Pow! The long arduous wait is finally over. Power Step returns to Sats Jakobsberg next week. I don’t care which release they choose to run as long as I get my fix.

I’ve listened to the playlist for the September 2010 release of Sats Power Step (Spotify playlist) but as always it is difficult to know how the music will work with the choreography and they usually use a different version or remix of the track for the actual class than what you find on Spotify.

I also listened to the new Sats Core Pulse playlist (Spotify playlist) and it seems a bit more promising even though I’m getting kinda sick of all the rehashing of tracks that goes on with all of these releases.

In any case, anything is better than the track list for the totally forgettable summer release for Body Pump.

Speaking of Body Pump, one of my main issues with that class is the heavy focus on the arms. Regardless of which release you attend, Body Pump always devotes one track for a crazy triceps superset and follows that up with another track just for curls. The problem for me is that if I put on a challenging enough weight on the “back” track (bent over rows + RDLs usually) my biceps are already dead by the time it’s time to do 3 minutes worth of curls. And the same applies to the triceps, if I put on enough weight for the bench track to actually feel something in my chest I fatigue my triceps pretty hard. And what do you get after the direct arm work? Oh yeah, more rowing and more pushing. I mean I can understand that the audience demands direct arm work, but why can’t the biceps and triceps be supersetted into one track like in Power Step? Power Step has one heavy press (chest), one heavy row (back), one heavy leg track and one heavy arm track. About half the volume and about twice the intensity of a Body Pump class.

Another thing that perplexes me is how at the end of every Body Pump class you have the obligatory “ab track” where you are likely to encounter some variation of leg-raises and the instructor will inevitably say something about how good the exercise is for the “lower abs”. I just cringe every time I hear that. I bet they say it simply because it is what 90% of the women in the class, and probably most of the men as well, want to hear.

Next week also marks the start of my next bulking cycle. I took a few days off from training this week and next week I will get started with my new strength training routine with a slight deload. My glutes and hamstrings got very stiff and sore towards the end of the last cycle, restricting my squats quite a bit. The “rebound” effect didn’t really happen this time around, but this is probably due to the fact I’ve been on a calorie deficit for some time now. Hopefully my strength levels will rebound once I ramp up the calories back to “normal” levels.