Last week, I tried out a new workout class called Ele_sculpt at a workout studio called Elevate Group Fitness. Although I love the gym and all of the workouts I do, I walk past this place on my way to the gym and it made me wonder what it was. There are two locations, one in Hayes Valley and one on Ocean Avenue; I walk past the one on Ocean Avenue. I was really curious about what they had to offer (yoga? pilates?) and I like to try new things to shake things up and keep my body challenged. Wonderfully enough, if you have never been to a class there, your first class is free!
Elevate Fitness
It was really sunny that day so apologies for the shadows .. isn’t the exterior cute though? So friendly and welcoming.
Anyway, I decided to go to an Ele_sculpt class although there are a total of three classes to go to: Ele_sculpt, Ele_barre and Ele_yoga. I was told is that Ele_sculpt is a more all over body workout so you hit your arms, core and legs. Ele_barre is more focused on giving you long and lean dancers legs (you can’t elongate your legs by the way folks, but you can give the illusion of length). Ele_yoga is a yoga practice but incorporating elements of aerial yoga (something I really, really want to try)!
I walked into the studio and … I saw the amazing pieces of equipment that you are seeing above!! I absolutely love using bands to workout with so by this point I was about to die at how excited I was. The demographic was definitely older than I thought. I don’t know why but I thought everyone would be 20 year olds or something. Everyone was very nice and friendly though, they all obviously knew each other and there was a great sense of community.
The next hour was intense .. I consider myself to be a pretty fit person but geez, I was disgustingly sweaty in the first 20 minutes .. We started out with some yoga, and a cute little motivational speech which was a nice touch and then we dove straight into it. Core work, cardio, leg work, arm work … it covered it all. We used the barre for the leg work and I was embarassed at how much I had to stop haha, but I was a lot better when it came to the arm work. My current goal for this year is to do 10 consecutive pull ups AND chin ups so I have been working my upper body a laaaht.
This is Amanda, the lovely and informative instructor who taught the class that day! Ignore me though lol. I loved her energy and the fact that she made sure to walk around and check everyone’s form.
All in all I really enjoyed the class! Although I am quite a gym junkie (I repeat, building upper body strength …) I would definitely go again and I recommend you all give it a go 🙂
Honestly yours,
Alice