stretching

March 16: 20 minutes with Billy Blanks … on mute

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The need to jump around was strong today, so I thought a Billy Blanks workout might be perfect. As long as the sound was muted of course! I just do not understand how people can be so robotic and chant the numbers one to eight while exercising. It’s almost like they’re in a cult. I’m sure Billy’s fans would say it’s a wonderful fitness cult.

I’ve never done Billy’s Tae Bo before. My friend Sandra suggested him a while back (here’s a previous post with links to his longer cardio workouts) but when I saw how little time I had this afternoon I had to find something shorter.

Luckily, his 20 minute Body Shape workout popped up on YouTube and it was just right. Not much jumping around though, as the focus was on burning the arm muscles and that was fine by me! It’s still a problem area and I’ve just about had enough of the wobbly bits.

The 250g baked bean tins got a workout today, but I couldn’t help wondering how hard it would be to do these exercises, and how much more I would gain (or, in fact, lose!), if I had heavier weights. So I’m finally off to the city this afternoon to have a look at some hand weights. Just a look at this stage. If I buy them I’ll definitely try this Billy Blanks workout again, as some of the comments talked about how hard it was. I raised a slight sweat but my arms weren’t shaking at the end. Not good enough, me thinks!

My morning routine stays the same (unfortunately the time I do it varies quite a lot! I’m not quite springing out of bed at 6am when Leo’s alarm goes off) and I’m constantly surprised at how stiff I feel when first sitting on the floor to do the 10 minutes of meditation. Eventually my hips relax and it all feels quite nice.

Then I stretch out my legs for five minutes. At the beginning, the idea of resting my elbows on the floor is ludicrous – they’re almost a ruler’s length away from the ground when I first start stretching. Slowly, everything limbers up and just before the time’s up, I have my elbows on the floor, even just for a few seconds sometimes. Knowing this is the result, most days, keeps me motivated to hopefully be able to do the splits again. Will my 43-year-old hips let that happen?!

Wishing you a wonderful day.

February 19: 15 minutes of fast moving

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After completing a recent five-day workout challenge (please also see the previous five days of posts), it was time to give the body a bit of a break. I’ve still managed to sweat, but the home-spun, off the top of my head, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout today was just a fitfor15in15 minutes in total.

My idea was to keep moving the whole time, and do whatever came to mind, all while trying to keep a natural flow. So I ended up doing a mix of squats and lunges with punches, crunches, skipping on the spot, knee lifts, plank, fast twisting on the spot and so on, with a warm up and cool down. Thanks to all the exercises I’ve done in the past five days, it felt like I had plenty of options to choose from.

Minutes before starting, I’d finished my morning routine of meditation and stretching, so I felt quite warmed-up to begin with. My arms and butt cried out a little while doing this surprisingly quick routine and I’m now sitting at my desk with that satisfied grin of knowing I don’t have to do anything more today. *grin*

And that’s enough from me! I’m very happy to hand over to my first guest contributor, Nat Gauld, who has been a fitness instructor in Australia for more than 10 years. In the 24 years we’ve known each other, Nat has gone from a curious and enthusiastic participant to a fully accredited and passionate fitness instructor. Take it away Nat!

January 16: Feeling the pressure

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Strange things were afoot today. I met with Pastora and Iva at Kanjana’s house, and all of us were nearly comatose at the lunch table. For a normally rambunctious lot, we had no energy, felt weird and accident prone – so we blamed it on the weather.

I’m no expert on thermometers or barometers, but there was something going on today that threw us all off kilter – kind of like mango season in Australia’s tropics, when everyone goes a little bit kurr-ayyzzzzie. But in our case, we just went zzzzzz.

The morning started fine – I had to check the timer on my phone twice to make sure I hadn’t set the wrong program for the 10 minutes of meditation, because it felt like it was over and done with in five. That was a wonder.

