688. Leap Blog Day Guest Blogger: Clay Baboons!

(And away we go with my second guest blogger, the lovely and BEYOND talented Miss Stephanie of Clay Baboons fame.  And I do mean fame.  She is going to be famous in the realm of "Hyperbole and a Half" and then I can say that I used to know her when she was still speaking to me, er, emailing me.  You know what I mean.  Enjoy!  And then click over to Stephanie's blog after and FOLLOW HER!!!)    
*******

Thanks to the always funny and charming MOV for inviting me to guest post on her blog! I have big, big shoes to fill. (Errrr...that's not to suggest that MOV has abnormally large feet. I'm sure that her feet are just lovely and perfectly proportional.)


The Z Factor

This is me at a dance-based fitness class:








I get this big goofy grin on my face. The more I notice my grin, the wider it gets. I avoid mirrors, because if I see myself grinning like a maniac, I'll burst into giggles, which is even more embarrassing.

Sometimes, however, group fitness classes aren't funny at all. Sometimes they're serious and intense.

Consider, for example, the BodyCombat class that I used to take when I lived in the city. It was a combination of dance, yelling, and martial-arts inspired kicks and punches. During my favourite track, we had to fight 5 opponents and - this is the best part - gut the last one with our imaginary samurai sword.

Punch opponents one and two.








Elbow opponent four.










I took the sword-fighting track very seriously.




I took it so seriously, in fact, that the instructor called me out on it with a laugh: "That's what I like to see! Someone who's getting angry. Someone's who's taking them down."

I didn't tell her the truth:














I was invincible.

Which leads us to the central thesis of this post:

Inserting zombies into workouts can help you motivate yourself to push harder, farther and faster. I call this motivational tool the Z Factor.

Take running, for example. I like to watch episodes of The Walking Dead while I'm on the treadmill.




The tenser the scene, the faster I run.






What better motivation to run than hordes of the undead snapping at your ankles?

Best of all, the Z factor can also be applied to less aggressive physical activity, such as dance.








The Z Factor. It's infallible.

You're welcome.
******
Thank you so much Stephanie!  And for my regular readers, there is another guest post by Marianne, so please scroll down to it and keep reading.  If you are looking for me, MOV, today, you can find me in two spots:  one, at Kirb Appeal and two, at Haley's Comic.  Thanks for joining our hop, and please check out all the other talented bloggers on the froggy list.