Our last fitness adventure was SUP and now we are trying another acronym TUT, getting into the lingo and all that 💁.  So we found out that TUT stands for Time Under Tension and to me this sounded hard, which might be while we chose it, after the relative jolly that SUP (& Prosecco 🥂) was. The concept revolves around how long the muscle is under strain during a set focusing on improving strength.  The class promised minimal cardio and a smart mix of moves alternating between upper and lower body, all designed to give you a strong lean physique. Sounds great right?!  Read on to find out how we coped…

We love Psycle 🌟

The lovely team at Psycle offering us the opportunity to try a strength class, the final type of class on their fitness menu (the others being Yoga, Barre, & Spin).  So this is the first time in my little blogging career that I get to say, this class was #gifted.  But of course, expect only the honest truth and an actual representation on what it was like!

Arriving

I won’t take up time writing about what it was like arriving a Psycle, as you can read about it here on my previous blogs for Barre and Ride 45.  Just know that nothing changed and it was the same lovely experience.

Nervously waiting

So, changed and ready to go, we sat outside the TUT room, on the little bench and nervously chattered away. The other class members started to arrive, and the men looked buff, and more alarmingly, so did the women, I mean really buff 💪💪💪.  There were quite a lot of men, more than I was used to seeing, and I think this made me a little nervous of what was to come, i.e. this was a class for strong big boys, not two mums in their 30s. The instructor arrived and was quite pally with of few of the blokes, and Hollie and I, at this point were feeling really unsure 😥.

In the room

The room was black, with a soft padded floor, and all kinds of equipment around the walls, include two large mirrors on each wall. We told the instructor we were new, and before we knew it the room turned a deep dark red colour, we were off on quite a cardio-tastic warm up, doing burpees, squats, high knees, and the like.  In my head I just kept thinking, I thought this was a no-cardio deal, but I guess it is a good way to warm-up the body fast.

The circuit

We were divided into groups of 4, and Hollie and I were with two guys, and then the instructor went around and explained each station to us.  Basically you had two exercises and then an isometric hold at the end at each station.  It was hard to remember what we were supposed to to at each station, and as usual with these things, when we started I plumb forgot 🤦‍♀️ what we were supposed to be doing.  But luckily Hollie and the guys we were with were paying better attention.

Here is a breakdown of the stations we did in the circuit (please excuse the non-technical names for the exercises).

Station 1:

• Rope climb
• TRX Flyouts
• Isometric – bar hang (legs up if you could)

Station 2: 

• Tricep Push Ups
• Lunges with Bicep curl
• Isometric: Tricep plank hold with a balance (which I couldn’t do, no matter how I tried)

Station 3: 

• Russian Twists with big disc weights
• Hands reaching to feet (which were in the air) crunches
• Isometric: Disc weight on chest holding in the reach position

Station 4: 

• Kettle Bell Swings
• Plank pulling a kettle bell from side to side
• Isometric: Wall hold with Kettle Bell

So there was a clock in the corner of the room, which I could not make heads nor tails of.  It didn’t really matter as the instructor was great at calling out when to change exercise or station, and also reminding us what to do next, because we all forgot at some point 🤯.

Not only was the instructor keeping and eye on the clock, he was also keeping tabs 👀 on the room, making sure everyone had a challenging weight, checking form, and that we were working slowly through the motions to gain time under tension.  With the clock, at the start it was tempting to rush through and get as many reps in as possible, but then after a few rounds I got the hang of focussing on the movement.

Two rounds

So we went through the whole circuit once, and then surprise, surprise we did it again.  I was pretty much a quivering mass of jelly by this stage, but somehow we pushed through the second circuit and gave it our all.

Then we finished up with a great active cool down, which I really appreciated!  The lights came on, and we all shuffled out of the room.  It’s funny before the class I was intimated by all the big men, and buff ladies, and in the end, they weren’t that much more able that little ‘ole Hols and me, so maybe it is a lesson to put your preconceptions about someone aside.  For example, a guy might look super big and strong, but has no grip strength and can’t hang off a bar, where as I could (actually I couldn’t but you get what I mean 😂).

Would I do it again?  I loved TUT as a concept, and it was great not to rush through reps, and not to focus on getting heart rate up, rather focus on form, strength, and a full range of motion.  I highly recommend it, and I would definitely take a TUT class again.

Would you like to try it?  Check out Psycle’s TUT class here.

What’s next?  We’re going to up the fun antics and try HulaFit.

Read about our all our other fitness adventures here.

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Have you done any Time Under Tension classes or strength work, I’d love to hear how did you got on? Please share, I’d love to hear from you.