My stretches still twang in all the right places, and I’m positive my elbows are getting closer to the ground. I even buckled my belt one notch tighter, but maybe that’s because my jeans need a wash. And I swear I bounded my way to the bus stop.

Then hours later, we (and I feel like I’m not speaking out of turn by grouping us all in this malarky) were flatter than pancakes. As soon as I came home, I went kurr-ayyzzzzie – in my pyjamas on the couch.

It’s nearly 11pm and I haven’t done my 15 minutes of actual exercise for today. I could cheat and say walking to and from the bus counts, but I consider that to be everyday life stuff. I have this notion in my head that fitfor15in15 has to be at least 15 minutes of specific exercise per day, so excuse me while I keep this blog post open for 15 minutes and get down.

…

So there you have it. The chick pea tins came to my rescue again for a good arm workout as I did a variation of squats and lunges. Then some ab work, such as plank (20 seconds! Hopeless!) and sit ups, plus push ups (still on my knees) and boxing moves. I wonder if this is going to wake me up or if I’ll be out for the count as soon as my head hits the pillow … in, oh, 15 seconds.

Can you remember a time when the weather wreaked havoc on your head, rather than on your house? They say it’s going to snow tomorrow, so maybe that has contributed to a very strange day.

Hope today’s not one of those days for you. I hope it’s wonderful.

On the right path to a good morning routine

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Plenty of big-name bloggers and health experts talk about the benefits of a regular morning routine. Stick ‘morning routine’ into a search engine and away you go!

Courtney Carver from be more with less steered me towards the idea that being more productive and ‘intentional’ in the mornings would make a massive difference to the day. Because I’m not working over here, it’s been hard to find a motivating reason to get out of bed early. The lure of “just a few more minutes” (especially when it’s cold!) can easily become a few more hours, as I trawl through email, Whatsapp and Viber messages, blogs, books, Facebook, Instagram and the news on my phone. Oh and play card games. How slack is that?

This morning I still read some Facebook posts and email, but when it got to a certain point I knew I’d had enough, because I was looking forward to the meditation and stretching habit I’m trying to form.

The whole morning plan is now becoming clearer to me, and I’m devising a routine that maximises … ummm … my time? My energy? My renewed desire to have everything just so?!

Wake up, enjoy a few minutes of being awake and look out the window, get out of bed, go downstairs and turn on the kettle, go to the loo, when back in the kitchen cut some lemon slices and put them in a mug, come back upstairs and do 10 minutes of meditation on the floor, followed by five minutes of stretching, go back downstairs and pour the boiled water into the mug, bring it back upstairs, and enjoy the warm lemon water while writing/studying/responding to emails etc. This way I’m sitting at my desk waaay earlier in the day, which surely can only mean productivity ensues?!?!

Drinking warm lemon water in the morning is another new habit for 2015 and today was the first time I’ve done it in a long time. If I can follow the plan above Following the plan above will make it second nature before too long. The benefits of warm water with lemon as your first drink of the day have also been touted a gazillion times. Good for your liver and so on.

Meditation this morning felt easier than yesterday – sure I still fiddled and fidgeted and couldn’t get comfortable, cross-legged, for what seemed like ages. Must keep an eye on slouching too – you should sit straight and tall, but I found myself shrinking on occasions. My mind wandered to all sorts of fun and urgent things too, but as soon as I realised that, I refocused on my breath going across my top lip.

Stretching included some new ideas today, and some new goals. Currently, when I sit with spread legs and lean forward holding my elbows, my arms, when at their limit, are between 15-20 centimetres off the floor. My aim is to get my elbows on the floor. Bring it on! This old dog is relearning some old tricks.

The second goal is to be able to keep each shoulder on the floor when I do a horizontal bent-leg twist, you know the one where you bring one knee up and then lower it, bent, across your other leg to the floor, and turn your head in the opposite direction to look at your outstretched hand? Well, my shoulders pop up really high, and when I lie my left knee over my right leg, I can’t even touch the floor with the knee and hand at the same time. It’s either the knee on the floor and the hand in the air, or the hand on the floor and the knee hovering. Bring it on! Another new goal.

