Except that I don't have any oldies to sweat to.
First off, the legs are the target of this first weeks strengthening exercises because, well, how can you expect to do anything else involved with this plan if you can hardly stand on your own two feet without feeling a burn?
So, every day it's going to be squats, as deep I can without lifting the heels of my feet off of the ground. Every day this week Patrick will have us all really feeling our legs turn to jelly as we do five even sets of twenty squats. Really, though, it's something light and, compared to what I'm sure will be coming in the next few weeks, generally rather easy. Of course, that may just my opinion of it because after fourteen years of a very leg-centric sport like karate which has built up my calves, quadriceps, and hamstrings (as well as the surrounding muscles, I'm sure) the daily squats work, but not as much as they could be, or should be. I think perhaps I'm going to have to hold those low squats for a bit longer than I was yesterday.
And then there's the jump rope. By the time I got about halfway through all of the training exercises yesterday the day had hit its peak temperature of 100 degrees which, combined with all of the sweat that was pouring off of me, made me feel like I was actually melting in a very Wicked Witch of the West kind of way (complete with the high pitched screams of "I'm melting, I'm melting! Aaaaugh!"). I think I'm going to end up developing a love/hate relationship with that thing, sort of a begrudging respect for it during the first few weeks until I can really get the hang of it and until I can develop the kind of endurance to get through my daily jumprope training without having to stop and rest as much as I need to right now.
For the jumprope: 500 to 1000 jumps. I've been doing the full 1000 because I'm a perfectionist in a huge way. These need to be done everyday, as well, because that's what's going to burn off all of that unnecessary fat stored all around my body and get me down to a lean figure ready to build up all of the muscle that will take me closer to my ultimate goal. So I'll deal with it now because while it may be hard at this point it will get easier as my body becomes a bit more accustomed to it and as I get stronger because of it, as everything does.
Off to more exercising, wish me luck.
3 comments:
I have faith in you. Good luck!
Yeah, the jumprope is a "#*&$ at first. In Japan all the kids have like mandatory jumprope time in gradeschool PE, so they're all jumprope prodigies. When I told them how much I sucked at it, they all basically said, "you must be pretty stupid."
But after 8 weeks of jumping every single day I'm the jumprope master. I can do all kinds of tricks and stuff too. You'll get there.
So nice to hear that the rope can trip up even the Karate Guy! I blamed my huge sized feet today for all my missed jumps. We'll get it eh? All the best, C.
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