I may have mentioned before that I was trying Zumba and have come to the conclusion that, unless one is in no need of Zumba, one will be no good at Zumba. So, I gave up. No, no, not totally, just sort of. I've taken the idea of Zumba (exercise via dance with handweights) and put it to music that requires less coordination (because, honestly?, I don't have enough coordination to spare for Latinesque hip movements). (Including links because some of this music I know some of my friends won't know...)
Under the Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers
warm up with my handy dandy zumba toning sticks by tossing and catching them end over end while bopping to the music - I have trouble with my hand strength and this works that and my wrists as well as my eye-hand coordination.
Rockstar, Nickelback
tricep pumps with light handweights (currently at 3.5 pounds per arm) while side stepping - I'm finding this works my biceps as well
Stand, REM
Hips move in a figure eight, with the leading hip moving forward and out first.
F.N.T., Semisonic
I love this song. One of my all time favorites. handweights, side bends to work abs while sweeping the same arm outward
Does Your Mother Know?, Christine Baranski/Mamma Mia! Soundtrack
great high energy dance number - I make a real fool of myself dancing to this one.
Total Eclipse of the Heart, Bonnie Tyler
figure 8s on the hips again, but with the hip scooping backward and out first instead of forward
Kingsword, Heather Dale
Great song about the creation of the Arthurian sword-in-the-stone legend. toe bounces - absolutely brutal on the backs of the calves
Holding Out for a Hero, Bonnie Tyler
Not quite sure how I wound up with two Bonnie Tyler songs but they both work so... tapping the heels in front - knees bent (actually, I spend just about the whole workout as deep in my knees as I can - strengthen those knee stabilizers and the quads)
Never Say Never, Styx
Ok, this is the only one that's not quite working for me. I do a standard dance floor "side-together" kind of thing here and this song isn't quite fast enough nor is it slow enough to doubletime the step. Going to have to replace it - open to ideas if anyone has any!
Danger Zone, Top Gun Soundtrack
hammer curls with handweights and side steps/bounces - going to have to up the weight on this soon. May just use a second set as I'm damn sure I can't manage a whole song's worth of the tricep things with a higher weight yet.
Chelsea Morning, Rebecca Luker
Great imagery in the song which I need by this point! Knees bent - hips side to side - you would not believe how much this makes my inner thighs burn!! Ow!!
Closing Time, Semisonic
time to stretch after 40 minutes of keeping my heartrate up.
There it is. Looks pretty damn lame when I type it out.
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Apr 21, 2010
May 6, 2007
Not Dead, Honest (*edited to fix link - thanks SMT!!*)
Although I am dead tired... ;) and this will be short and somewhat rambling... (We have a newspaper sports columnist here who does this sort of thing occasionally and called it "half-baked Jake" - his name is Jeff Jacobs. No, I'm not sure where I thought I was going with that either.
Well, I have duly completed my 4th decade. We celebrated like mad on the 21st with our friends and more sedately with family on the 28th - let's stretch the fun out!! Unfortunately, all the cake has now been eaten and I'm suffering from chocolate cake withdrawal - cake, damn it, I need more cake!!
I've also entered into (as of Thursday) my 2nd decade of marriage. Yep, we made it 10 years. Hard to believe but there you have it!
The jewelry website (http://www.silveryeverafter.com) was recently updated (i.e., I spent my whole frellin' week futzing with thing and, despite a breakdown where all my pictures went bye-bye the other night (thank you VERY much, Jade, for helping me with that!!!!), it's finally up to date. I really ought to split the index pages for each type into more than one page, they're getting overly long but, nope, not now. It will have to wait for the next time around.
I have my first home exhibit for the jewelry in 2 weeks and I'm frantically trying to get ready for that.
I'd really like to get back to my poetry book but, at this point, it just ain't happenin'. It will. Eventually.
Still no luck on the reproductive front. If not this cycle, we go see the doctor to talk about options. Not sure what those options are, given our insurance (which covers diddly-squat) and our unwillingness to do follicle studies, but, hey, I'm game to listen. Probably Clomid. Just what I need ... more raging hormones! Ever since the miscarriage, the emotional aspect of my PMS has been absolutely out-of-control. It's weird. It's like the time they switched my birth control pills from the mini-pill to the not-quite-full-but-not-quite-mini version. Tears at the drop of a hat and c-r-a-n-k-y.
