Greetings!
This morning’s workout was a little rushed, but it was still a good one!
First up, I did a quick 20-minute cardio blast on my new love, the Precor machine. After that, I headed down to the spare room to complete an ab routine of what have been hailed as the “Six Best Six Pack Moves.” (Please note: it is not actually my goal by any means to have a six pack, but some ab definition is never a bad thing, right?).
I did between 25 and 30 of each of the following moves. When I got to the plank, I did 3 “sets” of 1 minute with a 30 second rest in between. I’ve included links to youtube videos of each move in case you’re unfamiliar with any of them!
- Bicycles
- In and Outs
- Reverse Crunches (there is also a version of this where your legs are perpendicular to the floor and you roll your hips up off of the ground using your lower abs)
- Elbow Plank
- Rollup Sit Ups
- V-Ups (this video is nice because he includes several variations!)
- Oblique V-Ups (once again, several variations here)
- Core Twists (you can also do this with just your fists and leave the weight behind)
Once again, I don’t think this one will leave me sore tomorrow (abs are always the hardest section for me to really kill with any moves, I think I need to up the reps.), but I definitely felt the burn.
After all of this was done, I did something that I rarely do: stretch. I don’t know what my problem is, I know how important stretching is and how critical it is to injury-prevention, but I just don’t usually do it! Fortunately, the group classes that I participate in always include a stretching cool-down, but when I’m on my own? Forget about it.
And then I had a revelation.
The other day, I was on the treadmill and my hip was really bothering me. I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, but it was ridiculously uncomfortable and I ended up moving over to an elliptical. It was then that I remembered that the day before, my legs and joints felt very tight when I was elliptical-ing away. I realized that perhaps if I had stretched after my workout the day before, I may not have experienced that discomfort the next day. I then decided to make a conscious effort to always stretch after my workouts and to stop being a lazy dumbo. I know this will be 100% critical when I begin my race training and I might as well get in the habit now, right?
The rest of my day was filled with babysitting (where I made brilliant drawings of Spongebob Squarepants and Barney the dinosaur) and tutoring (where I overcame some serious iMovie obstacles and managed to completed a science project with my tutee).
That’s all I’ve got until tomorrow! Enjoy your night!