Week 1: Meet The Women

Week 2: The Most Brutal Thing I've Ever Done

A few months ago, I started working from home. It's awesome: No commute! No office! No pants! But then my back started aching, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Was it the chairs in my apartment? The laptop? The lack of pants? So I asked my wife, for whom this was no mystery. "It's because you don't walk anywhere anymore," she said. I used to march a mile to work every day, but at this point I was marching to the kitchen in the morning and not leaving for hours. My back, which once propped up a lazy-but-mobile human male, was just melting away."I think you need to exercise," she said. And she was right. She had been working from home for years and going to a fitness class three times a week. I had tried gyms before, but could never stick to them. I needed something new. Frankly, I needed to work out like my wife.And so, for a month, I decided to do just that: Each week, I would go to a new fitness class filled with women. To save my back, I would finally put some pants on. Or, at the very least, shorts. Here's how that went down.As I walk to Pure Barre , my very first class, I worry: Am I about to be a problem? I imagine some poor woman, perfectly comfortable wearing spandex among her fellow females, who will now stress about some strange man ogling her butt. I resolve: I will tuck myself into the corner and do my best not to look at anyone. You won't even notice me, ladies. Just here for the workout.I arrive, and my instructor, Kate, positions me at the ballet bar — front and center. I am the only guy here, of course. Hi, ladies.Kate runs me through a 30-second orientation, and here's what I retain: The class will work out my under-developed muscle groups, so I should expect my body to vibrate. Also, "tucking" is very important. She does something with her hips and explains it very well, I'm sure, and I try to show her that I understand by mildly humping the air. "You got it!" she says.Class begins, and she's rattling off 10-part instructions on how to position our bodies while I scramble to keep up. At one point, she has us all lie on the floor, and I watch my classmates to follow along — until Kate comes over to gently turn me around, because I'm facing the wrong way. That is, I am facing everyone, and everyone is facing me. I'm sure this doesn't go unnoticed. At least I can't be accused of staring at anyone's butt.I'm surprised how, for a class called "barre," we spend most of our time away from the ballet barre. But I enjoy the micro-movements — holding a position and then moving slightly back and forth. As promised, I vibrate like a cheap massage chair. "Push through the burn," Kate repeatedly insists, which is easy to say when your leg isn't on fire. But I push through the burn, mostly. Afterward, one woman asks me what I thought. "I had no idea what I was getting into," I reply. She thinks this is funny. I think I'd be welcomed back.Before I go to Brooklyn Bodyburn , I watch a video about the class. In it, a model climbs onto the "megaformer," a juiced-up Pilates contraption with stable platforms on both ends, and a moveable platform in the middle. Then, she arranges herself into a plank and glides back and forth. It looks easy and fun.And it was fun. Briefly.We start simple: a plank, a lunge, some push-ups. I keep up with the off-duty fitness instructor working out next to me, which is very satisfying. But then the positions become more complex — hold my leg this way, my arm here, my hips forward, my shoulders somewhere else. I become aware of how much energy my body has, and how quickly I'm burning through it. There's no time to rest. Soon, basic instructions seem nearly impossible. "Put your arm here" sounds like "arm-wrestle this bear." And while I'm at it, I should also kick down a metal door, while also flipping over a Buick, and...Then, it happens. The thing I know is coming: I run out of gas and collapse. Just, collapse. My body, this useless and inert thing, just flops down onto the megaformer like it's ready for the butcher. I look up at the clock: We're not even 10 minutes into class.