Body Pump 70

[photo courtesy of Amy Frazer]

Out of the releases being filmed today, I told myself that I would do Body Jam, Body Pump, and Body Jam+. Given the way that I was exhausted after Body Jam, I wondered how on earth I was going even make it through those - especially knowing how tough the release was! I sucked it up and did it though, and because I was actually doing the release, I don't have any photos of my own to use. A few friends (ones I made on the day and others I've known for a while now) have photos of the class and I'm waiting on their permission before I use the photos here.

Four presenters this time around - our local favourites in Glen and Susan, and UK Head Pump trainer Niamh from Ireland, and Don from Washington DC. (Don's not in the photo at the top there, he's lurking off to the side.)

Glen and Don were wearing red and white sleeveless shirts with '70' written on the back, with black shorts. Susan and Niamh were wearing white & red crop tops - their killer abdominals were the feature of the outfit, I think! They also wore black shorts, but unlike the boys, their shorts are the wee little ones that are only big enough to cover your butt cheeks; it exposed their amazing legs quite nicely ;-)

Body Pump 70 is by far one of the hardest releases to come out of the Pump headquarters for quite some time. It has a lot of similarities to BP68, but on the whole, I believe it does things better in this release than it did in that one.

I'm not supposed to reveal anything about the choreography in my posts on this, but I MUST mention the innovation in the chest track.

In BP70, the standout tracks as far as Glen is concerned are track 2 (squats) track 3 (chest) and track 7 (lunges). I'd have to agree with him, but also chuck in the shoulders as well.

But the chest track, oh my god, the chest track. Glen is inspired with his music choice for this track - opting for something more House than Top 40. Part of me wonders whether he consulted Gandalf when he went for this song! It's a heavy, grunty, throbbing beat, and I must say, it's going to be a NIGHTMARE.

Why?

Not only is it one of the hardest chest tracks to ever come out of Body Pump, it's a very unusual rhythm and instructors and participants are going to have to work very hard to get used to the count. It's not your usual 4-beat count, so you're doing sets with a strange number of reps. With the super slows - there are additional holds in there to make up the counts because of the different beat.

It's genius, it's fantastic, and it's going to have instructors headdesking everywhere with trying to get it right. It's the right sort of thing for Body Pump, and because of the choice of song, I think it's going to be an immortal track - unlike the most recent few chest tracks (BP69 - Fall Out Boy's "I Don't Care", BP68 - 3 Doors Down "It's Not my Time", BP67 - Finger Eleven "Paralyzer") which have very much been selected because they're the current fashion. A track this different is so fantastic that it's the biggest pain in the arse.

Don presents the chest track, and while it is a hard track, it wasn't as hard as he initially presented it to be. At the rest break in the track, Don said, "One hour and fifteen seconds to go!"

ONE HOUR?!?!

They had to refilm that bit, and Susan said, "When you said 'one hour', I was shitting myself!" Glad to hear that I wasn't the only one. O_O

The other track I must mention is the back track. A lot of people will as soon as they see the tracklist go "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" when they see the song for this track, but I'm not complaining. It's one of my favourite RPM tracks, and Glen has been wanting to use it for a while in Pump. Unfortunately, Attack used it, and so he held back putting it into a Pump release. He mentioned this in one of the rehearsal classes, though I find it strange that he's taken so much care with this song, while other songs have appeared in the same quarter for different programmes - like Basshunter's 'All I Ever Wanted' appeared in both Pump and Attack, as did Pink's "So What" in Pump and Combat. September's 'Cry for you' appeared in Combat and Attack; in fact, I'm almost certain that the only programs that didn't have any overlap were Jam and Vive! There may be some external pressures with which songs they use; personally, as a member, I would've exploded if "So What" didn't appear in both Pump and Combat last quarter.

Anyway! You should've felt the way the energy lifted for the back track - there was a huge buzz throughout the room, and the participants on the floor got REAL noisy with the WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOing. There's no denying that the crowd certainly loved it, and man, you should've seen the big grin on Glen's face. He was obviously really happy to have finally gotten that song into the release - he was loving every moment of it.

The triceps track is very similar to BP68 (I'd go as far to say it's identical), and the biceps is the biceps. Lunge track? ACK! It was introduced to us as a lunge marathon, and that's a pretty accurate description. I didn't weight the track because of the ankle, but even then my legs were wobbling so viciously that I wouldn't have been surprised if they summoned aliens through the sonic vibrations they created. There's squats in this track as well, and again, if I'd weighted this track, I don't think I would've made it to the end of the Pump filming, never mind into the Jam+ filming. O_O

The abdominals track is quite a difficult one, in that it requires a lot of focus on form and requires a lot of control. As for the shoulders? I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by this one, it's a treat of a track - not Top 40, to an immortal song.

I've done this release three times, and each time after it I have been completely sapped of energy - it's worked me thoroughly and pushed me in insane ways.

Combatter Extraordinaire PJ was right near me for the Pump filming, and we somehow were able to still stand up after the class. (Where 'we' equals 'me', as you can see, PJ collapsed and is on his knees and my elbow is resting on his shoulder.)

[photo courtesy of Rosita Brigette Sierra]



[photo courtesy of Amy Frazer]

You cannot see the pain behind those smiles! (and aside from that, I think I look much hotter in the second photo - it's what happens when you don't grin like an idiot, rawr!)

Well fitting for the 70th release of Body Pump.

Rock on, Glen, you're a freaking legend.