It is not about your P.R. but your H.R. at South Reno Athletic Club’s newest group fitness class called Pulse Pursuit. In this workout, your heart beat does all the talking. "When you're in that spiker zone, I want you at 100%,” explains one of the certified personal trainers. Everyone in the class wears a heart rate monitor and your color-coded exercise zones are displayed for all to see.
During a series of circuits, the trainers watch as heart rates rise and fall during recovery. I gave Pulse Pursuit a try and found that during moderate weight lifting my heart rate hovered around the 65% effort mark – or the blue zone. However, after some sprint drills on a non-motorized treadmill, we all jump to the fat burning and anaerobic zones. "It's really cool because the numbers don't lie. If you're dogging it in here, you're not going to see results and the monitors are going to show it,” says Tim Principe, who heads the class.
South RAC launched the hour-long class a few weeks ago. Trainers consider it a one-two punch if you are looking for a workout that combines strength training with bursts of cardio. "So you're going to get a lot of muscle building, you're going to get fat loss through cardio and your metabolism will be boosted through the whole day." Although you are not one-on-one with a trainer, they still monitor all the participants individually through this technology. South RAC’s Director of Marketing, Karl Toth calls it individualized group training. "It's almost an oxymoron, but it makes a lot of sense. You're in a group setting, but each person is individually being monitored with a heart rate monitor, so they're each getting maximum results." It is a calorie-burning, fat blasting workout – mixed with a little friendly competition – tracked specifically to you.
Pulse Pursuit is being offered every Saturday at 8:15 a.m. South RAC members pay $99 a month to participate. When you sign up, you will get your own heart rate monitor and boxing gloves. Eventually, you and your friends can pick addition breakout sessions for mini classes with a trainer during the week. If you are not a member of South RAC, you can try an introductory class for free. To learn more, log on to http://southrac.com/ or call (775) 853-4050.
