I did some more arms and abs today, pretty much the same as I did on day nineteen, plus some stability ball crunches which burned in a great way while I was doing them. Nothing too exciting to update, aside from the fact that I made it to the gym and got a good workout in!
Day Twenty: Beach Fitness Center and a Walk
I went to the fitness center again today and did mostly leg and abs work this time around – I found myself defaulting to a lot of exercises I’ve done in various barre classes in Chicago, and it’s cool to realize that I’ve expanded my exercise repertoire pretty significantly in the past 20 days.
I didn’t feel like I got that great of a workout in, but I woke up the next day (I’m writing this blog post a little late) feeling so much soreness in my butt and upper hamstrings – in the best way possible!
Day Nineteen: Beach Fitness Center
I went back to the fitness center today and warmed up for about 15 minutes on the elliptical, then did mostly arms today. More lat pull-downs (60 lbs. – I’m glad I haven’t lost too much strength since the last time I remember doing lat pull-downs at 70 lbs.), rows, triceps, biceps, milk-jugs (not sure what else to call them…. that’s how my dad described them to me: pretend you’re holding a gallon of milk and pouring it out onto your feet repeatedly), etc.
I’m feeling pretty good about my workouts while we’re up in Bodega Bay, since all our family friends and family members are here and it’d be very easy to just take the Thanksgiving week off!
Day Eighteen: Beach walks and fitness center
More beach walks were in store for today – the weather’s still holding up, so it’s been mid-60s and sunny… perfect winter beach weather! I went for two shorter walks today, and later in the day I ran the stairs that go down to the beach (58 steps I believe – 38 shorter, shallower steps, a long platform step in the middle, and 20 longer, deeper steps) 12 times. The stair running made me realize how bad a state my cardio fitness is at… I definitely need to do some more running and cardio-based workouts!
After running the stairs, I went to the small fitness center near our house and did some lat pull-downs, rows, biceps curls, triceps work, and a bit of abdominal work – just light weight lifting, but I felt pretty good about my workout when I left!
Day Seventeen: Walks on the Beach
Today I went up to Bodega Bay with my mom to get ready for all the company we’ll have here for Thanksgiving. I spent a lot of the day packing and unpacking the car, organizing the fridge, reorganizing the fridge, and walking along the beach to take a break. It was beautiful weather – warm and sunny – so I went walking along the beach on two separate occasions for about 45 minutes each. I was pleasantly surprised to feel my calves working pretty hard while I was walking barefoot in the sand. Definitely a nice way to get some exercise!
Day Sixteen: Travel Day (another lazy day for workouts)
Today I made the decision (mistake?) to go to the airport with Nate for his 8:15am flight, and hang out there until my 2:30pm flight… yes, I intentionally spent 6 hours in the airport by myself, just so I could share a cab with my boyfriend. I’m glad I got to see him for a bit longer, though, and I wouldn’t have had anything else to do at home until my flight anyway. But, as with yesterday, I didn’t give myself much opportunity for exercise, so I’ll call today Officially Day Two of Slacking Off.
That’s pretty much all I have to report here, too!
Day Fifteen: “off day” (aka lazy day)
Today, I did nothing even remotely close to working out.
Officially Day One of Slacking Off.
There’s not much else to report for the purposes of this blog, but I had a great day hanging out with my boyfriend, eating some delicious Italian food at Topo Gigio (probably my favorite restaurant in Chicago so far), and just enjoying each others’ company. No complaints at all, but not my best day for fitness.
Day Fourteen: Even more walking
Nate, my boyfriend, is still here visiting, so we’ve done a lot of touristy things, which means a lot of walking! We went to the Mac and Cheeze Takedown (takedowns are essentially cooking competitions – anyone can cook according to the takedown theme – mac and cheese in this case – and people like Nate and me pay $15-20 to come taste all the food and vote on our favorites), which may have undermined a bit of my “healthy-living” plan, but it was delicious! Then we went back to our friend’s apartment for “friendsgiving,” where we didn’t eat much because we were full of mac and cheese. Then we ended up going back down to the loop to see whether he could get into the Chicago Microsoft office to do some work (he works for Microsoft in Seattle). So, lots of walking around town, but no official workout, again… this weekend was a little rough in terms of working out, as you’ll see in the next few posts.
