Last week started rough, workout-wise. The 5:30 AM commute for Pilates had me sleepy all day, not energized. My Saturday run involved outpacing myself, hitting a wall, and thinking if I couldn’t do five miles, how would I ever do 13? Lingering jet lag, a newly busy schedule, and fitting in exercise had me feeling zombie-like by the time I laid down at night. I’m not running enough. I’m not doing enough strength training. I’ll never get through my half-marathon.

I made several decisions:

1. Get in bed by 10 PM, no matter how good the CSI episode is.
2. Find a new workout. Pilates has become too expensive and more important, too inconvenient, to continue. It breaks my heart, but I just can’t maintain it.
3. Buy a heart rate monitor. (More on that in a future blog.)

#1: Easy enough. I’ve always been a diurnal girl, and while I hate losing time cuddling on the couch with my nocturnal husband, kissing him goodnight by 10 is the only thing that’ll get me waking up by 7 sans alarm. I hate alarms.

#2: I’d talked recently to a friend who owns EHS Pilates –she recently discovered The Dailey Method and said it kicked her ass six ways to Sunday. The offhsoot of the Bar Method recently opened a class in Rincon Center, only four blocks from my work. I stopped by for a tour, and the facilities sold me before I’d attended a class.
It’s a lovely new space, all honey-colored wood and steel, with two studios, both lined with a ballet barre, mirror, and–get this–carpet. The locker room alone is worth the price of admission: six showers, soft towels, lockers, all the amenities. There’s only one locker room, and it’s for women, an indication of The Dailey Method’s audience. Their introductory packages are terrific: three classes for $45 ($15 off the class-by-class price of $20 each), and you can follow that up with a month’s unlimited classes for $100. They have classes at 6 AM, 7:15 AM, and then every hour and fifteen minutes from 11 AM to 6:30–plenty of opportunities for me to drop in. All the classes are "mixed"–i.e., all levels, any exercise, no standard routine; the instructor decides what you’ll do in each class.

I signed up for the $45 package and woke early the next morning to make it to the 7:15 AM class. I was five minutes late, and I realized they start precisely on time, so no dilly-dallying. I dropped straight into a flat-elbow plank, saw myself in the mirror with eight or so other women and thought, "I didn’t know I was supposed to dress for this." The Dailey Method’s first studio was in the Marina, and it shows: these women came dressed to look in a mirror for an hour. I wore black yoga pants, a white tank top, and my 7:20 AM face.

My insecurities about my lack of eyeliner faded in a sea of lifts, raises, pulses, hamstring pain, bicep burn, 2-pound weights that were surely filled with lead, watching an impossibly lithe woman hold her leg perpendicular to the floor for a twelve-count, listening to an instructor who was surely from the 80s–Now lift… a little… higher… and… two… and three… and four… one more!… and two… and four.

I’d been told my history in Pilates would transition smoothly into The Dailey Method, and while I understand why that’s said, it’s also not entirely accurate. I rocked the planks. Teasers, I kill. But the tone of the class is a world away from my Pilates experiences: The Dailey Method is about results . It’s not about getting into your body and being in harmony with your muscles and spine. It’s about feeling the burn and looking like brick house in two weeks. Attention is paid to getting through the exercise, not the finer points of how your stomach muscles contract, or how your shoulders should be positioned. Yes, the instructor gave personal attention to make sure we weren’t completely off, but generally speaking, it was more about the burn.

The core is a focal point of the routine, but it’s also a lot about working tiny muscles in tiny contractions over and over, until that tiny muscle consumes roughly five-sixths of the calories in your body. The class is a basic legs-arms-abs breakdown, but including some exercises that I’d never even considered possible. Try this, for instance: Sit against the wall, your back flat, your butt against the baseboard, and your legs straight in front. If you have a bar or something to hold on to above your head, do so.

Now lift your straight legs off the floor.

After doing that twelve or so times, spread your legs and touch your heels together another twelve times or so.

"You don’t have to come up far!" the instructor said, and it’s a good thing, because my heels were roughly a sock’s width from the carpeting. Pure insanity.

After the class, I was energized with endorphins, and beat to hell–fairly sure I’d wake up unable to walk the next morning. (I was able to walk, thank goodness.) Alas, due to work concerns–and, in one case, my own laziness–I have not attended a second class, but I’m going today. Having a new exercise routine always injects a dose of motivation; my promise to you is that I’ll commit to The Dailey Method at least twice a week, possibly three times. If my quads hold out.