The last 2 Tuesdays I have met with my trainer, Sarah, and she has shown me some amazing stuff!!
The first Tuesday she spent the whole hour teaching me how to use an exercise ball. Now, one would think that there really isn't much to do with a ball besides kick it, throw it, or bounce it. Au contraire, my friends! There is a TON of stuff you can do to get a kick ass workout. There were crunches, arm curls with weights, & the lunges she had me do were absolutely killer - my legs were shaking so bad afterward that I could literally almost not walk down the steps when we were done with the workout! (That was a good thing) I felt so powerful & strong, and it was the best feeling. I was sweating & tired afterward, and she even gave me a copy of the sheets with pictures of the "moves" for each thing. I love it, and the cool thing is that I can do all of it at home!
This past Tuesday I had asked Sarah to help me with a workout with those stretchy arm bands because Clare had given me both a ball & arm bands for my birthday, but I was kind of at a loss as to exactly what to do with them... I couldn't believe how much it really made me work to even just have the band adding resistance to a lunge or a plie for my legs or a rowing movement with my arms. The only thing with the band is that I must have either re-strained an old injury (tennis elbow) or I was doing the tricep curl pull wrong because my right elbow was killing me the next day - like, trying to pick up my coffee cup the next morning almost made me cry. : P It's better today, but I can still feel it if I pick something up... hopefully it will keep on improving, but I think I will need to be careful with the tricep stuff...
Either way, I love my trainer & I absolutely love using the ball & bands! Learning all the different things I can do instead of just walking or running all the time... it's amazing what a body can do!
This week, I focused on doing intervals on the treadmill for my cardio. I was totally wet with sweat after each time. I think I'm getting addicted to that "exercise high", because I found myself smiling about how the sweat was dripping off of my hair. Heartrate between 135 - 170, depending on how strenuous the activity was... I think that is alright, but either way, I worked hard.
And I had a genius idea to have the kids stay in Kids Corner 15 minutes longer & then after my workout, I sat and soaked my feet in the hot whirlpool... ahhhhh... Love! Next time, I'm bringing my own big towel (the Y has small ones that don't fit around me all the way - they do at the top, but not around my middle!) & soaking my whole being. It was so relaxing, and heaven knows, we can all use that! : )
