10 lb. Slimdown - Lower

I have been a BAD exerciser, but I am hopefully back on track.  I did the Lower part of the 10 lb. slimdown, which thankfully my new cable company also has On Demand.  It is sooo hard, especially after a break.  It's the same drill - three sets, twice each.  Chris Freytag does the usual, lunges and squats of all kinds, but she always includes a higher impact move and she talks throughout in very positive ways, like "because you CAN", which I find myself thinking about throughout the day.  Like I think, "listen to Maria say the same demand for the 1000th time but don't kill her because you CAN".  :)

We are in our new house and we have had a hard first week, the heat went out and the garage door broke, Veronica is not sleeping, it all stinks, BUT I of course feel a million times better today for having worked out at all.  Today is my last day of the 100 pushup challenge and tomorrow I'm starting a 200 situp project.  I really like having something to do every day, I wish it were more, but maybe I'll get there.

10 lb. Slimdown - Upper

I will never learn.  I thought I had done the lower portion of this workout, and the description says that it works your arms, bis, tris, etc. and I thought well good, because I am TIRED and I don't want to work out ANYWAY, so I'll just do an UPPER BODY workout.  Then, of course, it's Chris Freytag and she is always doubling up, so you do hammer curls but you also do lunges and then you stand on one damned leg to do your tricep curls.  But it was great, the power cardio things in the middle of the circuits (there are three, you do them twice) seemed short.  Effective, but short.  One of them, for example, is to start out with low impact jumping jacks, then go to big jumping jacks, and then power jumping jacks, where you clap your hands over your head when your feet are open and then touch the floor when they are closed.  It was, dare I say it, fun?  Chris Freytag really makes it work, for me.  I'll say it again, I think a certain TV TRAINER could learn a lot by not being so evil and demented.

This was the third 10 lb. Slimdown workout I did and I think they are all great but today it dawned on me, it would be really great to do three of them.  That would be a great weekly workout, say, to do the upper body, lower body and core.  Or either the upper or lower, with the core and the Blast! one.  If this wasn't available for free on Exercise TV, this might be a DVD that I would buy.  I really like the trainer, I can't even remember what the music is like, and she is all by herself for all of them!

10 lb. Slimdown - Core

Chris Freytag is the trainer for all of these, apparently, she has a DVD.

My core is non-existent but I still think this was haaaaard.  It's three circuits again, I guess maybe they all are - we shall see!  She just does a 20 second breath in between the circuits and it doesn't feel like enough.  I was in a hurry but if I had some extra time, I might consider pausing it a little bit and maybe taking 60 seconds.  For God's sake.

In the circuits, you do:

• a standing knee lift, where you reach down to the opposite knee and then up and away, you do 8 reps slowly and 16 fast
• a half-boat into a full-boat (ouch!)
• bicycle crunches, only instead of crunching up your head, you lift your weights up and down, pushing out from your chest.  I used 5 lb. weights but you could use whatever you want, obviously.  
• crunches, where you hold a weight in each hand and bend your elbows at a 90 degree angle.  You crunch in with the weights and then lay your head down and pull the weights behind your head.  I am still hurting from this!  
• circular crunches
• side plank lifts
• isometric holds in the plank position, with alternating leg lifts, 8 each, twice.  GOOD LORD.

Here's what else you do but I failed at, today:

• Mountain Climbers.  I'm just bad with them - I feel like I am too short or too fat or something and I can never make my legs go in as far as I feel like I should.  I did do them, just not well.  
• I don't even know what to call this one - You're on all fours and you go up into a plank position and then you HOP your back foot to your opposite hand and repeat repeat.  Veronica came up the stairs and it was the last exercise and I just couldn't do it.  Am lame.  I will try next time.  My report is that it LOOKS HARD.  I did my 79 pushups before my workout today and I am too shaky, I guess.  

These are excellent workouts.  They're hard and I should probably do two at a time but I can't right now.  I recommend YOU do it, though, ha!  

10 lb. Slimdown Blast

I still have one more 10 minute workout to do and I'm going to do it next but I wanted to do a longer workout today while I had time, so I started the 10 lb. Workouts.  I was VERY pleased with this, although I found it really hard.  It's Chris Freytag, who I like a lot.  She is very positive without being too fakety fake.  She says, like, "four more!  Because you CAN!" and she says "Yes, you CAN!" and it's not annoying, I think, well I guess I CAN if she SAYS SO!

This workout is three circuits that all have strength training type work on one body group, followed by 30 seconds of a blast! of cardio and then a 20 second active recovery period.  So the first circuit is squats (I used 5 lb. weights, if you used, like 10 lb. weights, I think it would get complicated doing the faster reps, but you could always stick with the slower rep), the second circuit is lunges and deadlifts and the third circuit is arms and chest and back.  Of course, you are working the upper body with the lower and the lower with the upper, but the focus is on the first listed part.  In between you do fast jogs, kicks, etc.

It was hard - in the last part you do a side plank with weight lifting and you could it with a) your whole body on the floor, b) your knees on the floor, or c) just your feet on the floor and I opted for a) although I should have done b) and I probably could have done c) if I had just concentrated.  But I was so tired and afraid of what was to come after the first rounds I was scared.  Lame!  But I'll do b) the next time and c) the time after that.

Verrry good workout, it makes me look forward to the other 10 lb. Workouts, kind of.

Walking Cardio Sculpt

This is my favorite workout under Walking workouts, but it is the least walk-y of all of them.  It's an excellent workout, I wish I could do it every day but I am a lazy ass.  :)

It's Chris Freytag, who is excellent and cheery but not too cheery.  She is also by herself, which of course I prefer.  The workout is divided into four walking parts and four sculpting parts.  It's almost 50 minutes long.

So you do some marching and out-out-in-ins, some walking up and back, some squats, some jogging, some jump roping, some mambo-ing, some v-steps, ... I feel like I am forgetting something, but basically it's a few minutes of some low impact cardio.  Oh, you do some "skater moves", which are wide steps back behind your opposite foot, and some "power knees", which are knee lifts but you sort of hook-punch your opposite arm while you are raising your knee.

The sculpting parts are divided, so you start with squats and lunges, then go to arms and back, then chest and biceps and then abs.  They're all excellent, I use five pound weights but on some stuff you double up.  You could also do it with no weights, which I actually considered doing today, because it's been so damned long since I've done anything but it was fine.  Today I had already done 65 pushups on my toes so I was thinking of NOT doing the pushups but it was fine - now when I do 16 or 32 pushups as part of a workout, it's like nothing.

She calls it great, she is super easy to follow and she reminds you a lot of the right way to breathe, supporting your lower back with your abs, etc.  She is very motivating and kind and unlike a certain Biggest Loser meany that we will be talking about soon.  She never screams "I want you to feel like you're going to DIE", which is nice.