to achieve it. The bottom line is: if you want to be cut and defined, you need to do resistance training. There is no substitute for this.
Lack of rest: our bodies need rest to build muscle, and when you are doing cardio-based classes day in and day out you are simply not giving your body chance to recover and build muscle. Muscle only builds during recovery, so it is vital to allow for this.
Overtraining: This has many negative ramifications beyond eating away at muscle. It often leads to heightened cortisol levels (the stress hormone), which for most women leads to fat gain around the waist. You might be going to 10 classes or more a week and wondering why your abs aren’t flat. You’re thinking you look continually bloated. The reason is simply that your body is being over-trained and is releasing cortisol, which manifests in your gut.
I am definitely an advocate for group ex, especially as you start your journey into the fitness world. But be under no illusions - if week after week, all you do is group ex, the reality is you won’t be achieving the results you are after. Less equals more – perhaps this a mantra worth adopting in 2017?
Please note: All left hand side photos were taken when I was doing group ex only and pre the introduction of strength training. All right hand side ones are me now where I weight train regularly with interspersed sessions of group ex. As you can see this is also me off of my cut and how I look normally.
Cue Credits: I can't take full kudos for reaching this realisation. In all honesty, one of my past coaches actually helped ween me off of excessive group ex and embrace strength training instead. I would like to extend my thanks to Paulette Sybliss (www.paulettesybliss.com)
who is not only an incredible coach but a true female embodiment of strength and fitness.