Here's a couple of photos Jason took of me doing V-snaps and bench hops the other night. I didn't include the one of me giving him the bird when I discovered him sneaking up on me with the camera. It turned out a bit too dark!

Started on a new training regimen!

...And it's totally kicking my ass! A friend of mine emailed me a copy of the Femsport training manual, so after eating clean for a couple of days and working myself up to give it a go, I did my first Femsport-style circuit workout on Monday. Holy crap, I just about died!!! I hate burpies with a passion, and V-snaps are almost as bad! What I'm finding in my old-age too is that my wrists are very weak. One of the exercises in that first workout was bench hops, which I did over my ottoman. I had to do them with my hands fisted instead of flat because my wrists were hurting. Tuesday I was a bit stiff, then yesterday a bit more stiff. But I did another workout last night, and it seems to have loosened me up a bit. I'm still stiff, but no worse than before. What I found last night was that whenever I jumped, like for the low box jumps and travelling squat jumps, I was feeling it in my back and pelvis. I must have a pretty weak core! Anyway, I'm sure that with following the program as best I can, I'll be as ready as I can be on April 2nd. It's less than 10 weeks now! I just sent in my registration forms yesterday, too.

I just came back from the grocery store. I bought only clean foods, and it feels pretty good. Not sure if the kids and hubby will be as excited as I am, but fortunately they eat healthily already, so it won't be that much of an adjustment. I'm not in a cutting phase or anything, so it's not like there won't be ANY treats around. In fact, I made banana bread last night. It's a recipe from a special edition of Oxygen magazine, so it's relatively healthy, but the kids don't know the difference!

Uh oh, baby's crying, so I better sign off now. Later!

Quick Update

Friday I went for a half-hour ski, and it was very peaceful and renewing to be out there in the fresh snow! It was also sticky and hard to ski in, but I'm no expert so it didn't really matter - I got my heart rate up and that is good. Saturday I took a day off, as I was quite stiff from Thursday's workout. Last night I decided to try a workout I found on bodybuilding.com. It's a 12-week muscle building plan, and I had to adapt it to fit the equipment I have, but here it is in a nutshell:

knee push-ups: 2x15
bench press: 15/12 with 15 lb. DB's, then 15 reps with 10 lb. DB's
Pec Fly: 3x15 with 10 lb. DB's
skull crushers: 15/14/12 with 10 lb. DB's
crunches: 3x15 with a 10 lb. DB
Planks: 3x30 seconds

Ugh, I hate planks with a passion! Why do they hurt so bad? I think maybe I was supposed to do dips in there, too. Oops, I'll have to check on that. Anyway, good workout, quite challenging for me right now. Tonight, some sort of cardio. It's -20 here right now, so I think skiing is out, and probably will be for the rest of the week. So it's either wind trainer or aerobics. Later...

Wow, It's Been A While!

I didn't exactly stop exercising after my last post, I just didn't keep up with this blog. Let's see, I started a 13-week running program in the summer, followed it for 5 weeks before I quit, and I'm not exactly sure why I quit because it was going well. Then I did the odd strength training workout here and there until November 29, 2010, when I decided that I am going to compete at Femsport on April 2, 2011. I did about 3 weeks of a good, basic full-body strength routine to build up my base, but then tragedy struck! Well, more like a bad cold, which turned into an ear infection, which involved antibiotics. When I stopped taking the antibiotics, I thought I was good to go, but I think they killed all the good bacteria in my gut. I had bad stomach issues for a few days, which set me back again. I hate getting sick!!! By this point I felt like I really needed to get active, but my body just was not cooperating! My ear is still bugging me, but not enough to get in the way of my workouts, so yesterday, I did this:

push-ups: 10/10/10
double crunches: 20/20/15

sumo squat with upright row and 12 kg KB: 12/10/12
narrow bent-over row with 15's: 10/10/9

squats with 10's: 12/12/12
bicep curls with 10's: 12/12/12

reverse crunches: 15/15/15
skull crushers with 10's: 12/10/12

Each group of 2 exercises is a superset, meaning I did them back to back with little to no rest, and I did each set to failure (except the abs, don't really want to take them to failure yet). I also danced around for 5 minutes to warm-up. When you superset like this, it makes the workout go by so quickly, which I love! Seeing this is a full-body workout, today will be a cardio day, and I've already booked a night ski. It's snowing right now, so it should be pretty nice out there - can't wait!