Day 31 - bootybootybootybootybooty

Oh my infinite adversary the balance ball. Luckily, the hardest move was first, but I was falling and flailing all over the place. At least falling and flailing still burns calories and works some muscles. There must be some kind of trick to staying on the ball in a plank position, but I have yet to find it. I hope someone tells me sometime.

I think the tush tightener was my favorite, cause it was hard, but I got a great hamstring stretch during each one.

I found this pic on pinterest, but have no idea where it originated from, the pin led to the pic itself.

I'm super excited for tomorrow, since we start Fab Ab February! It's only one pic for the whole month, but it should make all the planks easier from Feb on out!

Day 30 - too tired for wit...

I did this. Maybe that should be enough to tucker me out as much as it did... but the pictures make it look way easier than it really was. Plus, I tried Zumba for the first time today, so I'm already all made of jelly.

I cheated my butt off during this workout, but I still feel it deep in the glutes. That's 3 butt references in one sentence.

I could not hold these super long... and I did fall over a bit trying to match the picture.

The one below looks all sweet and innocent, but what the picture does *not* tell you is that you have to hold your leg out to the side after you hit this pretty little pose.

 

These were... you guessed it... the kicker. She's kicking all straight, but the instructions are to roundhouse (or fan) kick, and land in a squat. 15 times. Each side. So, I'm tired, sore, *and* sad at the sadness that is my fan kick. I'm just dubbing this not my day and moving on. At least Zumba kicked butt. 

Day 29 - Pilates!

It's been a while since I have done a pilates workout, so I was quite happy to have my body rebelling against me while doing teeny tiny movements. I also got to hold my jump rope, which felt really fun for some reason. 

The pumps started out easy enough, and even though I had to do the next two moves based on a timer rather than reps, they passed by quite swiftly. 

My toe appears to be on it's way to well, 2 days of walking to work in sneakers instead of boots seem to be helping a lot. Now to get sneakers that are my actual foot size. 

Day 28 - While watching TV

Today's workout was specifically designed to do while watching tv, but not anything specific. I liked being able to be distracted during planks and reverse planks. But man, my wrists are feeling it. I need to do some workouts for my wrist!

I doubt my form was anywhere near this nice, but I was happy that I could make it through 30 seconds without falling, rolling, or tripping. It was a nice workout for the ego :) 

Day 27 - ArmCORE!

Today's workout was great! I got to work my arms and core all without punishing my toesies. The moves were hard, but not too hard, felt pretty good.

Crunches with weights... genius!










This was HARD HARD HARD. Not so much that I fell over like so many of the other balancy things.









I felt happy enough afterward to keep doing more bicep curls, as I was still listening to Kristin Chenoweth read her autobiography - A Little Bit Wicked. That lady is so adorable.

Day 26 - Chair barre

Another deceptive workout. Really, the karate kick was the hardest one, but they were all really fun, I think I just like kicking. I really loved having the chair to hold on to, it reminded me of using the barre in dance class, and it's way more steady than the stability ball. My toes are also pretty good with squats, it's just the lunges that I need to avoid. And jumping/running.

I did this workout while watching the latest season of Toddlers and Tiaras on Netflix, so I may have been too distracted to notice how much I was working. Once I stopped I kinda felt like jello, but I also want to keep kicking a little more, it was so fun.

Day 25 - Strings of ham.

This workout promised all the workout with none of the squats, so it was the clear winner in trying to steer clear of hurting the toes. Much like the rest of these workouts, the burn was far more intense than I was expecting. There were only three moves, so I was suckered in...

This move is something I hadn't done since my post surgery PT. Man, I forgot how hard it was. 

This was the easiest, but it still burns way down deep inside. 

This last one... I could not do even one the way this lady looks here. I fell over, and needed to keep my lower leg bent just to stay upright. At least I know I was working extra hard trying to stay up! 

Day 24 - Holy #@*( abs!

This site never fails to deliver a deceptively effective routine. The jack knife sit-ups sounded like they might be hard, but in reality... they were downright screamworthy. You start lying flat on the floor and then you lift your torso *and* your knees up at the same time. The rest of the workout is more of a blur between these two ridiculous sets of these torture sit-ups. It certainly made me regret the taco bell I grabbed for dinner. Maybe next year I will work on healthy eating. Or tomorrow.

