With my New Year’s resolutions intact I braced the freezing cold January evening and headed up to Hope Hall to try my first fitness class with Body Soc. “Body Soc is a society dedicated to getting fit and having fun”. Having fun? The skeptics among you may be thinking that the words fit and fun in the same sentence is nothing more than a grammatical error. However, after an hour spent at Body Soc’s Monday session I can assure you that is certainly not the case.
My punishment of choice was ‘Interval Training’ and following a warning from a rower that he had thrown up at a similar session just over a week ago I was filled with more than a tad of apprehension. I arrived with only a few minutes to spare and was surprised at the amount of girls who had turned up, all eager and ready to get going despite the horrible weather outside.
The class began with a question which rapidly set the tone for the class; ‘Does everyone know what a Squat is?’ Interval Training consists of lots of short busts of intense exercise, which target almost all areas of the body in turn. Matt the instructor described it as a “high intensity, fun and worthwhile” workout. “My aim is to take someone who has never exercised in their life and put them in a class along side others at a completely different level of fitness and for everyone to be getting a beneficial work-out tailored to their individual fitness levels”. This class offers something for everyone. For every exercise included there were two or more alternatives, to either increase or decrease the level of difficulty.
The cardio classes (Zumba, Aerobics, Combat, LBT, Intervals) are £1 for members and Pilates and Yoga classes are £2 for members. You can sign up to Body Soc for only £18.50 on the Student Guild website. When you compare these prices to the huge cost of joining a gym or the cost of the fitness classes on campus there is a massive difference.
I asked the president Emma Crossey to sum up the society from her perspective:
“BodySoc is a university society dedicated to getting fit and having fun. All of our classes are suitable for any level of ability and we provide a variety of classes every week, including more intense classes like Interval Training, cardio classes like Cardio Combat and classes to de-stress and improve flexibility such as Pilates or Yoga. We’ve seen lots of new members at our classes in the past couple of weeks and we’d love to see even more.
In becoming a member you don’t just save money (our classes become no more than £2 each!) but you also become part of one of the largest and most active societies on campus, with lots of brilliant socials every term. Our social secs have organised great nights out; last term included a pink t-shirt social, cocktail classes and a Christmas dinner which was totally sold out. We’re already looking forward to a spa trip, in association with HerCampus, details soon to follow!
So in joining BodySoc you get great value fitness, the opportunity to meet loads of new people and discounts on all our fantastic events and stash! What’s not to love?”
Body Soc offer a wide range of classes throughout the week including Legs, Bums and Tums, Zumba, Aerobics and Yoga. So whether you want to improve your cardio fitness, lose weight, tone up or just simply have fun Body Soc is the place to start. Not only is it cheaper than a gym but there is a great atmosphere throughout the class, between the bursts of exercise, people are bopping away to Gangam style or exploding with laughter after slipping on their exercise mat whilst doing jumping jacks and ending up in a hopeless heap on the floor. Let me tell you if you didn’t know what a squat was before the class you certainly knew by the end of it!
Image Credits: facebook.com