A Very (and others) Day (long post)

[Guest guest]

After two days of rest I'm feeling a lot better than I was Wednesday and worked out. Yesterday was pretty good but I didn't want to push my luck. Today I felt like I could get away with a light workout if I didn't push too hard. So I put in Sansone's Walk Away Your Stress first for some, what I thought would be easy, cardio. This is a 30 minute video from 2001 and the box says it is three 10 minute workouts. I've used just the first 10 minutes for a warmup for other workouts before but have never done the entire video. It really is just one workout though as you get to the 10 and 20 minute marks she tells you that it is whichever mark and if you want to stop, go do a quick cool down and stretch before sitting down but the workout itself is continuous for 30 minutes. It was all low impact but it moved at a very quick pace! It was more strenuous than I was expecting (but of course, with , you can slow things down or just walk in place instead of doing any other movements anytime). I did fine with it though and followed all of her movements. She incorporates a lot more upper body in this one than many others and encourages you to pick your feet up and walk like you're power walking outside so it is not a first time off the couch in years video. I was actually breathing hard after just the first 10 minutes and had to convince myself to go the entire 30. The music was fun too and she wasn't too giggly or silly but of course, she talked through the entire thing (and it is VHS so no music only option). She had 5 backgrounders and they included 3 walk instructors and 2 ladies who had written letters to her about their success with her videos. I really enjoyed it and felt like I got a decent cardio workout from it. Great for a lighter day but not so light that I'd rather just sleep, like today. My only criticism is that it didn't have a stretch at all but I was moving on to another workout and yoga so I didn't care that much. I'll know for next time though.

Today was actually scheduled to be a sculpt day but I had missed cardio on Thursday so that's why I threw the first one in. After that, I did 's Fast Firming from the Walk Slim collection. I've only done this once before and considered getting rid of it because I didn't think it was "enough." It uses the resistance band and I thought it would be a nice change of pace and a gentler workout for my joints than P90 Sculpt or many of my other sculpting videos. The only thing I was concerned about was gripping the band because that requires a lot of finger pressure (my usual worst place for stiffness and pain when my arthritis is flaring) but I was feeling good so I thought I'd be fine and figured I could stop if I wasn't. I was fine and did the entire 40 minute workout. There's a 3 minute walking warmup, then 34 minutes of work with the band doing upper and lower body and abs then a 3 minute stretch. I like the fact that you control the intensity of the workout by changing the length (resistance) of the band but it still didn't feel like "enough" because she only does one or two exercises per body part so I'm not sure if I'm keeping it or not. I'll have to try it again sometime before I decide. I really like tough sculpting work so that's the reason I hesitate with this one.

After that I needed to do abs because doesn't do much in Fast Firming and because I missed it the day before when I missed cardio so I threw in Ab Ripper 100. I didn't even want to try 200 today but found 100 was not very challenging so next time, no matter what is going on, I'll probably just go to 200 and let it torture me if necessary.

Finally, I stretched with Rodney Yee's Yoga for Energy "Awakening" sequence. I always says "ahhhh, I'm so glad I did that" when I finish this one and did today too.

Total workout time: 84 minutes, all worthwhile, all just where I was at today. I figure too that since I did cardio AND sculpt that I was making up for the cardio day I missed and staying on track with the sculpt. If I can squeeze in a workout on Sunday (it is Cub Scout Pinewood Derby and both my kids are racing in it, my daughter's car is pink and red and she's racing in the open class) I'll make up for the sculpt workout I missed on Wednesday and be all caught up this week and still on pace to finish Power 90 by April 5. I think this is officially Day 60 finally, I need to check my calendar (when I write my workout on it) to be sure. If it is, I'll try to do measurements today or tomorrow and have DH do pictures for me. I didn't take any pictures at Day 31 and can't find the measurements I got but they're around somewhere. I know there wasn't more than 1/2 inch change though at Day 31.

Good news too! My new cross trainers just came in today! I had a message from the store when I got back from a field trip with my daughter's class (2nd in two days) so I'll pick them up tomorrow and plan to use them, hopefully to go back to P90 Cardio. I'm not totally sure I can do the high impact yet because I don't feel 100% so I might do level 1-2 tomorrow to ease myself into it.

It felt so good to workout! I hope everyone else had workouts for where you were at today too!