On Sunday I was lucky enough to book a spot in the Spring into Summer classes being held at Westfield Stratford.  Put on by Adidas, in their #mygirls pop-up studio, it was a chance to try out some of the new fitness trends.

I loved the look of the #mygirls studio, but like the recent re-brand of Nike Training Club, I felt the #mygirls branding brought the feel of it down a bit.  Women can work together and be strong at the same time, no need to call us girls.

I took part in the Swedercise class first, not knowing quite what to expect I was swept into something that resembled Jane-Fonda-step-class-line-dancing-abba-with-squats-and-chanting. It was an energetic 45 minutes with aerobic work dancing around the studio and strength work on mats.

I have a personal aversion to exercise classes like Zumba (I know it’s a great class and works for some people but I can’t even walk in the door to a gym if there’s a Zumba class going on) so while this wasn’t my favourite way to spend 45 minutes exercising, I can see a lot of people enjoying it and taking advantage of this new style.

I was interested to learn that Swedercise is a non-profit venture and Friskis&Svettis operate solely to promote an active lifestyle through fun, high-quality, affordable workout classes. Even with my embarrassment I can get behind these kind of ventures. Go try it!

After Swedercise, we cooled down with an ‘open bar’ of Zico coconut waters and then got back in to the activities with Cheerobics.

You guys. Cheerleading and an exercise class. Together at last. I was SO HAPPY.  I was never a cheerleader in school because… well.. Canada wasn’t cool enough. But Bring it On was a formative movie in my development, so I love everything about cheering.

The class was structured like an aerobic circuit class but during each section we were taught a routine that in the end we all put together into a proper CHEER! We might have pretended we were at the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleading tryouts too… maybe.

The moves were no joke, cheering is all about strong and quick movements so you couldn’t fake anything. Plus, did you know there is such a thing as Cheer-burpies? Yeah. Although doing burpees with pompoms was a bit more fun than usual.

After classes we got pretty awesome goody-bags filled with Zest magazines, zico coconut water, pistachios, chips and some cool MUC-OFF no-water soap for those of us who RUNch or ride into work it’s the perfect addition to that desk drawer to keep you smelling not too rank like roses all day.

They’re all happening again next week at Westfield London so get your name in a class or on a waitlist!