Walking, Walking, Walking
December 19, 2006
Grrr, I didn’t work out on Sunday night. I really wanted to. The whole afternoon I was thinking that I should go down and use the treadmill again, but I was like “Naaaah. I am going to do the Firm Complete Aerobics and Weight Training again, Yea!”
I should have gone down and used the treadmill. My Mom and Grandma decided to wrap presents Sunday night and watch a movie while they were doing that. That’s cool – except that they didn’t get done until 2:30 in the morning. Ugggh.
So, I should have done the tape on Monday, but I figured that I really needed the alone time and went on the treadmill again. It was great, oh so great. I was on that thing for like an hour. I finally figured out the heart rate thing, so I tried one of those heart rate programs first. The target heart rate I entered was in that “fat burning zone,” but I think that it was actually a little low. The first program I did was just about 25 minutes long and after that was done, I tried another heart rate program with a higher target heart rate for like another 5 minutes. After that I tried a couple of different interval workouts. The first one has elevation and speed changes and the other 2 were just speed changes.
I am still not walking very fast, but I did throw in some jogging during the last couple of intervals.
After that I did another short set of walking lunges and then I wanted to do a little bit of ab work. Instead of getting down on the floor and doing some crunches, I picked up a 7 pound weight and decided to do a short set of dumbbell swings. What’s a dumbbell swing? Well, you pick up a weight and hold it in both of your hands. Personally, I like to hold onto the ends of the dumbbell so the weight is horizontal – some people like to hold the bar in the middle, but I am just more comfortable holding the ends. Then you do a squat while holding the weight in front of you and when you stand up, you raise the dumbbell over your head. You don’t want to throw it back too far, just so it’s over your head. When you are standing up, you should automatically feel it in your abs since you need to really suck in that gut to stabilize your body during the move.
I think it’s a great compound exercise. You work your butt and guts at the same time and if you do a long set of them with minimal breaks, it will also get your heart rate up. I only did a set of 25 of them. I should have done more. Heck, I can still do some right now too. This website shows some pictures and tells you a little more about the exercise too. I think that is how I found out about this exercise actually. It’s an exercise you can also do with a small weighted ball or even a kettlebell.
Filed under: Workin' It
