, Ripped & Chiseled, & vacation!

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

Another quick check in before I head up north for vacation tomorrow!

I'll be waving to Carolyn from the Upper Peninsula!

Everyone continues to do fabulous! Loved reading the recent posts the

Amy workouts, too – since made me order some of them for half

price from advanced workout...lol! I'm happy to say that yesterday's

and today's workouts went pretty well, so I'm pulling out of the funk

I was in on Tues!

Yesterday I did 's Sculpt & Burn workout, which is from her

walkblaster (aka Gin 's " Ramp " ) set. I don't have a Ramp, but

my DH made me a really cool adjustable frame thing that puts my step

at a slight angle and does a nice job of simulating the Ramp. I'll

post pics of it sometime. This workout was really fun! It's about

40 minutes, and isn't a step workout (you tap the Ramp more than step

on it) but is a nice change from 's regular stuff. I was able

to keep my heart rate up for most of the workout, and get a sweat

going as well. This isn't a straight cardio workout, as throws

in several (pretty long) sets of squats and lunges using the Ramp.

She also uses weighted gloves for a while, which also helped with

keeping my HR up. Neat stuff. I have a few of Gin 's Ramp

workouts as well, so I'm looking forward to trying them!

I followed that with 's Advanced One Mile jog, thinking that it

was 30 min (as the box says) doing jogging intervals like some of her

other jogging workouts. Not so! Around min 8-9 of jogging I slowed

to a fast walk since I thought I needed to pace myself. I should

have kept going. This workout is only about 15 min long, and is

pretty much all jogging after the warm up - with some leg swings and

high knees thrown in. There's some thigh slimmer or something as a

separate workout, so that must make up the 30 minutes. I didn't do

that part. But, this was a nice little add on next time I need one,

and I plan to " jog " the whole time! I was happy that I was able to

do all of the leg swings. Those have been really difficult for me in

the past.

Today I did Ripped and Chiseled. I did a lot better with it than I

did with RTTC on Tues, but that was because of my bad attitude on

Tues, not the workout or my ability with it, heh. I started out

really strong, matching Jari with all of the weights for the lower

body stuff. I started fade toward the middle, and had to drop down

in weight from then on. Though, I noticed she uses the same weight

for chess presses and flyes, which I never do. And also the same

weights for shoulder presses and raises seemed strange to me. For the

push ups, I just did what I usually do – do them on my knees for the

duration, as many as I can without worrying about pulsing or slow

counts or whatever. I did feel like I went much too light on the

back track, because again I normally use much heavier weight for back

than anything else (like the FIRM) but she used light weights. I'll

just try to remember to always go heavier for back, since I can

always drop down if needed. I liked that the triceps dips section

was nice and short, LOL. I struggled through the shoulder section,

since we had done so much already. I started slwoing down by

alternating the presses, then switched to raises for a bit like Jari

suggested, back to alternating presses, etc. At least I kept moving.

This workout felt pretty long, but I kinda liked it. Ripped is still

at the front of the pack for me, but I didn't hate this one. I'm

already starting to feel this one thru my tris and shoulders.

Okay, gotta go. This weekend should be lots of fun (last weekend's

trip was more like work, lol) but I'll be glad when things settle

down and get back to normal! I'll catch you next week!

Sara