Lost Weight In Eight, Yoga Sculpt

This is part of the Lose Weight in Eight series and I loved it.  I *started* to do this other one, ugh, what was it called?  Activate?  Some nonsense.  It started out with a workout and it included this weird knee circle that Jillian Michaels does and I thought that it didn't bode well for this dude who leads the workout.  He didn't seem to care about your knees anyway.  But he was all "if you are willing to do UNCONVENTIONAL exercises, we can WORK YOU OUT" or whatever and I was game.  And it's funny that I was game, because we started out with ANIMAL exercises.  The first was called "The Bear" and you kind of walked on your hands and feet, while bent over, parallel to the floor.  Mmmmkay.  I didn't love it but I did it.  THEN he did THE CRAB!  The CRAB!  Like from grade school?  And I was all, um, are we playing DODGEBALL next?  So I stopped.

I was so glad I did, this yoga workout was just what I needed.  I'm EXTRA tired today because there was a kid awake and noisy in this house until 11:45, then another one woke up from 12:30 til 2:00, then the last one woke up at 5:45.  So.  We're tired, is what I'm saying.  Anyways, it's great, it's 8 moves, that you do three times.  You do (this is not in order) 1) a tree pose, while lifting weights for a bicep curl, 2) a plank pushup, into child's pose, 3) a plank position and lift your weights up to your shoulders, one by one 4) a cobra pose, and you push your hands out in front of you and then pull them back along your body, 5) a warrior pose, while lifting weights, 6) a lunge (I can't think of the yoga name) and you lift your knee up, 8) a triangle pose and you hold weights in both hands, dropping one arm along your leg and pushing the other up to the ceiling.  I guess that's it, you do them three times, it's hard and feels great when you're done.  She makes modifications for all of the poses, too, which is perfect.

The trainer, Kathy Faulstich, makes a good point - she said when you feel like you are getting tired and fatigued, that's what it feels like to get stronger.  You should be PROUD, she said, to feel that feeling.  And I was.  :)

Lose Weight in Eight, Athletic Conditioning Workout

Paul Vincent is the trainer for this workout, and he's super pleasant.  His model, Gina, is a woman who has lost like 60 pounds, and has 20 more to lose.  She's great, not just because she's not Brooklyn Decker, but because she is still on the road to whatever her ideal is, and she can still really work out hard.

It's a hard workout - I had to modify some of it, but if I'm being honest I could have done it all.  I'm just tired.  And have lost the will to live, let alone work out, but that's probably for a different blog entirely, ha!

It's eight moves but you do them three times and you do them for what feels like a long time.  Let me see if I can remember.  The girls were awake while I did it so it's been sort of scattered for me.   You do 1) jumping lunges, 2) crunches and rolls, where you do five crunches and then put up your legs and arms and roll over twice, without dropping your legs or arms.  3) a superman move, 4) a bridge move 5) pushups with a side opening in between, 6) plank pushups, (modification - the real move was a plank position, then you cross your legs from one side to the other, which, well, forget it) 7) this move where you put your arms out to either side and push them up so your hands are above your head, and then pull them back down, the whole time pushing your elbows back, as if your arms were sliding along a wall behind you. It's harder than it sounds.  8) I forgot, the first move is a kettlebell throw, where you hold a weight and squat down and then come up, throwing the weight above your head.

So, it was a hard but do-able workout.  He's a great trainer, big into form and reminding you of it.  You do the circuits and he tells you when you are in the last ten seconds and you can really pour it on, which I appreciate.  I always feel like you can do ten seconds of anything.