Readers’ Workouts — November 20
Welcome to Readers’ Workouts, our weekly gathering of bookish folks doing active things. Join us to share your exercise stories and find companions for the fitness journey. How was exercise for you in the past week? What are your plans for the coming week? Link your post below or tell your story in the comments. Hop around to encourage and support everyone’s progress!
I made it to Level 2 of 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels as planned this week. The big scary thing about Level 2 are multiple exercises done from a plank position. That wasn’t too bad for me since a couple of the yoga DVDs that I do feature planks so I was pretty well prepared (although it would have been easier if I’d done those two DVDs in recent memory).
Unfortunately, the last of those moves is a plank twist and every time I twisted to the right my right hip popped. It wasn’t painful, but it freaked me out. I’ve had three arthritis flare-ups in my hip and would very much like to avoid any more. So, I moved on to Level 3 after just two workouts at Level 2. Level 3 is harder because of the way that strength and cardio are combined, but it didn’t cause any joints to pop so I’m much happier with it.
From some bad scheduling, I ended up doing 30 Day Shred two days in a row (I’m aiming for every other day), so I went back and did Level 1 for the second day. To make it a bit harder, I tried the more difficult version of the push-up for the first set — what we used to call boy push-ups. And I could do them! I’ve never been able to do those before.
I’m right on track to meet my November goals of 1600 minutes of exercise including 15 sessions of 30 Day Shred.
How about you? What’s up with your exercise this week?
Great job getting to level 3.
I was thinking about you this morning and wondering if maybe you could just substitute out that last ab exercise for something different? But that is scary about the hip popping–even if it doesn’t hurt. I think I’ll do L2 two more times and then move on to L3 next week. eeeeee!
I can’t do push ups for the life of me. I just sag in the middle. Well done for finally being able to do them. I haven’t actually done any kettlebell workouts.
My excuse is that I didn’t want to do anything to interfere with my half marathon… now that’s done what excuse to I have now? Oh I have new shoes…
I confess I am not entirely sure what 30 Day Shred is, but it sounds painful and evil.
30 Day Shred is the signature workout by Jillian Michaels, known as the tough trainer on The Biggest Loser. It’s meant to sound painful and evil, which seems to be part of the fun somehow.
Woohoo for the half-marathon! I’ll go say more on your blog….
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I plan on doing the 30 Day Shred in the next few weeks. Congrats on your progress – that’s one tough workout!
Congrats on those push-ups!!! Yay! What a great accomplishment. Now you can start out doing full push-ups every time and then switch to modified push-ups when your form starts to falter as you tire. It’s a GREAT upper body and core strengthening exercise.
My cycling partner–who has her Master’s degree in exercise physiology and is also a personal trainer and instructor at my gym–will not allow anyone to call full push-ups “boy” push ups. And the easier push ups that you do with your knees on the floor and your body still maintaing plank position the entire time are “modified” push-ups. NEVER call them “girl” push-ups. Oh no, no, no!
Keep up the great work, Joy!
I had a good week last week–362 minutes doing my regular stuff.. bike, run, and fitness classes at the gym. Went running at the track last week with my husband because he wanted the gentler surface for his knees, but omg I found it SO BORING. I much prefer running through a park or the neighborhood.. time flies faster.
The gentle surface of a track or, worse yet, a treadmill is sometimes important. That’s when I start needing entertainment with my exercise. There are so many options with the digital media but it can take awhile to figure out what’s really going to be entertaining enough.
Oh! Happy Thanksgiving! xo
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