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This Post for Yoga Tips , the Mat I use and why Sample 20 Minute At Home Workout (+ 20 more for cardio) During the first half of my day (as a busy mom with a FT job, I have to be flexible about when I workout), I go for a 2 mile run. This takes me 20 minutes. I come inside my garage and do about 80% of the following from this list: 5 Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar B but I don't hold downward dog. I move into the next Salutation immediately) Some yoga arm balances such as crow and side crow Backbends and lift up to standing and then dropback into a backbend. (Up & down, 3 times) The splits Some crunches on my mat. A variety such as twisting crunches, V-ups, slow bicycles, etc for about 90 seconds. Put feet on exercise ball, hands in pushup position, and roll it in and out with my feet 30 times, then do 30 pushups. Then repeat this 2 more times. So 90 rollouts, 90 pushups in total. With 12 lb dumbbells do various arm exercises. Standing exercises such as: standing shoulder/overhead press, lateral raises, front raises, bicep curls, Laying on Ball exercises such as: shoulder press, skullcrushers, flies, crunches while holding medicine ball (to the left, right, and center to hit various parts of my core/abs) Squats/lunges. I do a variety for about 2 minutes. Burn baby, burn, in the glutes, quads, and hamstrings. Get on hands and knees, put 12 lb dumbell in the back of your knee (crook) and lift/kick up. I finish with 2 minutes of Yoga inversions such as pincha mayarasana, headstand, headstand. This sounds like alot but I whip through that entire list in 20 minutes. Never more than 25 minutes. Barney is on the DVR and an episode takes 27 minutes and I am always inside with plenty of time to spare. I do most of those things every day from that list, but not every single thing, not every single day. Sometimes I do one set, sometimes 3 sets. Usually 8 to 10 reps. Sometimes 15 reps. It just depends on how I am feeling. I am not a personal trainer (although I have my ACE study materials and will be reading them in December) and I have been a yoga teacher for 10 years and am certified at the 500 Hour level which is the highest level. I am not telling you to do what I do. My goal is to show you that with very limited space, i.e. just enough space to lay down a yoga mat, and a limited budget, you can get in an effective at-home workout. Will this replace what you do or what I do in entirety? No, of course not. Will this replace my time at the real gym? No, and I still go to the real gym a few times a week, and the at-home workout is great for a couple other days per week. Do I do exercise videos? No, and nothing against them, I just can hardly follow a recipe, I can't imagine following a video day in, day out. I like to wing it and create my own flow and exercises on the fly. Is some cardio still important? Yes, for me it is. For my cardiovascular health, for mental and emotional health, for overall physical fitness, yes, some is important to me. But we all must find a balanced amount of it; whatever balanced means for each individual. And my workout keeps my heart rate up so I am getting the benefit of cardio combined with strength training + flexibility training. The best of all worlds, for me. Working out the same body part day after day is not recommended and of course, yes, I mix up my workouts. I just don't have the time to post them all. This is just a sample of what I do in 20 minutes. And since everyone always wants my "daily eats" but I don't write a food diary blog, hope you like my "daily sweats" instead..ha! Just showing you what I do and what's worked for me. Rest days are important. Some days I don't do anything from that list. I will usually run or walk some every day, just because mentally, I need to just get moving and do some form of cardio, but I am not a speed demon or a big mileage logger. And if I ever don't want to workout, I don't! We all have to find what exercise and dietary and life path works for us. Not everything works for everyone. Not everything continues to work for the same person. What I liked to do when I was 16 years old is not what I wanted to do when I was 7 months pregnant which is not what I enjoy doing now. Life evolves, and so must our workouts, dietary choices, and everything else. There is a balance between finding what works and being happy with that vs. stagnating and not being open to change things when they stop working or stop being as effective as they once were. It's up to each of us to be mindful of this and to do our own homework, legwork, and just work, in order to figure it all out! The proof for me that my current fitness path is working are these pictures. For a series of my Progress Pictures since early 2010, Click Here 11-1-10 She makes faces when I flex...ha!  I think I look as good or better now than I did in June when I competed in my Fitness Show in June. With far less effort and time spent exercising!A Few Posts I want to Remind You about and Make New Readers Aware Of: Number One Question I am asked is, How Do I Get my Abs? Check This Post for Exercise and Diet Tips , My Thoughts and Opinions on Getting Your Abs to Pop. Also the most popular post in Love Veggies and Yoga history, to date. Lift Heavy. See This Post for my Thoughts on Lifting Heavy: Strength Training, Myths, Fears, Facts, & My Thoughts My Fitness Show & Pictures from June 5, 2010: I took 2nd place in my Show If you have Questions about Yoga , Please See my Yoga FAQ's Post . Also, Check out my Yoga in the House Post  Questions 1. How long do you spend working out every day? And if you're not a daily workout person, how often do you exercise and for what duration/length when you do workout? I do love working out. I am an endorphin high junkie. And if I didn't have a child, husband, house to take care of, and full time job, I'd spend a lot more in the gym, just because I do really enjoy it! But that's not the reality of life and so my goal is to see amazing results in shortest amount of time possible. Isn't that everyone's goal, though? And in the process clear my mind and center myself because for me, exercise goes far beyond just the physical; it's a time to recharge my mind and spirit, too! We all have to figure out what's going to work for us. And spending any more than an hour per day working out is just not something I have time, or desire, for. 2. Have you ever been stuck in an exercise rut? If so, how did you break out of it? I think most women have been stuck in cardio hell for much of their lives. It's sad to me because I do enjoy some cardio, i.e some brisk walking or running, but like 20 minutes worth. Or maybe 45 minutes once in a blue moon. Not hours on end. I did that in my early to mid 20s. I have run hundreds of 5 & 10k's, half marathons and logged tens of thousands of miles. But it's just not fun to me anymore to run and run and run. It's boring to me and it's too hard on my joints and body. And before I started lifting weights in the beginning of 2010, I thought that I hated lifting. And that yoga was the only thing for me. Wrong again! I love lifting, it doesn't make you bulky , and I love yoga, too, but there's room for variety in this spicy thing called life. So over my lifetime I've experienced being stuck in a cardio-rut, I thought lifting will make me bulky thinking, and for awhile I too closed-minded to accept that other forms of exercise besides yoga could work for me. Not sure how or why I snapped out of my rut-thinking, but glad I did! 3. Tell me about your sample day(s) of workouts. What do you do? What do you like to do? Why do you work out the way you do? What have you found works for you, and what doesn't work for you? Fill me in on it all! p.s. I put the new pictures and new at-home workout sample in my Gym Workouts Tab so that you can find it easily in the future. It's at the bottom of the page, dated 11-1-10. p.p.s. Just sayin', this post took me forever. Whew. Glad it's done though! |
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From yesterday's post about selling my Bowflex, my Bowflex review , and asking your thoughts on if you've ever been tempted to try a Bowflex, most of seemed to understand how that particular piece of gym equipment just wasn't a fit, for me.
And it was fun to read if you like to bargain or haggle and in what situations you will or won't ask for money off on a purchase.
As I mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, recently I have changed up the way I work out. I know Katie will be proud of me, and April , too, since I do less cardio than I used to.
Overall, I have streamlined my workouts and am spending far less time overall working out than I used to be. Amen for that!
I have my pair of 12 pound dumbbells
My Exercise Ball
My 12 pound Medicine Ball
And my Yoga Mat
photo source