Arm exercises

Ok, a co-worker was surprised at how muscular my arms are the other day, and I told her the exercises I do. These banish (horrible term alert) 'bingo wings' and generally firm up the upper arms.

Stand with your feet about hip width apart, knees slightly bent.
Raise your arms until they are horizontal from your shoulders, making sure your shoulders aren't hunched or tensed.

Rotate your arms from the shoulder until your palms are facing backwards.

Circle your arms up and back (small circles, not more than three or four inches) for a minute, making sure that your arms don't droop, and your shoulders don't tense up.

After, shake out your arms, then repeat, but with an up-and-down motion instead of the circles.

Two minutes a week really makes a difference. Four, even more so.

ETA: It's a lot more difficult than it sounds, I'm warning you.

Shame on us!

Nothing since August?
I mean, I knew I was lame, but I was expecting more posts!
:-P

Ok, I haven't done any Callanetics since before we went away, bar the half-hearted 15 minute session I did at Nettie's. (Side note: I found that Nettie's Callanetics DVD is the one featuring my ex-teacher, Karen.)

Anyway, I really enjoyed the reinstatement of the weekly torture sessions this week. It wasn't fun, of course, but I felt so energised afterwards!

*Sigh*

Crap! How did I manage to not exercise tonight?

I know. It's because I opted to fix my daughter's beloved duck, instead. She's had him since she was 8 months old, and his neck had finally gotten so worn that I was afraid she'd wake up one morning clutching his mutilated body, with his head rolling around on the floor somewhere.

So I got out some yellow fuzzy yarn that I'd bought a while ago for just this purpose, and made a...scarf, or something...a dickey, perhaps? Anyhow, made this fuzzy yellow piece to go around his neck (after re-stuffing it, of course). All was going well, until it came time for me to go pick up her older sister Kaila from work and she herself had to go to bed.

I told her that I would finish sewing on the new neck while I was gone. This was apparently not good enough. After all, how did I expect her to sleep without the duck?!? I insisted, though, and left with duck in tow. Got most of the new neck sewn on while waiting for Kaila, and finished when I got home. Then I took him up to his owner, who, even though nearly asleep, was very glad to see him. She kept petting his new fur and thanked me very prettily for fixing his neck.

I think I can be forgiven for not doing my workout tonight, yes? It was, after all, a very good cause! :)

The arrival

Yay, my Callanetics dvd arrived today!

I'd ordered it a while back from Amazon after Boo described in great detail the benefits she's noticed since doing it.

I've just watched all the intro material that covers basic techniques and forms and then I jumped into the one hour workout.

Some of the exercises I'm going to need a lot of work with as I'm just not coordinated enough to get with just one run through. I keep on moving in the wrong directions and the pulsing just isn't natural for me yet. Other exercises I don't think I can do properly as I'm just not flexible enough yet. There's one where you sit cross legged on the ground and walk your hands out in front of you, then out to the side and then you pulse to the side. My knees don't touch the ground when I sit crossed legged (never have, even as a kid) and so I'm finding it hard to actually walk my hands forward as I have trouble even touching the ground in front of me.

And I always forget to hold my pelvic floor muscles tight. It's a good thing the instructor lady keeps reminding you! lol

Now I've read all the articles with the supposed results you can get from doing Callanetics and even though Boo has assured me she has lost a remarkable amount of inches, I'm still not entirely convinced that this is the be all and end all of exercises. Some of the reviews have people stating that they'll never pay for a gym membership again as this is the only kind of exercise they'll ever need to do again.
Now, fair enough this tones and helps with muscle definition but it's not exactly an aerobic exercise. I still think you need to combine it with another form of exercise to actually lose body fat and so I'm hoping that in conjunction with gyming and walking and playing squash I'll see results soon.

I took some measurements last week and I'll perhaps measure myself after a month and then let you know the results. Fingers crossed.

And pulse.

xxx