Cindy Whitmarsh: Fitness Guru or Tricep Torturer?

I was surprised to discover this morning that almost all of my mobility had returned overnight.  Although I could still tell that my shoulders and abdomen were still a little tense, sitting down to eat my morning bowl of cereal didn't cause my buttcheeks to twinge and strain with the motion of being seated.  My renewed comfort was short lived though, as today was a focus on the upper body and core once again.

M and I decided to work out exclusively with Cindy Whitmarsh today.  For the Upper Body portion of our workout we tuned into Tank Top Arms for 20 minutes of a variety of weight training moves as well as push ups and tricep dips.  For me, the first 15 minutes of the workout was easy to follow along with and although I could definitely feel the burning of the muscle groups we worked out I was able to do the moves without complaint.  The last five minutes though... they were rough and I began to wonder what I had done to make Cindy suddenly determined to make my arms, shoulders and chest feel like they were on fire.  I pushed myself through the end of the workout though (M right beside me, shouting at the TV, "Cindy, I'm ready to cool down! Where's my cool down?  Cindy! Cindy can you hear me?") and once the end came I headed straight to the kitchen for a drink of water and a couple of minutes of break before the next portion.

A glass of water and several minutes later, M and I pooled our courage and started the Core portion of the day's workout.  We really had to amp each other up for it though, and I am pretty sure that we were both doubting our decision to stick with Cindy instead of moving onto another trainer.  We started up Bikini Ready and dug into our core.  In Bikini Ready, Cindy introduced us to some very effective moves that I've never done before.  The variation on the movements made for a very interesting... and very difficult workout.  M didn't scream at the TV this time though... by about halfway through we were too tired to complain and focused all of our energy on completing those last ten minutes.  Cindy is a workout taskmaster, making sure every square inch of your body knows who's boss.

Now that the 4th day of workout is behind us, I'm glad that we were able to push through and not give up before the exercises were complete.  It says a lot about how far we have come on this fitness journey!  Hopefully we can keep it together to finish out the week!

Boosting The Metabolism And Pushing The Envelope

Last night M and I meet up with K for our customary 2 mile track walk, and I was relieved to discover that they were just as slow-moving and sore as I was.  We still made it the full 2 mile walk, but we inched along it at a snails pace and spent much of the hour that we were at the track comparing notes as to who had the tiredest muscles and where they were located.

Not surprisingly, I slept like the dead last night and got probably the soundest rest that I have had in six months.  This morning after running some errands, M met me in the living room and we hovered over the calendar to see what day 3 of the 10 Pound Slimdown challenge would bring.

Today's focus was a total body workout, and we steered our computer to ExerciseTV.tv to see what 20 minute total body workouts we could find.  After much haggling (and trying to judge by titles and the pose of the exercise trainer in the preview photo how easy the workout might be) we started the Major Metabolism Booster with Jessica Smith.

Jessica takes you through a full body workout that focuses on keeping your heart rate up while working out major muscle groups, and she got us to break a sweat early on in the exercise.  Although we were both sore and tired from the last two days' workouts, we were able to push through the difficult movements and gather our breath and strength during the moves that our bodies are already somewhat used to... marching in place, stretching, and basic lunges and curls.

We opted to do the workout without weights this time so that we could prevent our sore muscles from being injured, but neglecting the weights didn't do anything to prevent us from reaping the benefits of the workout.  The only issue we had with this particular workout was that for some reason the volume of the video was low, even when we turned the sound all the way up on the computer settings, the monitor (we are using a TV as a monitor for these exercises) and the volume controls on ExerciseTV.tv itself.  The low volume ended up helping us to focus more closely on what we were doing though, and kept our side chatter to a minimum as we both were straining to hear her say those magic words... "Just two more!"

One thing is for sure though, following the exercise routines as suggested by the 10 Pound Slimdown workout calendar are working out muscles that I've always had trouble reaching and even though we are only 3 days into the workout every inch of my body is letting me know that the exercises are working.  Adding these simple (but VERY effective) 20-40 minute workouts to our regular exercise routines is going to take all of us up one more level on the fitness chain and I'm looking forward to the increase in strength and flexibility that will come in the next 27 days.

My Lower Body and Core Are Going On Strike

Well, we've made it to day 2 of the 30 day 10 Pound Slimdown workout program.  As yesterday, for some reason Exercise TV has been removed from my On-Demand options on the telly, so I went online to search for workouts that fell within the Day 2 requirements (links to the program can be found on yesterdays blog here) of 20 minutes of Lower Body, and 20 minutes of Core.

For the Lower Body workout, M and I settled on 20 Minute Lower Body Workout / Real Housewives with John Spencer Ellis.  Reality TV notary notwithstanding, John has put together a well rounded lower body workout using light weights and your own body We used cans from the pantry as a substitute for weights,  but  20 ounce bottles of water also work great if you are lacking in the weight department... and you can drink them when you're done!

The standard combination of squats, knee lifts and lunges is broken up with a couple of Ninja and Sumo moves helped to keep my attention and make me feel like I just might have what it takes to enter the American Ninja Warrior contest.  (Or not.  I think I'll still be safer cheering on my fellow ninjas from the comfort of my couch.)

Since we have been walking religiously and doing a lot of gardening, we didn't have near the trouble with the lower body workout as we did yesterday with the upper body workout.  Once the 20 minutes had passed, we high-fived one another and took a 5 minute break to get re-hydrated and search for the next workout.

When we reconvened for the 20 minute Core workout, we attempted to play the actual 20 minute workout on ExerciseTV.tv but couldn't find the free version so instead we went with the Bikini Body Workout with Stephanie Vitorino.  I have done this same exercise in the past (and I was sure I blogged about it but couldn't for the life of me find it) but had forgotten how thoroughly Stephanie rocks your center mass with energetic gusto.  Luckily for her, Stephanie is sexy, encouraging and completely fun to work out with so we didn't pelt the TV with our sweaty socks - just quietly complained amongst ourselves about our aching upper abs, lower abs and obliques.  She also added to our lower body workout with some squats and lunges that added to the Jello-like nature of our asses, thighs and knees.

Now that we have completed these two 20 minute workouts we feel quite accomplished although neither of us can figure out if we're energized and ready to rock some house cleaning and a 2 mile walk later this evening... or if we just want to lay down and take a nap.  We'll let a roll of the dice decide.