Last week’s exercise post (Gardening as Exercise and my weekly checkpoint) focused on gardening because I had been taking advantage of unseasonably warm weather to do some. Well, that ended. In the past week, I took advantage of a couple of snow days to catch up on my exercise goals using exercise DVDs filmed in Hawaii. Nothing like doing hula while watching it snow out the window.

My favorite Hawaiian DVDs are these two by Kili: Island Girl Dance Fitness Workout: Cardio Hula/Hula Abs & Buns – 2 Volume Set. For some reason, they are always cheap on Amazon. I swear by these for keeping at bay all symptoms of my hip arthritis. At first, it seems counter-intuitive that a dance form emphasizing hip sways would be so good for the joints, but when I was diagnosed with arthritis the orthopedist said that movement “oils the joints.” Nothing else in my life encourages me to move my hips like my hula DVDs!

Knees are a little more problematic in hula. I find that if I don’t bend my knees quite as deeply as the young ladies on the video and if I’m careful to pay attention to really using my thigh muscles to protect my knees, that hula helps my knees as well.

Another DVD filmed on a Hawaiian shore is A.M. & P.M. Yoga Conditioning for Weight Loss by Suzanne Deason. That link is to Gaiam, the producer of many of my favorite exercise DVDs. Yes, I know that there was just news about the dangers of yoga. I like the Healthy Librarian’s take on that: A Balanced Look at the New York Times’ “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” – What We Can Learn From William J. Broad’s Research and a Response from a Long-Time Yoga Teacher.

To bring in a book, here, I spent some time looking through Insight Guides: Hawaii this week. I plan more trips than I take, so Insight Guides are one of my favorite travel book series — beautiful photos and lots of background information for the armchair traveler. There are some advantages. In my version of Waikiki, I’m staying in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel down the hall from Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, I visit the Moana for a broadcast of the nationally popular radio show Hawaii Calls (here’s a nice video with the intro to the show and stills), and the beautiful beach is much less crowded than I suppose it is today. I recommend Insight Guides: Hawaii as an instant cure for winter cabin fever!

January goals: 1300 minutes, 8 video workouts
Current minutes: 720
Number of video workouts: 4

Last week, I wasn’t on pace for either goal and now I am for both. Yay, me!

See other exercise reports on Bookworm with a View: CHECKpoint! Jan 17. And, join us!