Tru Dat!
- Tip: If you’re going to spend money on exercise equipment, the first thing you will want to buy is a jump rope – but be kind to your knees! Don’t jump too much too fast or you’ll get shin splints or an injury (see previous post on shin splints). Take it slowly and build up your muscles, allowing for adequate time for rest and recovery (see previous post for rest time). I think, dollar for dollar, jump ropes have the best value. I paid $10 for mine.
- Next in line for value would be free-weights. You’ll want them heavy enough so you can do at least 10 reps – but not too light that they don’t offer enough resistance (you don’t want to be tiring after fifty reps). I used shoulder presses as a gauge for deciding on my first set of free-weights.
Look Ma! No Hands!
Legs-and-Abs Time-Challenge
'Look Ma, no hands!' by Headuh, Creative Commons
(I’m writing this as I eat a slice of rhubarb pie – Hilarious! It’s about balance – right?!)
So I haven’t tried this one out yet – but I’m excited about trying my hand at a time challenge. So the idea is to move from one exercise to the next as quickly as possible, all the while maintaining proper form. It’s 300 reps in total! Give’er!
- Step-Ups and Sumo Squats - 25 each leg
- Ab Circles – 50 (see below for proper form)
- Backward Lunge Kick Up – 25 each leg
- 3 Point Abs – 50 (each point counts as 1 rep)
- Speed Skate Squats - 50 (25 on each leg)
- One Leg Lift & Toe Touch (50 total, each touch counts as 1 rep)
* My score: 18.5 minutes - though I had to answer the door halfway through and then the baby woke up and I had to put her down again – so I had a ten minute break in the middle *
Exercise Explanations
Circle Abs - Instructions: Sit on yer bum on the floor, with your feet an inch or two above the ground. Hands on the floor below your shoulders, fingers pointing towards your feet a couple of inches away from your bum, wrists creases should line up). The action – try to trace a circle in the air above the ground with your feet. Alternate between clockwise and counterclockwise circles. (I count each circle as 1 rep)
*Beginners Variation: Rest your feet on the ground between circles
Speed Skate Squats or ‘Side to Side Squat Leg Lift’ – from www.BodyRock.tv; for pictures of this exercise please visit the site:
“Stand with your feet wide apart – toes and knees pointing slightly outwards, and squat down pushing your hips back. Try to get your thighs parallel to the ground. Shift your weight to one leg and lift the other leg up and extend it. Put the leg down, shift your weight towards the other leg and repeat. Remember to keep your chest up, back straight and abs tight. This exercise will improve your balance, core strength, and flexibility. You will target your butt, thighs and core muscles.”
3 Point Crunches with ball or without – Sit up half-way to the front, then to the left side, then to the right side. Repeat. (I count each time I go up as 1 rep)
No-Barfing Eight-Minute Ab Routine
So Brad asked me if I could design an ab routine for him which would not make him puke.
Why are abs important? He saw our chinese medicine doctor two days ago and she told him that if you don’t have a strong core, your other, smaller muscles will attempt to compesate – this will create stress in those places. So, without further a-do:
No-Barfing Eight-Minute Ab Routine
If you don’t have, or don’t want to use the interval timer (free to download onto your computer), just try to do the same number of reps as me, moving onto the next exercise with no more than a ten second rest in between exercises.
Okay – Give’er!!!!!! No barfing!!!!!!
- 10 second rest
- 50 seconds (or 6 reps): 3 Point Jump and 1 Pushup
- 10 SECOND REST
- 50 SECONDS (or 24 reps): Circle Abs
- 10 SECOND REST
- 50 SECONDS (or 21 reps): 3 Point Crunches with ball or without
- 10 SECOND REST
- 50 SECONDS (or 9 reps): Ball Pass
There’s a 4 minute routine for ya. Run through this twice and you’ve got Eight!
Exercise Explanations
3 Point Jump and 1 Pushup - Instructions: Get into plank position, wrists below shoulders with creases lining up straight across. Jump your feet in towards your hands (don’t lift your hands off the floor). Jump back. Jump diagonally forward to one side. Jump back. Jump diagonally forward to the other side. Jump back. Do 1 Pushup. Repeat! (I count each time I get to do a pushup as 1 rep)
*Beginners Variation: Do the pushup with your knees on the floor. Omit the jumping altogether if needed.