I really just want to jump around again, to run, to jump jackly, or jack, jumpingly. I'll try walking again tomorrow and hope for the best. I've begun to notice my days are much better when I walk. I should maybe look into some walking shoes, and maybe a little backpack to carry light things in.

Day 23 - Who's that girl? It's JESS!

Something a little different today...

I wanted to try out one of the "while you watch" workouts, so I was excited to find this in my google search when I discovered I had a new New Girl in my Hulu queue.

This version was clearly written with the first season in mind, as there haven't been a lot of Douche Jar references lately, but they did create an Annoyance Jar for Jess, so I figured that was close enough.

This episode had me do:
10 Russian twists
20 crunches (nothing broke, I just mixed up which was which)
30 sit ups
45 seconds planking
15 windmills
42 lunges

My toes weren't really up to the lunges, so I will have to remember that tomorrow. I have walked to work and back every day this week so far, and I don't really want to stop.

I'm not really sure I like these workouts, it was hard to concentrate on the show or the exercises as much as I would have wanted to, but I will try it at least once more.

Day 22 - Arms!

This popped up in my reader this evening, and when I saw it, I knew it was the one for today. I had to cheat and look how to do these up on fitocracy, but it made it easier to log my workout when I was done!

I really should have used heavier weights, but I only own a set of 5s and 3s. I'll work my way up, but it's better than using shoes. Maybe I will revisit this when I have heavier weights. It was quick, but I still feel like I did something. And every time I walk home and trek up the hill to the house, I don't feel so bad for not doing some kind of crazy workout. I also passed up the lure of a western bacon cheeseburger on the way home, so I can be proud.

Day 21 - AbTASTIC!

Still staying off the toe, though I did walk to and from work today without trouble... no need to push it.

This workout was great, it was a mix up of little bite sized bits, no matter how scary the big red 300 looked. My abs are wonderfully sore, I was happy I was able to do all of the things! The funnest ones seem to be the ones I find and do right in that moment, I guess that's true for the rest of my life, too.

Day 20 - Blasting that belly!

Today's workout was another chosen to avoid any undue stress onto my big toe, where the pain resides. There is something really satisfied about working those core muscles and feeling them ache afterwards. 

This workout had some fun twists on exercises, this side crunch on a ball was really awesome. 

The mountain climbers on the stability ball were my least favorite, because I could not do them with any competency whatsoever. Have you *met* a stability ball?? The name is ironic, at best.

Day 19 - Burn it with burpees.

I had turkey meatballs today, so I thought it was fitting to do the Turkey Burner Workout.

I thought this workout would be cake after the jumping jacks and squats, but my 3rd burpee in, I thought I was going to pass out. I took a bit of a pause and broke it down into sets of 10, and the last few were admittedly steps instead of jumps, but I didn't give up. I did the 1 leg pushup on my knee, but I think they were still doing more than the normal knee pushup, but I am still watching my foot pain, and pushups get to it. The bicycle crunches went by like nothing, it was a nice way to end the workout. I think I spent less than 5 minutes on this workout, when I looked at the clock, but it felt like much longer. I know I will eventually have to start working up to 10 and 15 minute workouts. All those repeater ones are staring at me, like "You're gonna run out of the easy ones... and all you'll have left is me... oh, we're *coming*" and I'm like, "How can you talk when I have my computer muted?!?!"

Weird. 

Day 18 - Balls.

I picked today's routine because I felt like playing on a bouncy ball, and it's getting harder to find ones that don't aggravate my toe. I went into it thinking it would be a piece of cake, but this workout kicked my butt.

The first move started out ok, the second move too... but THESE:


I was so wobbly, I fell over more than I actually excercised. It took *all* of my muscles to complete one rep. But I guess... really... that's the point.

Day 17 - No interesting title

I procrastinated too long today, so I found a workout that only had 4 things on it:

40 Jumping Jacks
30 Situps
20 Squats
10 Pushups

I don't want to link to the image, since after looking closer, it's a pro-ana site that it comes from, and I don't want to spread that around.