Last but not least, the final goal I thought about today, while I was supposed to be focusing on my breath, is how to get the neighbour’s cat out of our roof!!! The damned thing spends a helluvalotta time up there and makes a racket!

Wishing you a great day.

p.s I’m going to a yoga class tonight with my friend Iva. This will be my first group-exercise class this year, and we’ll see how it goes! By the time I get home, I may not be awake enough to write about it, so just letting you know you could receive two emails tomorrow. But rest assured (!) … I am exercising today. fitfor15in15!

Starting a new habit – morning meditation and stretching

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The sunrise this morning, from our bedroom window

The sunrise this morning, from our bedroom window

It’s been a while coming, but I didn’t want to start doing everything at once and feel overwhelmed. So a series of new habits are being introduced over time.

Two new habits (I’ve planned for about six) will start today. Morning meditation and stretching, and study (more on the second one in a future post).

If you need meditation or general health apps for your phone, you could have a look at this story from Sarah Wilson’s “I Quit Sugar” website. Body and Soul is also a great source of information too.

I already have a couple of free meditation apps on my phone, from previous attempts to be mentally fit. (Are you seeing a recurring theme here? I am! I’ve sourced so many things – apps, gear, blogs, books etc – in order to get fit, in all meanings of the word, but have been too slack to act on them long enough to form a habit.) There are loads of meditation apps around – see which one or ones work for you.

I’m pretty fussy when it comes to listening to other people talk, especially when they’re trying to make you relaxed. I suffer from Misophonia – literally meaning a hatred of noise (more on that in a future post too, promise) and suffer extreme reactions if people make ‘unnecessary’ noises such as lip smacking, loud inhalations of breath, or you can hear saliva in their mouth.

But my most severe reactions come when people speak with a very trill, high pitched, sickly sweet, exaggerated ‘s’. I’ve noticed when these relaxation/meditation voices want to make you feel relaxxxxxxxed, often they make the ‘s’ sound last longer than normal (for example “let go of your thoughtsssssssssssssss, think of peacccccccccccccccce, close your eyessssssssssss”) and when that s sound is very high and hissy like a snake, my immediate reaction is to want to smash the phone and then punch the perpetrator in the face. Ten deep breaths (not breathssssss) and relax (not relaxxxxxxxxx) … Ha ha, yeah, I can make a joke about it here, but for me, honestly, it’s not a bloody joke!

Anyway … back to the task at hand …

Meditation. It’s hard! The mind wanders but that’s all part of the plan – to bring your thinking back to focusing on your breath. I try to focus on my nose and top lip, where I can feel my breaths going in and out.

The meditation app timer was set for 10 minutes (normally the apps give you options of say five, 10, 15, 20 minutes etc), the music or natural sound options were pleasant and I chose a track, the guide voice was turned off, I got into a comfortable position on the floor (which quickly became uncomfortable) and off I went.

A few minutes in, I started thinking about my friends in Adelaide, then I noticed my hair was tickling my neck. Focus, focus … After six minutes, I couldn’t cope with my hair any more and tied it back with the band on my wrist. Much better. Made it to the end! Then I switched to the five minute meditation and did leg stretches on the floor. Wow, my hammies are tight!

Doing this 15-minute routine really got me into ‘wake up’ mode and hopefully will set the scene for a productive day. Well, it’s worked so far – it’s 8.46am and I’ve already written a post.

Do you think you could set your alarm 15 minutes earlier tomorrow for some meditation and stretching, before you have a shower? You don’t even need an app or music – set a timer for 10 minutes and sit still. Then set the timer for five minutes and try to touch your toes with straight and spread legs. No fast movements, it’s all very calm, and hopefully you’ll be feeling abuzz with added energy and clarity.

I’m really looking forward to making this part of my morning routine. Want to join me?

Wishing you a great day.