30 day challenge update

Well, the challenge is going, not as smoothly as I had hoped but is still going!
I seemed to have swapped a couple of the rest days around to fit in more with my life, I hope that's allowed!

Press-ups - these are going well and feel a big improvement. Up to 10 at a time now.

Squats - Have reached 90 in a session, I find them useful as a warm up.

Core workout - found the planks very difficult to do but am now up to 58 seconds on each one. The scissors are difficult, I find them hard on my back, as for the others, they are getting easier so I am actually adding more reps in each exercise.

The bikini still remains a motivating force!

Did anyone else try any of these? How are you finding them?

The 30 day core challenge

A girl at work mentioned that she was going to start the 30 day squat challenge and I was intrigued, so googled it as soon as I got home and found this -

I thought about it and as I do squats in body pump with 17 kg on my shoulders, it seems easy. Though to be fair, to someone who doesn't do squats, I can see this is a challenge.
Today during the class I counted how many squats we did and throughout the whole class (including the warm-up, squat & lunge tracks) it came to 178 'normal squats' and 32 'jumping onto a step' squats (which I hate doing). I do have to say that squats do work and I have seen great improvements in my bum since restarting body pump and am very happy with the results, but felt I wanted to do more than just the squat challenge.

The thing I do want to work on more are my abs and core muscles, as mentioned in previous posts, so out of interest I googled that and found (among others) this

So I'm going to give it a go!

I have taken my hip and waist measurements and did my first session today. I found the planks hard (could only mange 45 seconds on each) and was feeling it in some of the other moves - it was difficult to move after the Russian twists, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. 

As my motivation is a bikini in July, I decided to add the squats as well, as I would like to get back up to 20 kg on the bar for those, - and just for fun, there is a press up challenge too! My press ups are not my strong point, I am quite good when doing 3/4 length ones but am reluctant to get up on my toes, so this will help with that!  The idea seems to be to do the exercises for 3 days then have a rest day. I will also be doing my usual gym stuff and think this will be a good way of upping things a bit. 

If anyone wants to join me on any of the challenges, then please let me know and we can help motivate each other to continue and celebrate our achievements! 

Bon courage! 

The Cougars

Time to introduce to more people from the gym.

This group of women I call the Cougars, I encounter them on a Friday lunchtime and occasional weekends, you'll see why it's occasional in a moment.

They are middle aged and have a great time gossiping in the changing rooms, however they do differ from the Coven in several ways. This lot are quite friendly and more inclusive and do seem to meet up outside of the gym occasionally. They will also arrange impromptu birthday apero's and the like, having drinks and snacks after a workout - always a good idea.

Like the Coven they do seem to subscribe to the fact that women don't sweat when they exercise, they do use more than the minimum weights in body pump but never seem to increase the and push themselves harder. They get together at the beginning of class and have a chat and need to be told to stop, though often they are flirting with the instructors. At times the flirting is embarrassing to watch.
Unlike the Coven, the Cougars do appear to work and we seem to have lost the company of one of them on a Friday lunchtime since she got a new job.  They also rarely go swimming and don't hog the sauna for drying themselves off after a shower...

The reason they got their name (well I started calling them that in my head) is because they only ever go to Hot Guy's and the Cute One's classes. These are the younger and somewhat better looking instructors and the Cougars follow them around like a harem. At times is a little irritating but on the whole harmless. I also have to say that the two instructors concerned are better than the others in explaining the classes, correcting bad posture, looking after newcomers etc, so who can blame the Cougars for following them around?
I now only come across them on Friday lunchtimes and Monday evenings but spotted them following the instructors around when I first joined the gym and tried a few classes before settling on the ones that best fitted my work schedule.

I mentioned before that the instructors take turns at the weekends and they will suddenly turn up on a Sunday morning when Hot Guy is leading the class and occasionally when the Cute One is leading, but never on the other weekends! They then take over the front row, displacing the Sunday Morning Regulars and making a busy class even more crowded. Fortunately (probably because they are too busy arranging bar-b-q's or aperos) they never come to the steam room or pool, so the Regulars get to have some space to themselves.

Crow poses, backbends and other stuff!

The latest body balance has been introduced at the gym and I've done it a couple of times now and am enjoying it, a new set of challenges and poses that I have 3 months to learn and get used to.

I always find the first couple of weeks quite hard and then it gets easier as my body adapts to the positions. The balance track is fun and has a real challenge towards the end, which I could do on my right side but not the left (3 months...) I always find the balance track amusing as the trick is to stare at one spot and also to use your stomach muscles, but if the class is quite full and we're all squashed in it can be hard to focus on one fixed spot and not be distracted by the people around you wobbling. If one person topples then a few will follow!

This time we also seem to have an extra balance track where there is just the crow pose

and the firefly pose.

I have never found these poses easy and in fact today I was attempting the firefly and had my hands on the floor and was thinking to myself 'I must have the balance wrong because there is absolutely no way that I can lift my feet off the floor.' Still it was fun watching everyone else try.

We have some killer hip openers that will be good for me and though I only did the 2nd class today, I could feel them stretching more easily than on Monday

At the moment I'm not finding the stomach track difficult despite the fact at one point we have to do a side plank with the top arm and leg raised and then pull them into a stomach crunch, so either it looks hard and isn't or (as of last week's entry) my abs have returned and are starting to earn their money!

The back track ends with a classic back bend and to my pleasant surprise I was able to lift myself into it really easily. Have not done one of those for many years, so well done my body!

Body balance always saves the most difficult pose till the end and I'm sure you'll all have great sympathy for me when I tell you that for the final track I had to hold this pose for a total of 6 mins and 52 seconds....