Something weird happened with my jumping jacks; every time I jumped I would turn a little to the left. So I was jack jumping in circles, though I swear I was jumping straight. My body may have been subconsciously compensating for the big toe pain that has come back a little, since I did walk to work today after resting for awhile. I guess more investigating needs to be done. I honestly lost count during the jumping jacks, being so distracted and confused by my spinning.

30 situps didn't seem like a lot until I decided I would do them all the way up, chest to knees. That is way different than crunches. I gave the same treatment to my squats, all the way down. My knees crackled and popped through all 20. There was some giggling in my house over this. I tried to make all 10 pushups full size, but dropped the knees the last 5. I'll get there.

I feel worked, and I feel good. I have been taking antibiotics for an infection, which is knocking me out more than I care to admit. But now I can go to sleep.

Day 16 - Up against a wall

Today the No-squats-belly-butt-thighs-workout!

I very much enjoy sitting with my feet in the air, which made this workout super appealing, since it's like 1 long inversion.

It went rather quick, and didn't leave me super sore, which makes me think I may have been doing it wrong, but there you go.

My foot has been responding well to the rest and inserts, so I will try to get back to walking tomorrow, and hopefully regular type workouts too. Some jump ropin, and jump jackin... yeah... something like that.

Day 15 - The harder they come, the harder they fall...

I chose today's workout because every picture was lying down.

While I admit, always, to my laziness, this was because a day or two ago I noticed some pain in the metatarsal under my big toe. So after googling foot pain diagnosis, I gathered that the best thing to do was rest my foot a bit, as it was rebelling against this new active me. Fuck you, foot.

I skipped walking to work, put insoles in my shoes, and didn't stand at work all day. If it doesn't get better in a few days I will go to the doctor. (I just realized I was *at* the doctor today, and didn't even mention it. Wow.)

I failed to read the fine print in the lower right, so when I finished in 3 minutes I was very excited until I saw it... do this 4 times through. I had very carefully avoided any workout that made me repeat itself, for fear I would take a murderous turn. Now I know I can just pop on some youtube and just make it through. Though, there is still a feeling of bitter resentment for missing those key words in my excitement to lie on the floor for a whole workout. My thighs are *worked*.

Day 14 - Early morning

I became someone motivated to get my workout out of the way fast as possible, it helped that the programmed heater has been waking our house up around 5 AM. So, after lying about for a few hours, I got up and searched for a quick workout that wouldn't leave my legs too achy to walk to work. Core, it is. I have never been terrific at plank, but I discovered (after a few full on collapses) that I feel my core working hard doing plank on my knees. So that's just what it's going to be until I can stay up for more than 10 seconds.

Day 13 - Seriously lacking in upper body strength

I taught a swing class earlier in the day, so I wanted to find a pure strength workout, and this one popped out at me on pinterest. It's really been perfect choosing a workout to do *right* at that moment, you don't have time to talk yourself out of it. My boyfriend was kind enough to do this workout for moral support (Laurel support!!!), but we have 1 set of dumbells, and they are 5 pounds. So while this was a laughable weight for him to do anything with, I struggled with using them for anything but the bicep curls, and had to downgrade to using his shoes... they are pretty big (I just weighed them, they are roughly a pound... haha... they felt like cast iron when I was doing the tricep kickbacks). As obviously weaksauce as that is, we did have a dance party in the kitchen for 20 minutes before hand, so it's really hard to feel bad about... anything. :)

Day 12 - It finally happened...

With the success of working out so late at night, I wondered when that might catch up with me. Well, last night I had planned to workout after the night of Hulu and Netflix was over... but I fell asleep right in the middle of Dark Shadows, and never made it off the LoveSac. So I figured the next best thing I could do was just do two workouts today, since it's the weekend and had no plans til evening.

I started with something that has been intimidating me on pinterest for awhile:

There was definitely some burn there, and I don't think I could have pulled this one off a week ago. 

As something of a reward for not giving up, I did a low key back workout, to spend the next workout as close to the floor as possible. 

But I learned a valuable lesson... just get the workouts over with right when I get home... or I may PTFO. 

