It's a Dog's Life

Last night I extended the Dog Days theme from the weekend.  Robert teaches our local spin class (jSpin) on Monday evenings, but he asked me to substitute for him last night because of a work meeting he had to attend.  I had a doggone good time planning a spin tribute to my favorite four-legged creatures.

Coming up with a themed music playlist for jSpin is nothing new to me.  Some of my past themes have included traveling across the U.S., math, magic, and Thanksgiving.  This time I thought of as many dog related songs and artists as I could, supplementing with a little research on Apple Music and the Google.  Here’s the playlist:

Dog Days by Atlanta Rhythm Section
Hound Dog by Elvis Presley
Atomic Dog by George Clinton
The Great Beyond by Puppy
Who Let the Dogs Out? by Baha Men
Black Dog by Led Zeppelin
Joy to the World by Three Dog Night
Drop It Like It’s Hot (Extra Clean Radio Edit) by Snoop Dogg & Pharrell Williams
Petticoat Junction by Acoustic Sound Hounds
Call Me a Dog by Temple of the Dog
Furr by Blitzen Trapper
Scooby Doo cartoon theme song
The Coast by Court Yard Hounds
Walking the Dog by Rufus Thomas
I Love My Dog by (ironically) Cat Stevens

Although I was unfamiliar with a number of these songs, most are quite good, and some are really fun.  Snoop Dogg naturally came to mind, but I’m not into his music.  Rather chagrined to find that almost all of his songs are labeled explicit, I was glad to find not only the Radio Edit version of Drop It Like It’s Hot but also the Extra Clean Radio Edit version.  (Not that you can’t easily figure out which words are edited out…)  Also, when I found Court Yard Hounds, I was delighted to learn that they are sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, two of the three members of the Dixie Chicks.  Court Yard Hounds may not have the distinctive lead vocals of Natalie Maines from the Dixie Chicks, but Maguire and Robison’s excellent musicianship is still abundantly evident.

The workout itself also went to the dogs.  I reimagined a number of our usual spin exercises as typical dog activities:

10 minutes – warm-up
2 minutes – jumps (jumping up on the counter to get dog biscuits)
5 minutes – standing climb (running through the woods with our pack; tail wagging optional)
2 minutes – seated high cadence (chasing the mailman)
1 minute – rest (and pant)
2 minutes – standing flat (begging)
2 minutes – one-legged drills (moving one leg while someone scratches our belly)
5 minutes – playing fetch*
5 minutes – standing climb (stalking our prey)
1 minute – pedal while keeping head still (playing dead – this is a pretty tough core exercise!)
2 minutes – rest (and pant)
2 minutes – seated high cadence (chasing the cat)
2 minutes – high resistance (digging and burying a bone)
2 minutes – one-handed standing flat (shaking hands)
5 minutes – playing fetch*
2 minutes – cool-down

*I tossed a toy (borrowed from Ashes the office cat) to one class member, who got to decide what exercise we did for the next minute.  At the end of the minute he/she tossed it to another class member, who picked a different exercise to do for the next minute.  We did this a total of five times throughout the segment.

I didn’t dictate the level of intensity quite as much as in most of our jSpin classes, but I encouraged everyone to keep at least an L3 heartrate on most of the segments.  The class members seemed to enjoy getting into the theme with me.  On one of the fetch segments, Pam commanded everyone to sit!  Finally, last night’s class was dedicated in loving memory of Ann’s husband, Dr. Don Gay, who was our beloved dog doctor for many years.  Appropriately, his initials were DOG.