A Newbie and a Personal Trainer Get “Burned”

The Newbie Perspective
By Tish Merritt

The place is intimidating as heck when you first approach it, but as soon as Christina, the trainer for the 8:25 a.m. Burn 60 class, showed up all my fears melted away. She’s a super sweet and energetic “diesel.” (Mark uses this word to describe muscle-tight chicas). I could tell immediately that the women who take Christina’s class regularly love her to pieces. This, my friends, was a trap. Make no mistake about the sweet diesel: she kicked me arse in that class.

There are more people than bikes in the class on purpose. Burn 60 is genius. You do intervals of both cardio and strength training. The crazy-zany part was that Christina could keep up with everything everyone was flippin’ doing. She was championing the bikers while simultaneously keeping counts for those doing strength training on the floor. (For the record, you NEED someone with these types of multi-tasking skills when you’re in plow position shaking with muscle fatigue!)

Each studio at Burn 60 has a clock that each trainer can stop and start as he/she sees fit. If you’re a newbie like me, this is good and bad. Of course, you want to get the most out of your workout, but you also want that clock to speed the heck up when you’re trying to lift a sand-filled stability ball between your legs and crunch at the same time. Yeah, this class will have muscles burning you never thought you even had. You pay Burn 60 to find those muscles and make them scream for mercy.

You always hear horror stories about coming out of spin classes drenched and miserable. It’s true that you’re soaked, but it’s not an unpleasant drench, my friends. You feel far from miserable. I think the trick is to find a great place with great people who really believe in what they do and happily share it with the masses. I totally recommend Burn 60.

It’s a Los Angeles gem.

In Summation?

• One word to describe the Burn 60 class? Rockin’.
• One word to describe the instructor? Perfect.
• One word to describe how you felt before the class? Scared.
• One word to describe how you felt during the class? Awesome.
• One word to describe how you felt after the class? Energized.
• One word to describe your workout buddy during the class? Sweaty-beast.
• One word to describe this writing assignment? Fun!

The Personal Trainer Perspective

After waiting for the earlier class to finish, we finally met our instructor Christina Malizia who, by the way, was charming and sweet. Once the session started, she divided the class in half. Christina had six of us on spin bikes while four others were on the floor with dumbbells and a stability ball. The format went like this: 20 minutes on the bike, 20 minutes on the floor, then 10 minutes on the bike, then the last 10 minutes on the floor. Christina had us do some grueling exercises. She mixed it up with abs, push-ups on the ball, one-legged bicep curls on the ball, chest press and my favorite (not really) burpees. She did a great job multi-tasking the class. She had to keep up with the time, repetitions and, of course, the amazing tunes she played. It had me pumping and sweating for 60 minutes straight.

If you want to burn an amazing amount of calories with exercises that will help sculpt your body, try this class out. You’ll love it. I know I did. I’m still feeling it. I would love to go back and take more classes…especially being the only guy in the class. Hehe.

In Summation?

• One word to describe the Burn 60 class? Brilliant!
• One word to describe the instructor? Delightful and strong.
• One word to describe how you felt before the class? Nonfunctional because it was 8 a.m. on a Saturday.
• One word to describe how you felt during the class? Energized because the music was great!
• One word to describe how you felt after the class? Relieved.
• One word to describe your workout buddy during the class? Courageous because she never took a spinning class.
• One word to describe this writing assignment? Eager, so I can spread the word.

A big thanks to our new Fit Bottomed Girl and Fit Bottomed Boy for checking this class out and cracking us up. To be honest, we’re kinda jealous that we didn’t get to try it, too! —Jenn