Stepping Your Way to Great Health!
Health & Wellness New Classes New Trier Adult Extension New Trier Classes Step Class FitnessI can promise you! No boredom in this class, you will sweat like never before & you will have lot’s of fun!
Build endurance, increase stability & agility, all while feeding your brain all the oxygen it needs to stay sharp!
There are many basic tutorials on YouTube that you may find helpful.
Another site shows the patterns in a tutorial. Whomever built this may have had a dizzy spell and fallen! 🙄
Learning to step is just like learning to dance, with a little extra cardio. Once you understand the step patterns, it becomes much easier to follow. As the music speed increases, you will be flying across the platform, burning lots of calories while having lots of fun!
The general idea is to reduce the amount of pattern repetition when the music is played at a faster tempo.
Example: currently, we are repeating step patterns several times. This is to help those who are still learning. We want to minimize their frustration. We might execute a pattern for 5 minutes or more, over and over. Under normal circumstances, we would start with a pattern repeat of 8, then decrease to 4, and finally to 2. Some patterns are repeated only once, and then we move on. (This is when the beats per minute are above 140, which is towards the end of the class, high cardio) Once a set of patterns is memorized, the goal is to assemble all the patterns into a cohesive set. Working towards 2-3 different sets of moves, ultimately putting them all together as you near the end of the hour.
Open each section to learn more….
A Typical Step Class Hour
Focus, Focus, Focus, I can’t express enough how critical it is for you to stay focused and listen…
30 to 40 minutes of stepping, with music at a progressively faster speed. The first 2-3 songs are performed at a tempo of 124-125 beats per minute. They gradually increase as we hit 128, or even 130 beats per minute, as we near the end of our routines. Depending on the expertise in the class, you could be stepping to 140-150 bpm the last 10 minutes of the cardio portion of the class. This is when we are really having fun! The sweat is flying as you burn anywhere from 500 to 1000 calories! For some step classes, we incorporate weights or kickboxing. Yep, kickboxing, so don’t let your guard down…hee, hee, know pun intended..
Note: If you are late to class, please march in place, tap your bench, and swing your arms to join us if we have moved past the warm-up. It’s best to warm up some before you jump right in.
Student Placement
All Levels of Fitness & Skill
You never need to feel intimidated or think you don’t belong, because everyone was new at some point. If you are experienced, you can take it to whatever level helps you achieve the quality workout you are looking for.
If you are new to stepping or still working to improve your cardio capabilities, try following the class without the step. You will feel less frustrated and you will learn much faster!
Beginners: You might know the step patterns; however, your cardio abilities may need improvement, or you do not know the step patterns.)
-Start without the step, pretending you have a step in front of you
-Keep your hands on your hips until you feel confident that your feet are following properly
-Tell your feet what to do out loud! (Follow along with what the instructor says, the moves will increase your efficiency 100%!
-Less arms while learning, keep your hands on your hips, this helps with posture, and they are ready to catch you if you fall. Arms hanging down are not safe.
How to Increase Intensity (novice or experienced)
Often, we feel like we have so much energy that we begin to move faster than the music. I can totally appreciate this; however, it reduces the benefits of stepping when you travel faster than the cues and the music. Momentum actually makes stepping easier, then following each move with precision. Traveling too fast causes you to have to stop, miss cues, and or become anaerobic for too long. The calories burned are reduced when stepping too fast. The faster we move, the more our posture suffers, and then our form declines, causing backaches, footaches, and more aches and pains than necessary. Good form for each move increases the difficulty when stepping, boosts calorie burn, and helps stabilize your footing. Good form is challenging to maintain at (128 bpm) for any length of time. Yet it allows you to stay in sync with the music’s beats.
Tidbits to stay on track with the music…
-Perfect posture (stand tall for all moves, execute with precision, increase your cardio strength by 20%)
-2 Steps (you can add an extra step, or take away the step, depending on what you need to do for your cardio abilities)
-Weights (yes, they help increase your cardio); however, be prepared to stay up with the beat. It’s not uncommon to find yourself slowing down to the beats per minute, so be ready to ditch the weights.
-Tap Up/Tap down, holding pattern, until we return to you.
-Instead of tapping up, jump up on the step as if you were throwing a basketball in the hoop. If done correctly, this move can match someone who is tapping up and down, where know one is out of beat. (This will increase cardio substantially! When the moves are low and slow, E.g., A-step, take it low and slow, your heart rate goes up! The quads are doing a lot of work with this move.
Repeaters: This is a great way to increase intensity; however, they are normally only used towards the end of a routine, as we are at the peak of our music’s beats per minute. Repeaters are designed for a fast move to increase cardio for short bursts. If the beat is too slow, repeaters will only throw you off the beat. Only the experts know how to do this and stay in exact timing, unlike those who do not repeat the moves.
Example: When the class is executing three single hamstrings, the faster student could execute 2 sets of repeaters and still end at the same time as the others, falling right back into place with the class. Once the whole class reaches this level, the last 10 minutes of stepping are when we put all the moves together, minimizing the taps, adding repeats, and flying through a set of patterns that have been merged together.
It’s truly our favorite time of the class! It’s exhilarating when you complete it, and you feel like you followed all the moves. As the instructor, I think the same feelings when I make all the calls to guide correctly, and I can keep it fun! It’s win-win for us all!
Additionally, we are nearing the completion of our class, as some watch the clock! 😛
High Intensity Options
Using two steps increases the cardio workout substantially. Two steps are more challenging. If you are not ready for the cardio increase, it will put you at a disadvantage compared to those who are using 1-step. This is the same if you add weights to your hands. Either of these additions makes it more difficult to stay with the beat. If it slows you down, you will begin to get out of sync with the class. Be sure you are ready for the additional work!
Stepping is your chance to get fit, have fun, and improve your brain power! Staying focused and sharp as we age can be difficult. This is your chance to mitigate the adverse effects of aging!
Beth KM
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