Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Rockin' Body

I'm going to start Rockin' Body on January 1st and I'm going to follow the calendar included with the package. This means some days I'll have over 45 minutes of exercise but I'm ready to get back into the more serious workouts so I need to do this.

I didn't do well with the 30 for 25 Challenge and I can think up two reasons (other than the obvious self-blame, LOL). First, I wasn't willing to stray from the 30 minute stipulation. I have a lot of 45 minute workout DVDs that I *could* have done to mix up the variety and not get bored but I didn't. I had set a timer for 30 minutes and dammit, I wasn't going over. I'm weird in that way. Secondly, the decision of what to do was sometimes overwhelming for me. Rather than just do something, I would throw my hands up and declare it a missed night because I just couldn't decide what I wanted to do. Again, I fully realize how silly and cop-out that sounds but it's how I am. I'm a horrible decision maker sometimes.

Last night I was reflecting back to when I was doing the Insanity workouts. Now granted, I didn't finish the schedule due to injury; but until I couldn't do it any more, I was doing really well at staying on track. I pin that success on the fact that the Insanity workout had a schedule to follow. I knew as soon as I got home from work which workout I'd be doing that day. Sometimes it was a 30 minute workout, sometimes 45, sometimes more. The minutes didn't matter. My goal was to finish that day's schedule and I just did it.

Rockin' Body also has a schedule. It's broken up into 4 weeks so I figured January 1st was as good a day to start as any. I've set up a new tracker to the right where I'll mark my progress with the workout schedule.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Bah!

My follow-through is quite lacking lately! My 30 for 25 challenge is failing miserably. So far I've done the 30 minutes of exercise on FIVE days out of fourteen. That's 36%. Hrmpf.

On a more joyous note, my Sweetie bought me Shaun T's Rockin Body workout dvd set! I should have it by next week sometime and I'm excited for some more fun 30-minute dance type exercises. I've mentioned before that I'm the whitest white girl and my dance moves are awkward and clumsy at best - but truth be told, I still have so much more fun with the workouts when I'm doing those types.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Hula Hooping!

A friend of mine started C25K and said she was hoping to like running eventually. I told her to experiment because exercise is always easier to stick with if you enjoy what you're doing. She replied that she liked the hula hoop. Which reminded me ...

I LOVE the hula hoop! (Comes in as a close 2nd to climbing on playground equipment, lol - I'm a kid at heart!)

I guess it never occurred to me to use the hula hoop as part of an exercise because it's just something I do for fun. I've never really hooped for more than 5 or 10 minutes either so I didn't realize how much of a workout it could turn out to be.

About a year ago, Sweetie made big ones for us to use. She made them relative to our heights as instructed in the DIY she found online. Mine is empty (light) and her's is a bit weighted by being wrapped in duct tape. The empty hoop makes you work harder to keep it spinning so it's more of an aerobic exercise. The weighted one makes your muscles work harder to swing it but it's easier to keep spinning.

Last night, I decided my 30 minutes of exercise was going to be the hula hoop. I turned on Elton John's Greatest Hits (disc 1) and got to spinning! Within 10 minutes I was bored so I tried walking around, hopping, moving my arms around, trying to "dance", and even spinning in a circle while keeping the hoop going. It was so much fun and I was dripping sweat by the time I finished - which was a welcome surprise! It's not as much as a muscle workout as my other routines are because I don't feel any soreness today. I'd like to do it again with my heart rate monitor on to see how much I'm getting out of it. I have a feeling it will be the exercise for those days when I don't "feel like it".

Monday, December 5, 2011

30 for 25

Another blogger is doing 30 for 30 - which is 30 minutes of exercise for the 30 days of December. I decided better late than never and I love a good countdown!
Tonight I did the Billy Blanks Boot Camp Cardio - which is a convenient 30 minutes. Yesterday I played Wii boxing for about 30 minutes and my arms are TOAST! Which means when Billy broke out the resistance bands today, my muscles were screaming. I was really hoping that pushing through on those arm exercises would warm up those sore muscles and help them loosen up. Not the case. It was very difficult to pull my shirt off when I finished. It's hard to lift things. It's hard to type. Ouch. I'm hoping tomorrow is better!