Day Thirteen: A lot of walking…
Today (or should I say, 11 days ago… whoops. I’m getting so behind on this blogging thing!) was the first day that I didn’t go to an official class since starting my attempt at 100 days of working out. My boyfriend is in town, which is awesome, but not always the best for going to the gym… but we went downtown to the German Christmas market (Christkindlmarket), walked around there for about an hour, and then walked all the way back to my apartment. Of course, my fitbit (step tracker) ran out of batteries a few days ago, so I didn’t get an official record of how many steps I took, but I’d guess I took around 1,500 during the market itself, and the walk from the Loop to my apartment is 2.2 miles according to Google Maps, so I feel pretty good about getting some light physical activity in!
Day Twelve: Sproing and Pure Barre (4)
Another two-class day, with a mix of cardio and barre. And one of the most fun days I’ve had yet!
Summary:
Classes: Sproing HIIT and Pure Barre
Duration: 45 minutes and 1 hour
Intensity: 5/5 and 5/5
Fun: 4/5 and 4/5
I’ll start with Sproing. Such a cool high-intensity interval training (HIIT) class, on the “Sproing Trainer” – like a treadmill but low-impact, non-moving, and with a slightly squishy floor/base so your body weight and impact is absorbed easily. The class was based on tabata-style timing, so it was 20 seconds “on” and 10 seconds “off” – e.g. we’d “run” for 20 seconds, then rest for 10, squats for 20 seconds, rest for 10. We were strapped in by a waistband with a stretchy cord that connected to the back of the machine, so we were able to run at a forward slant in a way that would be impossible on a normal treadmill. There were times when we’d run for 2 rounds in a row, so we’d do 50 seconds of a sprint. We did squats, lunges, planks, mountain climbers, backwards runs, and jumping jacks, to name a few. The instructor was super high-energy in a great way, and kept us moving and striving to get even faster, deeper, and better.
We wore heart rate monitors, which we strapped essentially right under the base of your sports bra, if you’re a woman, and everyone’s heart rates showed up on several screens around the room, so you can keep tabs on how hard you’re working and whether you’re really exerting yourself. They have you sign in with your heart monitor (they assign you one at the beginning of class, and yes, they deep-clean them after every use), and enter your height and weight so it can estimate your resting and highest heart rates, or you can enter them yourself if you know them. Based on those values, the screen shows you what percentage of your “highest” heart rate you’re working at at any given moment. The screens also show an estimate of how many calories you’ve burned – I was at 389 by the end of the 10-minute warmup and 30-minute HIIT section. The screens were turned off during the cool down, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I got above 400 by a decent margin. Crazy!
In addition to the heart rate monitors, the “trainers” (machines?) that we’re working on use the pattern of your footfalls to show you how fast you’re “running” (even though you’re really just doing high-knees while braced against the waistband). Our instructor told us throughout the class to look at the small screen and take note of the speed we were going at. Then, during our next running section, she’d have us look back at our speed and try to get above the number we saw last time. I got up to 11.8mph towards the end of the class, which I was pretty proud of, seeing as I was exhausted and consistently at about 85% of my highest heart rate for most of the class.
The screens also classified different percentages of heart rates with different colors, with green and orange being the ideal two colors to see on the screen. Green was one step down from orange, and most people in the class (a class of 5) were in the green for the bulk of the class, with a few spurts of orange. I, on the other hand, was in the orange for about 80% of the class, occasionally dropping down to green on the highly strength-based (and non-cardio) exercises.
In case you couldn’t tell by the lengthy post, I had a great experience at Sproing! And because it’s low-impact, it’s supposed to be very good for people recovering from injuries who can’t do high-impact activities like running, and have a hard time finding a variety of cardio activities. I’m not injured, but if I had to make a guess, I would agree – after a 20 minute run, I usually feel a little achey in my ankles, knees, and hips, probably because of the impact. With the Sproing trainer, even though I was working harder than I have in a workout in months, I left feeling energized yet fatigued, with no aches at all, just a very red face and sweat-soaked clothes.
Great workout, super enthusiastic trainer, and an awesome concept!
The pure barre class was pretty standard, with one twist – it’s Pure Barre Old Town’s first birthday this week (!) so they had snacks and coffee in the studio, some fun decorations, a packed class (I counted 18 – it got a little cozy for some parts), and my personal favorite – an all-Beyoncé remixed playlist. Pretty fun! And very different from the type of workout I got at Sproing, so I’m thinking I might have to do some more two-a-days with that combination – I feel great!
Now off to take a well-deserved shower.
lissa100daystofit 