Tuesday Workout

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

Finally getting a chance to post - I did one I DVR'd from Fit TV (we get it again here on our comcast cable) - Ellen Barrett's Slo Robics. This is a nice blend of athletic and Pilates moves. Mostly standing work with a slight aerobic feel to it. It works the core and lower body very well. If you have her Crunch workouts or her Studio workouts it is similar. I don't have all of her Studio workouts, but in looking at the clips for Slim Sculpt and Fat Burning Fusion - this one is quite a bit like those, and there are elements of her Crunch workouts in there as well. I was going to tack on Ellen's Pilates Sculpt (or Zen Sculpt - the title is one way on Comcast but Ellen calls it "Zen" in the intro) but it looked to be a bit too much for my back to do immediately following Slo Robics (my back was a little tired and starting to feel stiff from some of the exercises). So, I called it a day and did some

housechores (animal chores mostly) and then later on this afternoon I added on Mari Winsor's Pilates for Pink. I did the whole workout - I believe each segment (arms, abs, legs) is 10 minutes long. There is also a warm-up and cool down. This one uses the resistance band and it works very well. I didn't find the upper body portion to be as challenging as the 10 Min Solution workout, but it worked well enough. The leg work was pretty good and tough - side series w/ the band along with some pelvic lifts for the hamstrings and isometrics for the inner thighs. The ab work is quite "reformer" inspired. I felt both the ab and leg work in this one. partly b/c Ellen pre-fatigued those areas. Mari's warm-up and cool down is good - she does warm your hands up nicely so that they don't get stressed by holding onto the band. I felt much looser after this practice and it seems that my back is "back on

board" so to speak. I've been having a run of good luck with it - both times I've visited the chiro (on Friday and on Monday) he remarked about how much looser everything is - and it definately feels it, too (we'll see how it is tomorrow!). I almost think it is the addition of Classical Stretch - it seemed to be just the thing to push me to the next level of recovery- I am guessing this is the case b/c I started noticing improvements after I started doing the CS workouts. I'm aiming to do them at least 3X per week for 30 minutes each time. I'm extra impressed w/ my back b/c I have been putting in through its paces lately w/ holiday decorating, and then yesterday, DD (who was off from school) wanted to go in to town to walk around - we walked quite a bit (and picked up some gifts for the b-day parties she has been invited to at a local toy store - yay, no Wal-Mart visit!). If it were a few months ago, all the

walking/standing would have stressed my back out and it would have been really tight by the end of the day - and it was perfectly fine! I hope this trend continues.

Take care,

Donna