Your Abs Should Be Talking To You

Sometimes I like to do a gut check or, in this case, let's call it a back-to-back date with Kate.

I went to Cardio and Muscle class on Tuesday and Kate wore me out as usual.

There are times when I imagine myself as a delicate flower or something and somewhere, in my brain, I negotiate this situation where I'm not able to do back-to-back hardcore exercise.

As I was walking around earlier, I was checking my body. Yeah, I had a hard workout yesterday and other than a little tenderness in the leg region, there was nothing to prevent me from going to Drills To Make You Sweat.

Does anyone else get tired (and hungry) right before exercise? I'm trying to figure out how I'm so fatigued at the end of the day when I've been practically sitting on my behind for the most part. That's when I just tell myself to suck it up because, surely, if I've been sitting down for the bulk of the day, I should have no problem putting my backfield in motion.

I delivered myself to Kate and she wore me out again. We went through this whole sequence with legs and when we came out of squats, lateral runs etc., she wanted us to do fast feet. My legs felt like rubber and I made some animalistic sound and the girl in front me went Yeah, she doesn't stop.

When we were on the floor for abs, we had one leg raised to meet an arm. Kate said: your abs should be talking to you and, indeed, they were quite loquacious.

Is your body talking to you?

How do you convince yourself to exercise and gut it out?

Did you see this article, Stand Up While You Read This!, in The New York Times about how sitting all day is one of the worst things that you can do to your body?

To borrow Bob Marley's lingo, are you rocking your workouts and are you keeping your fitness dates? As Kate would say, don't stop -- do the lower modification when you can't go all out.

Sock Shortage

As I was packing my gym bag, I noticed a sock shortage. I finally put together a pair but couldn't believe that I was down to the undesirables i.e. the mismatched along with the ones that need to be darned.

I have about 30 pairs of socks but most of them are currently residing in the hamper. You know what that means? Yes, I need to buy more socks. Of course not. I have enough irregular Nike socks with the swoop in the front and/or back and my real gems -- comfortable Champion socks that I found at Big Lots.

I thought about taking back-to-back classes even though my glutei are quite sore. I didn't nix the idea completely until I saw that the class, Drills to Make You Sweat, was packed. The step platforms made the space even more compact so it wasn't as bearable as the crowded Cardio and Muscle that I took yesterday.

Despite the sore glutei and tender hamstrings, I hopped on a StairMaster and went for 47 minutes (six for cooling down). I climbed 141 floors with an average level of five.

My goal is to, eventually, stay on the StairMaster without stopping for 60 minutes.

When I got home, I did the stretch portion of 10 Minute Solution: Tone Trouble Zones! As always, stretching felt very good and I already feel less sore.

For Dinner? Leftover Senegalese Peanut Stew that I made on Sunday. There was a whole lot of chopping going on but it was totally worth it. A clichéd symphony (cayenne, cloves, garlic & ginger) of flavors, I tell you.

A Perverse Push-Up & A Reverse Embrace

I'm going to have to give Tammy an honorable mention in the bringing the pain category.

I went to the Drills To Make You Sweat class at my gym and, fifteen minutes in, I was sweating as advertised.

In addition to jumping jacks and squats, I see that instructors like the grapevine move as well.

To add a degree of difficulty, we did jumping jacks with a weight. Later on, the same weight stayed in the crook of our knees while we did leg lifts. We then lifted our legs to the side and kicked them out too. Torture, I tell you. Holding a squat was tortuous as well.

There was also a slow motion burpee-like move that we did with weights. Walk your hands out. Plank. Walk your hands up. Holla...

We did push-ups, got up and balanced on one arm. Push-up then balanced on the left arm. It was like doing a synchronized moved and a reverse embrace of each side of the room. We collectively faltered and that's when Tammy said, Come on ladies. I hate exercising by myself. In addition to some gorgeous black and white Nike shoes, apparently, Tammy's got stamina as well.

We also did a perverse push-up on the step. First, we lunged and pulsed then placed our hands at the corners of the step. Push-up. Followed by a one hand push-up.

Of course, of course. We did the obligatory ab work.

Football jog. Drop. Push-up. Repeat.

We bicycled while moving a weight through our bicycling legs.

By the time we did the the superman, I was not feeling like much of a hero at all. I just wanted to transition to child's pose or splay out like a starfish. I wasn't picky at that point.

Oh, how Tammy brought the pain. My legs were like jelly afterwards and I could hardly walk to my car. It would be nice to have taxi service after working out.



I also need to remember to put in my contacts when I participate in a class because my glasses were wet, foggy or sliding on my face during segments of class. And who needs to be distracted with adjusting one's glasses while trying to keep up with Tammy?