Circle Abs - Instructions: Sit on yer bum on the floor, with your feet an inch or two above the ground. Hands on the floor below your shoulders, fingers pointing towards your feet a couple of inches away from your bum, wrists creases should line up). The action – try to trace a circle in the air above the ground with your feet. Alternate between clockwise and counterclockwise circles. (I count each circle as 1 rep)
*BV: Rest your feet on the ground between circles
3 point Crunches with ball or without – Sit up half-way to the front, then to the left side, then to the right side. Repeat. (1 count each time I go up to be 1 rep)
Ball Pass - Lie on your back on the ground and pass an exercise ball from your hands to your feet by lifting your shoulder blades and your legs off of the ground. Keep your abs tight and your lower back pressed into the mat. If you don’t have a ball you can use any light weighted thingy that you can squeeze between your feet without too much difficulty 
(I count 1 rep each time the ball comes back into my hands)
*BV: Do not pass anything between your feet and legs, only pretend to, or do leg drops (same motion with feet together, no arms)
Image taken from www.haphappy.com
‘Fit Mind’ or ‘Come Here, Sit Down and Shut Up!’
So I’ve begun my mind training this week with a kickstart from the Kootenay Shambhala centre.
They gave me instruction this weekend on how to meditate which I will share with you now because it’s my opinion that a fit mind is equally important as a fit body (or perhaps more!).
So come here, sit down and shut up!
'Candice Learns Zen' - art by David Ho
Meditation Instructions taken from the Shambhala website:
(I’ve bolded the key points for those who don’t want to take the time to read it all. There is more that came before these paragraphs and more afterwards for those wanting to explore the topic more – just follow the link above.)
“SITTING MEDITATION PRACTICE
At this point we can go through the actual form of the practice. First, it is important how we relate with the room and the cushion where we will practice. One would relate with where one is sitting as the centre of the world, the centre of the universe. It is where we are proclaiming our sanity, and when we sit down the cushion should be like a throne.
When we sit, we sit with some kind of pride and dignity. Our legs are crossed, shoulders relaxed. We have a sense of what is above, a sense that something is pulling us up at the same time that we have a sense of the ground. The arms should rest comfortably on the thighs. Those who cannot sit down on a cushion can sit in a chair. The main point is to be somewhat comfortable.
The chin is tucked slightly in, the gaze is softly focusing downward about four to six feet in front, and the mouth should be open a little. The basic feeling is one of comfort, dignity and confidence. If you feel you need to move you should just move, just change your posture a little bit. So that is how we relate with the body.
And then the next part-actually the simple part-is relating with the mind. The basic technique is that we begin to notice our breath, that we could have a sense of our breath. The breath is what we’re using as the basis of our mindfulness technique; it brings us back to the moment, back to the present situation. The breath is something that is constant-otherwise it’s too late.
We put the emphasis on the out-breath. We don’t accentuate or alter the breath at all, just notice it. So we notice our breath going out, and when we breathe in, there is just a momentary gap, a space. There are all kinds of meditation techniques and this is actually a more advanced one. We’re learning how to focus on our breath while at the same time giving some kind of space to the technique.
Then we realize that, even though what we’re doing is quite simple, we have a tremendous number of ideas, thoughts and concepts-about life and about the practice itself. And the way we deal with all these thoughts is simply by labeling them. We just note to ourselves that we’re thinking, and return to following the breath.
So if we wonder what we’re going to do for the rest of our life, we simply label it thinking. If we wonder what we’re going to have for lunch, simply label it thinking. Anything that comes up, we gently acknowledge it and let it go.
There are no exceptions to this technique: there are no good thoughts and no bad thoughts. If you’re thinking how wonderful meditation is, then that is still thinking. How great the Buddha was, that’s still thinking. If you feel like killing the person next to you, just label it thinking. No matter what extreme you go to, it’s just thinking, and come back to the breath.”
- Excerpt from a talk given by by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, holder of the Shambhala (Buddhist) lineage.
14 minute Ab and Leg workout
Hiyas,
So I’m still rocking it – but designing my own workouts since the BodyRock site does a lot of jumping – which is really hard on my 35 year old joints 
Also – I don’t have a lot of the equipment they use and can’t be bothered to find decent enough subs.
Here’s a good leg and ab one I did today:
There are 7 exercises and do it twice through if you can!
I always do a ten second rest interval followed by 50 seconds of exercise, until they are all done.
So it will take you 14 minutes if you go through them twice.
- Step Up Left Leg and Squat down. I step up onto a chair – but if I had a stool it would make it easier. Here’s a link to the proper form of it as shown by Zuzana on BodyRock.tv, or you can see how it’s done in the pics below.
- Step Up Right Leg and Squat down.
- Bicep curls – alternating arms
- Backward Lunges – alternating legs (I hold a ten pound weight to give myself a bit more of a challenge)
- Ball Pass: Lie on your back on the ground and pass an exercise ball from your hands to your feet by lifting your shoulder blades and your legs off of the ground. Keep your abs tight and your lower back pressed into the mat. If you don’t have a ball you can use any light weighted thingy that you can squeeze between your feet without too much difficulty
- Surfer Kick Outs (for an explanation form the BodyRock site click here)
- Crunches - I do mine on a ball, but you can do it on a mat on the floor
Do it! And use the ten second rest interval to record your scores to see how you’re progressing!
xo
T
Zuzana demonstrating a 'Step Up' (on her left leg) from Bodyrock.tv
For my grrrrrls…
Todays workout is dedicated to all the gals that said they’d start working out this year!