The Katester is turning into quite the todder... no. no. no. no. I think she says that word more to me than I do to her maybe. Suffice it to say, it's probably the most frequently spoken word in our household, exceeding even "potty".
I'm not getting any skinnier thanks to a world-class case of stress-eating BUT I noticed today that a whole day's worth of gardening (all breaking new beds) wasn't 1/2 as tiring as it was last year. So it seems those weights are helping after all.
And, on the last note before I stop boring you all, I found fuschias at the grocery two weeks ago and bought two. I love fuschias and I don't typically find them around here. Well, I didn't know what color they would be but I noticed today that the first blooms have opened and they're the lovely fuschia color on the outside and royal purple on the inside - so pretty! I'll post a pic when I do the next upload.
Well, I have duly completed my 4th decade. We celebrated like mad on the 21st with our friends and more sedately with family on the 28th - let's stretch the fun out!! Unfortunately, all the cake has now been eaten and I'm suffering from chocolate cake withdrawal - cake, damn it, I need more cake!!
I've also entered into (as of Thursday) my 2nd decade of marriage. Yep, we made it 10 years. Hard to believe but there you have it!
The jewelry website (http://www.silveryeverafter.com) was recently updated (i.e., I spent my whole frellin' week futzing with thing and, despite a breakdown where all my pictures went bye-bye the other night (thank you VERY much, Jade, for helping me with that!!!!), it's finally up to date. I really ought to split the index pages for each type into more than one page, they're getting overly long but, nope, not now. It will have to wait for the next time around.
I have my first home exhibit for the jewelry in 2 weeks and I'm frantically trying to get ready for that.
I'd really like to get back to my poetry book but, at this point, it just ain't happenin'. It will. Eventually.
Still no luck on the reproductive front. If not this cycle, we go see the doctor to talk about options. Not sure what those options are, given our insurance (which covers diddly-squat) and our unwillingness to do follicle studies, but, hey, I'm game to listen. Probably Clomid. Just what I need ... more raging hormones! Ever since the miscarriage, the emotional aspect of my PMS has been absolutely out-of-control. It's weird. It's like the time they switched my birth control pills from the mini-pill to the not-quite-full-but-not-quite-mini version. Tears at the drop of a hat and c-r-a-n-k-y.
The Katester is turning into quite the todder... no. no. no. no. I think she says that word more to me than I do to her maybe. Suffice it to say, it's probably the most frequently spoken word in our household, exceeding even "potty".
I'm not getting any skinnier thanks to a world-class case of stress-eating BUT I noticed today that a whole day's worth of gardening (all breaking new beds) wasn't 1/2 as tiring as it was last year. So it seems those weights are helping after all.
And, on the last note before I stop boring you all, I found fuschias at the grocery two weeks ago and bought two. I love fuschias and I don't typically find them around here. Well, I didn't know what color they would be but I noticed today that the first blooms have opened and they're the lovely fuschia color on the outside and royal purple on the inside - so pretty! I'll post a pic when I do the next upload.
Feb 21, 2007
The Weights
Ok, Cazzie!!, this one's for you because you asked! No suing me, please!
I do a weight routine. I'm supposed to do it 5x a week. I usually manage 4x but I'm figuring that's pretty good considering there's only so much Baby Einstein I can get Katie to watch -- particularly since the only ones that hold her interest are Baby DaVinci and Baby Beethoven! It's only supposed to take 10-15 minutes but it pretty much always takes me 20. Some of us never lost the physical ineptitude that plagued us growing up. It's boring and painful but I do it. I'm making some very slow progress. I used to do an hour (well, it was supposed to be an hour but it took me an hour and 20 -30 minutes) 3x a week but I just can't find that much time in a chunk to do something so torturous.
3 sets of 10-15 reps each
Day 1:
Reverse lunge (like a forward lunge from most exercise tapes but backwards instead)
lateral dumbbell (DB) raises (hold arms at sides while gripping DB, raise straight out/up to shoulder height, and down.)
