March Madness -- Day 7: Double Trouble

The continued challenges of my "March Madness" quest to exercise every single day in the month. 

Thursdays have become a double workout day and today was no exception. Since the threatened snow storm turned out to be nothing more than a flutter, I got up and went to the gym for a 6 AM training session with Tara. I only have a few more personal sessions with her. I'm going to be really sad when they are done. 

Today we returned to that lovely bench (I believe it is called a Roman Chair, as I discovered in my half-assed internet searching) where you stand up and then bend over doing sort of a reverse crunch. The purpose is to exercise your back, and boy does it. I am really starting to see some definition. My shoulders are rapidly becoming my favorite body part. 

In between doing sets of those (with a weighted plate, of course) and then curls, and then this weird thing I can't even begin to describe, she had me doing all sorts of squats with weights. It was a good workout... which she ended with some core work. Back, butt and abs. I sort of waddled out of there. 

Then after work, I rushed out in the still flurrying (but not sticking) snow to go to my Thursday night yoga class at 8 PM. It was a great power vinyasa from the always wonderful Adrienne and I love the small venue. My only complaint (and really it is more just me whining than anything) is that she's been on this Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon) kick lately and its like my least favorite pose. I'm not even sure why. I'd rather fall on my face attempting crow (which I did... three times) than do this not that terribly difficult pose. I do go through phases with poses though, so I'm sure that will turn around eventually. I used to dread doing one-legged anything, and now I'd almost rather do a one-legged chaturanga rather than a two-legged one. ALMOST. 

And even though my butt hurt from yoga last night and then my morning squat workout, I didn't even mind that there was a lot of time spent in and out of Malasana (a yoga squat). I do reserve the right to change my opinion on that tomorrow morning... during my 5:30 AM bootcamp class. Guess I should go to sleep before my alarm goes off for that one.

Day 6
Day 5
Day4

Day 3

Day 2

Day 1

March Madness - Day 3: So Much Jumping!

To make up for yesterday's pathetic efforts, I decided to start the day off with a strong workout.. No Excuses. So my friend Jodi (aka JHOP) who is a trainer/fitness guru from my home state of Maine, had posted what she called the 100 Workout, and I decided to give it a try. It is essentially jumping jacks, crunches, squats and leg lifts in insane amounts. Like really insane.

Isabel was super game to help me out with this, since I told her about my "March Madness" plan and she thought it sounded... challenging... but she was game to try. She read the piece of paper with the instructions, and got to work on some serious counting. Starting off with 100 jumping jacks, going down to 90 crunches, then 80 squats and 70 leg lifts. She was massively unimpressed by how long it took me to the do the leg lifts, but my lower abs are definitely still a weak spot. About the time we got to 40 of whatever, she said "Oh, I get it, we are counting backwards by tens"... so a math lesson in the middle of a workout is always good.

She happily sat on my feet while I did my crunches and diligently kept track of how many squats I was doing. But at the end there was a ten minute run or jump rope. Since I don't have a treadmill in the apartment, I opted to jump rope but as a courtesy, decided to do it out on the patio. It's still pretty brisk outside, so she sat indoors with my iphone stopwatch counting down for the allotted time, and every couple minutes she'd come out and yell, "Six minutes left... stop tripping so much." Jillian Michaels had seriously better watch her back.

After I finished she gave me a high-five, and then we went to run our errands. But I had planned on taking her and her friend to this awesome place called Rebounderz in Edison, NJ. It is a good thing it is like 40 minutes from me, or I would be there all the time. It's an indoor trampoline gym, and there are just so many things to jump on, or do flips off of (naturally, I can't flip, but I loved jumping and touching my toes and getting some serious air time). I didn't do so well in the foam pit... or rather, I didn't do so well getting out of the foam pit, so that's obviously a weakness for Tough Mudder I'm going to have to work on.

Isabel and her friend had a blast, and I loved that the trampoline for nearly an hour was an excellent workout. If they hadn't been exhausted, I would have added some extra time, but that's a lot of bouncing for little six and seven year old legs.

If you have a Rebounderz near you, I highly recommend going. The waiver is scary, but its just bouncing! And who really doesn't like bouncing?


Day 2
Day 1