It’s a 15 minute one and you’ll need an interval timer which you can download below for your computer or you can find a freebie for your iphone:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/interval-timer-for-fitness/id406473568?mt=8
The workout is 15 minutes or 15 rounds of 10 seconds rest followed by 50 seconds of exercise:
- Mountain Climbers (for proper form click here: http://www.bodyrock.tv/2010/11/20/mountain-climber/)
- Crunches (I did mine on a ball, but you can do them on the floor)
- Reptile Pushups (click here to see the proper form, but you can start with regular pushups using your knees – that’s how I started four months ago)
- Step Up Right leg
- Step Up Left Leg (see the post above for an explanation and proper form)
You’ll go through the exercises 3 times – and it will be hard – my face was beet red (and still is actually) when I finished.
I warmed up by dancing to Kanye Wests Gold digger (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwNcNOTVzY)
and cooled down to some Black Eyed Peas 
Have FUN!
Fitness – Not Just a State of Body
The year is closing and it’s been a tough one. I feel like exercise has played a key role in helping me to stay positive. Noneltheless it’s become clear that I not only have to take care of my body, but I need to take care of my mind and spirit as well.
So, I am resolving to have a daily meditation practice in the new year. And to kick it off I’m going to take a workshop at the Shambhala Centre in town called ‘The Art of Being Human‘.
I’m excited to bring more balance into my routine, even if it means waking up an hour earlier (before my two year old needs me for anything and everything!)
I will sit – dammit! (Kinda weird how sitting still is so much harder than moving!)
Image: 'Candice Unleashes Her Demons', by David Ho
- Image: ‘Candice Unleashes Her Demons’, by David Ho
Muscle Recovery Time
So – I’m fully into my routine now (it takes 28 days to form a habit by the way), but I had no clue about how much time I should be allowing for my muscles to rest and recovery and grow.
Of course the answer, as always seems to be – ‘it depends’.
It depends on your workout, how many reps, sets etc, (your muscles will need longer to recover if you’re tiring out after only two or three reps, rather than a more endurance style workout where you’re doing 15 or more reps). Also it depends on your age – muscles take longer to recover the older you are. There’s a theory that the larger the muscle group, the longer the recovery period, or smaller muscles take a shorter time to recover.
In general, the conclusion I came to is 48 hours minimum. If you’re older and really rocking those big muscle groups, like your gluteus, with only two or three reps then you’ll probably need closer to a week before you do the same exercise again. The best post I found was this one: http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/the-truth-about-muscle-recovery-time-short-version/
Rest on!
Unworthiness
Here I was rocking away, seeing awesome changes in my body, energy level, etc., and I’ve been patting myself on the back – a lot! But underneath all of the vanity, I noticed I was still carry feelings of unworthiness! (and I’ve been wondering why I still want to smoke!)
My feelings of awesomeness went only so deep – I thought that because I was doing A and B (exercise and healthy eating) therefore I was worthy of love and living on this beautiful planet of ours.
I lost touch with that part inside me that is worthy of love regardless of how much exercise I do, or how I look or what I eat.
I fucked up, and I’m apologizing – to myself.
So – I’m making a promise to myself is to touch in, on a daily basis, to what lies beneath all of the feelings of inadequacy – to the part in me that is good, and kind, and just wants to love and be loved, to witness and be witnessed.
It’s time to sit.
xoxoxoxox me xoxoxoxoxox
Yoga – My Mistress
If BodyRock is my wife, then Yoga is my mistress. Yoga takes me to places where BodyRock won’t go, and BodyRock gives me the strength I need to take Yoga to the next level.
The trick is making time for both of them, as they are both equally important to me. At this point, I only do Yoga once a week, but I need to do her more. She makes me feel so gooooooooooood…..
In the last few weeks, parts of my body that I never had any awareness of are waking up – It’s like having a room in your house that you didn’t know about and someone switches on the light – fucking brilliant! What’s even more exciting – is that it’s only just beginning! I have both my loves to thank for that
So, todays bodywork:
1.5 hours Anusara Yoga, and 15 minutes of miscellaneous exercises:
3 Rounds (50 sec each with 10 sec rest in between) of
- Plank Steps outs
- Dips
- Reverse Pushups
- Crunches
- Knee Raises
Yesterday was a rest day – I felt super crusty, perhaps I worked my body too hard the day before – during which I rocked the 1000 Rep Workout (revisited) in 55 minutes! Woot!