Stability ball (SB) chest fly (lay with your back on the stability ball (one of those big exercise ball thingies), hold the DB with your arms straight out to either side, raise them up to meet in teh center (your arms should swing in a big arc and still be straight when they meet up.)
Pelvic tilt cruch with legs in air (lay on your back on the floor, hands behind your head in the "traditional" situp position and your legs raised up vertically (they can be bent, that's ok). Now, tilt your pelvis up (a/k/a tuck your bahooty in) and lift your shoulders off the floor at the same time.)
Day 2:
Cone touch with DB (stand on one foot with something that's about 1 ft - 18" high in front of you. With a DB in either hand, bend over and try to touch the something with the hand that's opposite of the foot that you're standing on - i.e., if you're standing on your left foot, try to touch the something with your right hand.)
SB Pushups with pike (still unclear on the pike part of this - the basic SB pushup... lie face down on the ball, the ball should be under your hips, with your hands on the floor. Do push ups.)
Upright row with squat etc., etc.
Kneeling donkey tuck
Day 3:
tube twists
side lungs
archery row
SB lying tricep kickback (another one I'm still unclear on)
Day 4:
Step-ups w/bicep curl using DB
Alternating T-bridges
Lat pull downs
Back bridge using SB
Day 5:
Stiff leg dead lift
Russian twist
squat press
SB swimmer w/DB
I was going to describe all of them but it's getting late and I'm getting tired and I have lots of work-work yet to do so that's all she wrote for this time, folks. Suffice it to say, if you can do the exercise easily, your weights are too light. Unfortunately.
I do a weight routine. I'm supposed to do it 5x a week. I usually manage 4x but I'm figuring that's pretty good considering there's only so much Baby Einstein I can get Katie to watch -- particularly since the only ones that hold her interest are Baby DaVinci and Baby Beethoven! It's only supposed to take 10-15 minutes but it pretty much always takes me 20. Some of us never lost the physical ineptitude that plagued us growing up. It's boring and painful but I do it. I'm making some very slow progress. I used to do an hour (well, it was supposed to be an hour but it took me an hour and 20 -30 minutes) 3x a week but I just can't find that much time in a chunk to do something so torturous.
3 sets of 10-15 reps each
Day 1:
Reverse lunge (like a forward lunge from most exercise tapes but backwards instead)
lateral dumbbell (DB) raises (hold arms at sides while gripping DB, raise straight out/up to shoulder height, and down.)
Stability ball (SB) chest fly (lay with your back on the stability ball (one of those big exercise ball thingies), hold the DB with your arms straight out to either side, raise them up to meet in teh center (your arms should swing in a big arc and still be straight when they meet up.)
Pelvic tilt cruch with legs in air (lay on your back on the floor, hands behind your head in the "traditional" situp position and your legs raised up vertically (they can be bent, that's ok). Now, tilt your pelvis up (a/k/a tuck your bahooty in) and lift your shoulders off the floor at the same time.)
Day 2:
Cone touch with DB (stand on one foot with something that's about 1 ft - 18" high in front of you. With a DB in either hand, bend over and try to touch the something with the hand that's opposite of the foot that you're standing on - i.e., if you're standing on your left foot, try to touch the something with your right hand.)
SB Pushups with pike (still unclear on the pike part of this - the basic SB pushup... lie face down on the ball, the ball should be under your hips, with your hands on the floor. Do push ups.)
Upright row with squat etc., etc.
Kneeling donkey tuck
Day 3:
tube twists
side lungs
archery row
SB lying tricep kickback (another one I'm still unclear on)
Day 4:
Step-ups w/bicep curl using DB
Alternating T-bridges
Lat pull downs
Back bridge using SB
Day 5:
Stiff leg dead lift
Russian twist
squat press
SB swimmer w/DB
I was going to describe all of them but it's getting late and I'm getting tired and I have lots of work-work yet to do so that's all she wrote for this time, folks. Suffice it to say, if you can do the exercise easily, your weights are too light. Unfortunately.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)