Sunday: Power Yoga with Rodney Yee
Monday: 30 Day Shred, Level 1
Tuesday: 30 Day Shred, Level 2
Wednesday: nothing
Thursday: 30 Day Shred, Level 3, & a long walk
Friday: nothing
Saturday: Personal Training with Jackie
Nice week finally. Yay! How'd it go for the rest of you?
-Jess
Did this today. Watch me achieve inner peace while the screaming hordes run 'round me.
-Jess
Katie J - I'm slowly doing reviews of my favorite workout DVDs on my blog, but I've only got two up so far, so here's a list of the ones I have and use:
-30 Day Shred - I think everyone knows about this one at this point
-Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism - another Jillian Michaels one; imagine taking just the cardio parts of Shred and making them into a 40 minute workout. Basically, this is hard cardio for 40 minutes - lots of jumping, plank-based moves and kickboxing.
-No More Trouble Zones - this, on the other hand, is like taking just the strength parts of Shred, and making them into a forty-minute workout. Lots of weights and also some old-school matwork.
-Personal Training with Jackie: Power Circuit Training. - This is just strength stuff, and it's more systematic than Michaels' No More Trouble Zones. I love this one. She starts with hamstrings, and proceeds through quads, glutes, chest, back, biceps, triceps, upper abs, lower abs and obliques. It just destroys your body piece by piece. It moves very quickly too, which I really like, but others might not.
Dance Off the Inches: Hip-Hop Party (Jennifer Gilardi). - This is the one I did this week. Fun, lots of cardio, kind of goofy.
Dancing with the Stars: Dance Off the Pounds. - I'm just starting this one. It's a sweatfest, and the dancing's actually stuff you might do in public, if you ever got good at it. As I recall (I haven't done it in awhile), one of the three routines took up too much floor space to do in my small living room. But I liked the other two routines (swing and jive) enough that it didn't feel like a waste of time.
Dance With Julianne, Cardio Ballroom - This is another fairly new one to me, but I really like it so far. It has a jive section that's particularly fun.
Dance Off the Inches: Fat-Burning Belly Dance - This isn't real belly dancing, it's kind of belly-dancing-inspired cardio. But it's fun.
Fwiw, I like dance DVDs because they're a good option for me when I've done a hard strength workout the day before and am too sore to lift again. Also, in all honesty, I find the dancer's bodies such great inspiration. It makes me want to be fit just so that I can move my body in such energetic and free ways. (Hee, quoth Larry the Cucumber: "Libre y suavamente!")
Rodney Yee's Power Yoga: Total Body Workout. My favorite yoga DVD, hands-down. Starts easy, gets harder as it goes. It's about an hour long, and, to my mind, the perfect Sunday afternoon de-stressor.
Katie J. - I also wanted to thank you for your observation about candy, and how it makes you feel. That's such a good reminder for me, because I love hard candies (like Runts and jellybeans), but they don't make me feel that great, and it's good to remember that.
Christa - you might like either of Jillian's other videos: the No More Trouble Zones or Banish Fat, Boost Metabolism, if you like the Shred. The second one does have a lot of jumping (is that "bouncy"?), but the first one doesn't. You might also like the yoga one - it does require coordination, I suppose, but it doesn't move terribly quickly, so you have time to get into the different positions. If you want something dead simple that will just get you moving, you might like one of Leslie Sansone's Walking Away the Weight videos.
Kelly, you're amazing. Hang in there. I think you're doing great to get anything more than childcare done when you're on your own with three kids.
Katie P. - I'm glad to hear that your shoulder is getting better. Glad the tennis ball helps too! What a simple tool for such great results.
Emily - I'm curious - are you still able to do your green smoothies during your kitchen remodel? I know how much you like them (though I still think greens ought to be eaten with bacon).
Amie - is there any news on Julie? Still praying for her and her baby.
-Jess
Yesterday I did Rodney Yee's Power Yoga: Total Body Workout. It felt good by the end of it (it usually does), but the kids all got up from naps or quiet time before the end of it, so it wasn't quite as peaceful as usual. And I was sore from the Jackie and Jillians workouts last week, so all the stretching was more challenging then usual. Still, a nice way to start the week. I always feel so accomplished after I do the backbends towards the end. I'm never quite sure I'm going to make it (I've cramped and tumbled in the middle of them before). It's a good thing they're towards the end, when he has you all warmed up and balanced, or I probably wouldn't make it!
Do you guys ever do a workout and think, "I'd better enjoy this, because someday my body isn't going to let me do this anymore"? I've been thinking about that recently. You enjoy this body, but its capabilities slowly declined, and how do you wean yourself off of the joys of a willing body? I've had my ability to physically do things taken away at a couple of points in my life, due to injuries and such, but in each case, I could reasonably expect them to return, and they did. But that won't be true with old age.
Though it does seem - in some completely serious sense that I don't think I really understand yet - that the hope of a new body in heaven is part of the answer. I don't think I get that yet. But I can see that it's there to get. Does that make any sense?
anyway, just wondering if anyone else has thought about this at all. It seems we're all close to what you might call our physical peak, and I can see the downhill staring me in the face. Wheeeee! :D
-Jess