Day 10 - Back!

My back is weak. My back has always been weak. I could fix it, if I just did workouts like this everyday. But I don't. Well... today, I did. But tomorrow I will do something else... and probably continue to slouch in the chair at my standing desk. Sigh... habits are hard to break.

Day 7, 8, 9--I didn't forget!!!

Turns out, after a long day of sitting at the computer, I don't want to sit at the computer at home. So, while I have still done a workout a day, I haven't been posting about them. I'll go backwards...

Today, in celebration of Fitocracy's mobile app becoming available on Android I completed a quest they suggested for me, which consisted of 20 pushups (real ones!), 30 squats, 20 lunges, and 10 toyota jumps (just what it sounds like). These were surprisingly easy to get through, I think I'm getting stronger!!

Yesterday,  I wanted to focus on arms, cause I was really feeling like making it easier to lift things. I need to start sneaking some curls in more... maybe I'll do it after this, even.

Monday, after a night of Lindy Hop, I was ok with doing something low key (it was 11:53 when I got home). Yoga in bed? Delicious. Corpse pose in bed is EPIC.

I think I need to create some kind of art to put on the wall that reminds me of this yoga sequence, I could easily see this being a nightly ritual. Sooooo good.

Day 6 - A little cardio

This workout took less than 2 minutes. It left me somewhat unsatisfied, I might have to just do more for fun. These fitness tumblr blogs worry me a little bit, when looking at everything all at once, it looks more like an unhealthy obsession. But then... my obsession may be less than healthy if we examine it deep enough.

Day 5 - An old familiar friend...

Today I felt like leaning back on something I already knew, so I went with the hour long stretch workout from the P90x series. It was bittersweet, seeing how much flexibility I lost from the ACL repair... some things I probably will never be able to do again, due to the strain it puts on my new(er) knee. Even though the workout is all stretching, saved for the 'rest' day in the regimen, I still feel like I used more muscles than I stretched. It's probably gonna feel like that for some time.

Day 4 - Work the butt.

Another one stolen from Back on Pointe. This one wound up being much more work than it looked initially. Only 4 moves, but 3 sets of 10 and the moves work you pretty deep. We pumped up the jams to keep us going, and could not stop doing moves to the music. What is making happy about this is that the little workouts always leave me wanting more movement. Our post workout activity was interpretive floor dance with a balance ball... pretty good on the abs. The last move on this one worked the arms in, which we were trying to avoid since we were headed bowling afterwards, but we made it through regardless. It's laughable how totally out of shape I am starting this.

Day 3 - Nice and Easy

Today's workout from Back on Pointe. A ton of the pins I have seen are workouts from this blogger, she's kinda awesome. And by kinda, I mean *really*.

A really good speed for when you need to go to bed half an hour after your workout. Alisha joined in on this one, too. Since we were still sore from all the pushups yesterday, we wound up doing a billion more arm swings than this called for... but they felt soooooo nice. It was also nice to work out in brand new yoga pants rather than the jeans I have been working out in so far. I think I need more yoga pants, these things are amazing.

Day 2 - Nearly quit already

Today's workout found here.

My friend Alisha did this one with me, it was nice to have a partner in crime. We are both not used to exercising, so even though it was a simple workout... there was a lot of screaming in pain. I have never looked forward to a jumping jack in all my life. We both found we wanted more jumping jacks the more it went on. She made me do the last pushup regular style, and not on my knees. I'm trying not to hate her for it.

Day 1 - Starting Small

First Workout: Thighs!!

30 seconds wall sit
Sideways stair climb (I think I may have done this wrong, so I did it a couple times)
20 lunges
30 ball squeezes (where you have a ball in between your knees and squeeze the life out of it)

Super teeny tiny workout, so I rounded it out with these stretches.

I think this was a good small bite to start out the trek. It flew by even faster since Star Trek: Nemesis was playing during it.

This is not me in this picture, but this was my favorite stretch of the bunch. I'm a super fan of any passive stretching.

The inspiration

365 days, 365 bits of fitness.

