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! 

Abs

During the Olympics a male friend (who is not known for his sporting feats but is lovely in lots of other ways) updated his facebook status to claim that he was Jessica Ennis's stomach double. I really did 'lol' at that comment. It was one of those comments you wished you'd thought off first.

When I started back at the gym, I thought it would be fairly easy to pick things up again, after all - I had been a gym gerbil years ago and was relatively fit, wasn't I?

Big mistake.

I think the biggest difference was being 10 years older and that does take it's toll. What I have learnt is that perseverance pays off and I am now nearly as fit as I used to be.

However the one thing that seems to lacking is my abs (or abdos as the French call them).
Seriously, for the first few months at the gym I was convinced that I hadn't got any. That they had packed their bags and left when I wasn't looking.

I will admit that even at my skinniest I never had a 6 pack or even a 4 pack . This was despite Pilates and yoga as well as the occasional tums and bums class. However I knew they were there as I did a side plank with upper leg raised raised. I could feel the burn.
This time it really felt that they were not there at all. Not only did I struggle doing any form of ab work but I didn't feel them being worked at all. No pain, no nothing! Whereas I could see and feel improvements in all the other muscles of my body, the abs remained very quiet. I struggled to do mini planks, and if I was silly enough to attempt a plank on my toes - my back would start aching.

Fortunately 18 months later and a few tough stomach tracks later I can feel them kicking in. Despite the fact that my biceps make the occasional appearance and my legs are much more shapely, there is still no sign of a 6 pack emerging in the stomach area BUT they have definitely returned (even if I can't see them) as planks are now a lot easier and can do a full static plank and side rotations. Some of the more difficult moves and my back starts hurting (the strange moves we had in the last body balance for instance) but in the more familiar ones and I'm doing ok.

So although I still have a way to go before I really could be Jessica Ennis's stomach double, there is the chance it could happen one day....

The Chief Witch - on her own!

I was doing some interval training on the cross trainer today, when I suddenly noticed the chief witch, tucked away in the corner and doing her best not to exercise on one of the bikes.
It was much earlier than the usual witching hour, when the coven descends on the gym and she was all alone. At first I was surprised, then realised that since she has come back from her long holiday in Spain (boy, did I enjoy those weeks) she has not been around as much as usual.

Sure she appears in the gym, but rarely does the classes. She would still met up with the other witches in the pool afterwards and lead the conversations in the changing rooms, but has gradually been reducing her appearances.

Has there been a big row? Are they in disagreement about who could be the most annoying? Have they decided to explore other career paths? Have they split because of musical differences? I will endeavor to eavesdrop and find out for you, but for the moment it does mean the gym is a much quieter and more pleasant place to be.

After my workout I was doing my usual couple of post steam-room lazy laps to cool down and was enjoying having the pool to myself, when she suddenly appeared next to me about to commence her 'walking' slowly up and down the pool exercises.
It is a narrow pool and she likes to walk round the edges of it, making lap swimming impossible. I seized my moment and stuck hard to my 'lane' and swam furiously up and and down, forcing her to to use the other 'lane' for her walking.

To be fair her walking appeared to be much quicker as she was on her own, I guess she was able to use the extra energy she usually expends on talking annoying loudly.

For me however this did mean that my usual cool down, lazy laps became another workout as I really wanted to make my point and show her how a pool is normally used. For all that extra effort I put in, it better have done!

PS - did the new release of body pump today - will have achy muscles tonight. Much, much harder than the last one.....

Why?

Why, why, why, why, oh why did I think it was a good idea to raise the weights for the squat track in body pump today.........

Pride commeth before a sore bum!

So after posting the moan the other day about the lack of effort some of the women put in at the gym, it seems that actually I could have been putting more effort in too!

Shortly after publishing that post, I sauntered into my usual body pump class and thought to myself that I needed to up the weights for the squats - so I put two more kilos on the bar and was feeling dead proud of myself when I completed the track with no major incidents.
Then we got to the tricep track and Hot Guy told C (another female who uses similar levels of weights as me) and I to go to 10 kilos. I start shaking my head slowly at him and he nods slowly back saying "Ah yes, Charlotte". As C did, I had to too!
I survived, though the last few chest presses were a little wobbly.

Then Hot Guy tells us to use the 5 kilo weights for the first part of the shoulder track, this was actually quite easy to do and I had been thinking about it being the next set of weights that I increased.

 When I increase the weights I normally put them up for one set of muscles, then see how it goes for a couple of weeks, then when I'm comfortable with that, will think about increasing the weights for another set of muscles. So uping the weights in three sets of muscles on one day was a big a thing.

Two days later, on the Sunday, I amble into the class thinking to myself "It's Petite Girly today, so I'll try the new weights but if I get tired, I'll go back to my normal weights for the shoulder tracks."

But to my surprise Hot Guy is there instead of PG, so I can't wimp down can I?
Then he gives us the 'option' to increase the weights for the back muscles - and calls out my name as one of 'Les Experts' who he expects to see with increased weights.

I ached all week, finally feeling better after a good stretch in body balance on Saturday.

Then yesterday, just as my friend and I are gossiping before the class starts, Cute Guy announces that he changing the running order of the body pump class to make it more challenging. Not what I wanted to hear.
He put the lunges straight after the squats (no time for the legs to recover) Then strung all of the upper body ones together (again no time to recover) and had a new, tougher tricep track. It was a challenge.

Despite a session in the steam room, I ached all afternoon, especially my arms and as for my bum.... I raided my medicine drawer and though I didn't have any ibuprofen, found relief in some paracetamol and codeine tablets (really can't remember what I was given them for.)

Despite all the bitching and the achy body, it does feel achy in a good way - I know that I've worked hard and tested my muscles. However I would like to keep these weights for a little while before any more 'challenges' arrive.