I Like to Work It Work It

I had a great workout with Toby today. We did every exercise once, which was unusual, and many of the exercises I hadn't done before. Here are some of my favorites.

First, I put a short band of elastic around both my ankles, and shuffled sideways across the room and back, keeping pressure on the band and my knees bent. That works the he'll out of the glutes. By the second time back and forth, they were really burning.

Then I did the exercise below.


Hmm--slightly blurry. In this exercise I had one foot on the weight bench, the other on the floor, and stood up on the weight bench without my other foot touching it, lifted the non-weight-bearing leg up, and held it for a couple of seconds, and then stepped back down. I did 15 reps on each leg. It's a great balance exercise.

Another fun exercise involved this 14 pound ball.



First I lifted it overhead, then I lowered it between my legs, and tossed it as far as I couId--which was maybe 6-8 feet, like this:



The big blob in the middle is the ball being thrown at great speed toward the camera. It was shocking how much this exercise used my abs. It's a great whole body exercise.

I also did some squats on the Bosu, with a weighted ball I held out in front of me while I squatted, squats with a Swiss ball between my back and the wall with dumbbells that I curled and pressed at the top of the lunge.

Another great exercise involved two elastic cables that were anchored at about shoulder height to a machine. I backed up until I could lean backward holding the cables and then did a punching motion back and forth, alternating my arms. It worked my back muscles and biceps. Another exercise involved stepping up with one foot and then the other onto and back off of a low platform, doing a biceps curl with fairly light wright with each step. I was going to ask Toby for heavier weights, but I'm glad I didn't. My biceps were screaming by the end (he had me do each of the last 2 exercises for a minute, which is a lot of reps).

There were more exercises, but you get the idea. I was covered in sweat by the end and now I'm ready to go to bed at 8:17 pm.

I've lost 3 pounds in the past 2 weeks, and am feeling great about it. Cycling really makes a difference. Five more pounds and I'm no longer officially over-weight, although I'll still be 19 pounds over what the WII calls my ideal weight. It would be fun to be there. A mere 4 years ago I was only 6 pounds away from my ideal weight, so it seems possible. This weekend, I was in LA, and when I started getting dressed in the morning, realized I had accidentally brought a pair of pants from 4 years ago--size 8. I pulled them on, thinking they were the pants I meant to bring, and there was only about a 1 foot gap between the two sides of the pants. It was astounding to me that I ever wore them. I hope to wear them again--they're made of silk and are really nice pants! I'll post a picture in my blog if I'm ever able to fit in them.



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