Friday, January 16, 2009

Sweaty now

Well, some good came from my multiple days off and not wanting to brave the cold weather: I was able to come up with my workout routine for next week's class.

It took me three hours of sorting through music and practicing different ideas but I came up with a pretty good working workout. I decided to focus on moves you can do at home with little or no equipment, focusing on building strength. So many women are afraid to do strength training because they "don't want to look like a man." In reality, strengthening your muscles is the best way to burn calories and lose weight, because even when you aren't exercising you are burning more calories. Just look at your husbands, brothers, or sons. How many just have to think about exercise and they lose weight? Or eat everything in sight and are still sticks? They go straight to the weights while we spend hours on the treadmill. So, that is my philosophy...build those muscles.

Unfortunately, the idea that using big weights will again make you "look like a man" is actually false. To look like a man you probably need to work out hours and hours a day and/or be on steroids. Small weights with multiple repetitions really aren't as effective as larger weights with smaller reps (you should be very tired after 10-12 reps). The unfortunate part is, I don't have access to weights for the class so I will be using our own body weight mostly for resistance.

So, my routine consists of warm-ups (the hardest part...if I were a dancer this would be much easier), an arm routine using push-ups, a chair for dips and rows, and cans for extra resistance for shoulders; a leg routine using Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" as inspiration consisting of mostly lunges/squats/kicks/calf raises; and abs (crunches and other core strengthening exercises). Followed by a cool down (again a little awkward, I've never liked the whole breathey-in and out things that remind me of karate kid).

I practiced my routine on my mother-and-sister-in-law. Overall it went well once I tried not to be embarassed and got past the warm-up.

If it goes really well I may start marketing my routine online. I'll keep you posted. Haha.

If you are in town, I hope to see you there on Tuesday.

4 comments:

Abby said...

Love that you tried it on my mom. Good luck!

shawn said...

I am glad that you got something done since you didn't have clinic the past couple days..
I hope that doing all that working out kept you warm.. I know that Iowa winters are as fun as Minnesota ones....

Suz said...

Let it Rock is a good work out song too.

It is also necessary to mix up the routine from day to day. Lift small weights many times one day then lift heavy weights a few times a day. You will get stronger fast that way and trick your body into taking full advantage of the effort. Otherwise, your body figures out how to minimize the effect. Our bodies work so hard to make staying healthy as hard as possible.

brenna said...

Sounds good. You'll have to tape it and put it on for us all to see. I bet the pregnant ladies will love that