Can’t Think Of A Title
Well, like I said before, my workouts have been pretty sporadic lately. I am trying to get back into the groove of things, but I just feel so discouraged by my lack of progress that I feel so unmotivated to work out. I’ve only really checked my weight a couple of times over the last year, but I normally don’t go by weight to check my progress anyway. I usually just judge by how my clothes are fitting and it’s discouraging when my pants just keep on getting tighter and tighter, even though I would be working out every day or every other day.
Anyways, I hadn’t worked out for a few days and on Monday night I wasn’t feeling particularly peppy but I figured that I just had to do something. I decided to take it easy and popped in that 2 mile Leslie Sansone walking DVD.
I still wasn’t feeling very frisky Monday, but I’ve been thinking that I need to step things up a notch, so I decided to do Complete Aerobics and Weight Training from the Firm Body Sculpting System 2. I was kind of wary of doing a Firm workout since I was getting so sick of them, but I really enjoyed doing this one again. I had forgotten how good of a workout this is – it is definitely one of my favorite Firm workouts.
I mean, let’s face it, not including the newest workouts that just came out, if you’ve done 1 Firm workout, you’ve pretty much done them all. But although this one uses the same basic Firm strength moves, at least the cardio segments are different and add much needed variety to the series. I kept my weight pretty light during a lot of the segments, mostly because I haven’t done this one in awhile and because I am trying NOT to bulk up my thighs during the leg work as well.
This DVD also has one of the more challenging ab segments out there too – for me at least. I mean, yea, it has just your standard crunches and stuff, but once the segment starts – you don’t stop until it’s over. There are no recovery breaks at all so it really works your abs.
One thing that I find extremely annoying about the Firm though are the ridiculous amount of leg presses that they have you do in just about every video they have ever put out. What’s a leg press you say? It’s basically a one legged step up using a higher than normal step.
(as demonstrated from the Firm website)
I suppose that they are effective, but – always a but! – they are really hard on your knees and using my scientific research, okay, my hunches, I am pretty sure they are the reason that a lot of people bulk up on the Firm instead of getting lean with the Firm. Why? Well, I can’t believe that it has taken me so many years to figure it out, but I just figure that when I do a leg press, I am effectively lifting my entire body weight on one leg. Since I am not petite – yet – that’s a significant amount of weight.
I mean my legs definitely got strong when I used to do them a lot, but my thighs also got a lot bigger when I would do them. Armed with my new found knowledge, I am going to try a little experiment whenever I do a Firm workout. I am just going to substitute lunges for a set of leg presses when I know that there is more than 1 set of leg presses in a workout.
So, I’ll see how that goes. I really should take my measurements and check them periodically – to see if I actually am losing inches anywhere, but I am honestly afraid as to what they are right now.
My legs were pretty tired today after that workout last night though. But being the trooper that I am, HA!, I also wanted to do some kind of workout today. I figured that cardio would be my best bet, but, like I said, my legs are tired. According to the Firm Body Sculpting System beginner rotation, today really should just be a rest day – but I wanted to stick it to the man and workout anyway. Take that!
What to do, what to do? I decided on the Burn segment from the Turbo Jam Learn and Burn and since I didn’t really use heavy weights for upper body yesterday, I whipped out my DVD of Tamilee Webb’s I Want That Body and did the full upper body segment on that DVD.
The Burn section from Learn and Burn is a really short workout – it’s about 15 minutes long. It pretty much just goes over the moves that you would have learned in the Learn section of the DVD.
Now, I’ve had the I Want That Body DVD for awhile now, but hardly ever use it. The DVD includes 3 workout sections for the arms, abs and buns. Each section has 2 15 minute workouts as well. The video is called “the Science of Fitness” because Tamilee went into a lab and did a whole bunch of tests using EMG’s to see which exercises were most effective to work those muscle groups. The ones that she found most effective are included in this video.
I used to do the ab section a lot as an add on to other workouts I would do previously. I’ve only done the arm section maybe once or twice the whole time I’ve had this DVD though. I kind of avoided it because when I did try the arm section out, my arms got so fried it wasn’t funny and I was working out like a mofo then. I still remember that they only way I could get through it was if I used 3 pound weights – how sad.
So I tried it today and started off with 3 pound weights and I was quite surprised and pleased that I needed to bump my weight up to 5 pound hand weights! YAY! All those Jari Love videos really paid off! I got through the first section and didn’t really feel that worked out, so I just kept going and did the second section as well – also using the 5 pound weights. I can’t believe it, but I actually felt like I could have used my 8 pound weights for a lot of these exercises – especially the seated bicep curls. I could see my biceps working, but my arms didn’t feel fatigued at all. Whoo Whoo! 
I did modify the second section a little. A couple of the exercises include triceps dips and triceps push ups. Triceps dips are really hard for me because of my elbow so I just did triceps kickbacks instead. I also just did kickbacks instead of the pushups, just because I didn’t feel like getting down on the floor. Again – just me sticking it to the man. HA!
December 14th, 2006