Leo of Zenhabits wrote a post that inspired me: http://zenhabits.net/fit13/

Truly, he writes many that inspire me, but this bit in particular:

The New Rules of Fitness for 2013

Post written by Leo Babauta.

We’ve entered 2013, and yet most of us think of exercise like it’s 1991. Let’s toss out the old and welcome the new.

The old: long sessions of jogging, or marathon sessions on the elliptical machine or treadmill, or working every bodypart individually on a dozen different weight machines and dumbbell stations, doing circuits in a women-oriented fitness center, taking dance-aerobic or kickboxing-aerobic classes.

There’s nothing wrong with all that, but it’s not how we live today. Today, we live online, in a world of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Pinterest, of Gmail and iPhones. The way we live and think online isn’t at all how we think about fitness.

Let’s take a cue from how we actually live and think today, and change up fitness. Let’s rethink things for 2013.

The New Rules of Fitness

If we take cues from our online world today, here’s how we’d do fitness (and some of us are already doing it this way):

1. Small. In the world of tweets and SMS messages, long classess or gym workouts or jogging sessions just don’t seem to fit. We don’t have time for all of that. So toss out the workout, and instead think of fitness as small as a tweet. Sprint up a hill after getting off the train or parking your car. Sprint up a flight of stairs as you go into the office. Do some pushups before a meeting. Do some squats after sitting for 30 minutes. Pick up a friend, put him on your shoulders, and carry him for a block. Let’s call it a fitness bit instead of a workout.
2. Social. We rarely do anything online or offline without sharing it, or collaborating with others. So share your fitness bits, or do them with others. Play a sport. Find a place where others are sharing their fitness bits too (it’s probably where you’re already sharing other stuff).
3. Distributed. Everything is out there in the cloud these days, not just on one server but distributed across many. But when we schedule a workout, we schedule it at just one time. So 1990s. Instead, do bits throughout the day, distributed among all the other little tasks you’re doing. Do some yoga sun salutations in the morning, a bit of walking or sprinting on the way to work, some bodyweight exercises at your desk (or in front of your living room couches for us work-at-home bums), some basketball or walking/running with friends after work, some chinups at home in the evening. It breaks up all the sitting you usually do, which is a good thing.
4. Fun. We do most of our stuff online because it’s fun. Or at least, I do. I love reading good stuff online, or collaborating with friends, or sharing something interesting I’ve found or thought about. So why is fitness so boring to so many people? They’re doing it wrong. It’s fun as hell. If you’ve been doing exercise you hate, find something funner: a sport, playing with your kids, walking or running with a good friend, a new challenge with a group of friends.
5. Open. Let’s toss out the days when companies had proprietary, secret methods for getting you in shape, and you had to hire a trainer to tell you what to do because he had all the knowledge and you didn’t. Instead, let’s share our best methods, learn from each other, improve on each other’s methods and share those. Let’s find a good way, like open-source software has, to collaborate and share our fitness methods.
6. Exportable. These days, the best services allow you to export your data anytime you want, and you can take that data anywhere you want to take it (yes I know some services don’t do that, but those guys suck). So let’s do the same with fitness — instead of having to do your workout at a gym, or a track, or a yoga studio or crossfit gym or some other specific place … be able to take your workout anywhere. You can do bodyweight exercises anywhere … do yoga poses anywhere … do chinups at the playground or on a tree branch … sprint up a hill or some stairs … walk briskly anywhere. Be fluid with your fitness and be able to adapt to wherever you are.
7. Fast. We work with unprecedented speed online these days. If a page takes 10 seconds to load, it’s too slow. That was unimaginable 15 years ago! So let’s get our fitness to move at the same speed: remove all the barriers to doing a fitness bit. Page speed comes when you remove all the heavy stuff from a page or app — so remove the heavy stuff that slows you down before accessing the fitness bit. What are some of the barriers? Having to go to a gym, sign up for a class, get some clothes or equipment. Instead, you should remove anything that keeps you from doing a fitness bit right now, or at any moment you want to do it.

365 days, 365 bits of fitness.

It's these rules that have inspired me to do one new workout a day, out of the billions in magazines and on pinterest, it should be easy to keep finding them, and maybe I will make up some of my own!