plum swings! a diary

[Cat Lover Sue]

Hi Plum - glad my tip helped a bit. It was Sweet Pink that tipped me off about it last year. I don't do it all the time, but it offers a variation.

Impressed you're moving up the weights too. Its surprising, as you say, how such a seemingly small difference in weight can make it so much tougher! Well done. xxx

 

[Plumfoodie]

Thank you Sue - must say I'm feeling the pain today!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Heehee! Mr plum is finally trying kettlercise for men - and it does appear that the shirtless men from the cover persist that way throughout!

Edit: they're doing the whole class straight through, they're getting sweaty... And I'm sure our Ryan never says to grab the bell by the horns.

 

[Mis-behave]

Lol what a shame!!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Now that it's over, I'm really surprised there was no cooldown/stretch, not even as a separate feature!

 

[Cat Lover Sue]

Sounds worth a watch . Seems odd not to have some kind of cool down feature though. Perhaps that's deemed too girlie for the shirtless men?!

 

[Plumfoodie]

LOL Sue maybe that's it! There was a little pause and I expected them to go into a cooldown but they just towelled off and put their sporty vest tops on and that was that!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Week 5 core again today, with the 5 kg bell. Apart from the seated figure 8s, which I find so difficult - but strangely my legs get tired before my core does! I don't know what that's all about. Today I could only do them with a lighter bell and resting the non-active heel on the floor while passing the bell under the other leg. Otherwise my quads just curl up and die and refuse to play anymore!

(rainbows, rainbows, rainbow! bah! )

This was my second week doing week 5, so next week I'll start week 6 and do that twice as well. Then I need to decide whether to start the 6 week program again or try out the advanced version! Maybe I'll watch a little bit of the advanced and see how it strikes me. Nothing so easy as an exercise DVD you watch from the sofa.

 

[Plumfoodie]

Week 5 resistance again today, put off from Thursday as was so tired from PMT. Pretty pleased, I did the lot with my 5kg - the only modifications were doing mantelpiece pushups and dropping to my knees for the second half of the second plank. Not bad considering I'm always knackered at TOTM, plus exhausted and mildly hungover after a very rare night out last night. On to week 6 core on Monday!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Today I checked out 30 Day Shred on YouTube, because there's so much discussion about it elsewhere on Minis. It reinforced how happy I am with kettleworx and my bells as I have dodgy joints and suspect the 30DS would finish my knees off for good!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Work has been crazy (and not in the woohoo, look, a unicorn! kind of way) this week and I haven't been able to do any kettleworx at all yet. I was going to do Core week 6 tomorrow but my day off has been gobbled up by the craziness. Realistically I think it's going to be Saturday before I can do anything, although I might manage to reclaim Friday. I hope my fledgling muscles will wait for me and not just disappear!

 

[fizzyfluff]

Work has been crazy (and not in the woohoo, look, a unicorn! kind of way) this week and I haven't been able to do any kettleworx at all yet. I was going to do Core week 6 tomorrow but my day off has been gobbled up by the craziness. Realistically I think it's going to be Saturday before I can do anything, although I might manage to reclaim Friday. I hope my fledgling muscles will wait for me and not just disappear!

Sorry but this made me giggle sooo much!!

17 lost : 50 to goal

 

[Cat Lover Sue]

Some of the people I deal with every day tell me they see Unicorns on a regular basis. I think its the way to go personally - they are some of the most chilled folk I know!!

 

[Mis-behave]

Heck I want to believe in unicorns

 

[Plumfoodie]

I'd love it if unicorns were real! This week has been more about unicorn poop than unicorns though.

Veeeeery excited this morning, I've hit my initial goal weight officially today!!! Going to maintain for a week and then drop my goal by 10 lb next week. Whether that winds up being my ultimate goal will depend on whether I can put on more muscle mass (go kettlebells!) as my final aim is to get my body fat % into the healthy range!

 

[Cat Lover Sue]

Whoop whoop Plum! That's brilliant news. Well done on hitting target. :talk017:

 

[Plumfoodie]

Thank you Sue! I will be setting a new target next week, as this was only ever meant to be my first 'get there and see how I feel' target, but for this week I'm going to relax and enjoy.

Although I will be getting back to Kettleworx later today, I've missed Ryan this week!

 

[Plumfoodie]

Since I missed out starting week 6 with core on Monday I decided to try something else today so I can start fresh next week with week 6. Ages ago mr plum got me a DVD called Kettlenetics (because it came with a 4 lb kettlebell that was very handy when I started), which is done by an incredibly tiny and very perky little lady. So today I thought I'd try the 'basic' 20 minute workout.

Have to say this one isn't for me. The main focus is more on getting the heart rate up than anything. Some of the exercises are done *very very* fast (which explains the 4 lb kettlebell I guess) and some of them have ranges of motion that feel like you could injure yourself if you weren't careful. There wasn't enough strength work for me although I did find her version of the windmills worked my muscles more because she does them very slowly - this made me quite knackered in only 4 reps per side!

I'm glad I tried it, but don't think I'll be pulling it out of the cabinet again in a hurry and it might wind up going in my next DVD cull. I've no doubt it will suit people who want a more dance-inspired cardio heavy workout using a very light weight though!

 

[Cat Lover Sue]

"Dance-inspired, heavy cardio workout" - enough to make me shudder! Think I'll pass on that one, eh Plum! lol

 

[Plumfoodie]

Soooo annoyed, I accidentally pressed 'pause' on my HRM partway through today's session so have no real record of the time or calories burned. Anyway...

Today was my first stab at kettleworx week 6 core. I was curious whether there would be any new moves, but nope. There was, however, a reappearance of everyone's favourite, spelling kettleworx. That, in conjuction with the happy shiny fun rainbow time, made me a little grumpy.

I could definitely feel the lack of having done kettleworx last week (had to do one and a half of the planks on my knees and was a bit more weary than normal), but! But!

I managed the side butt elevators! A modified version still (with my bottom leg bent so the knee stays in line with the top one but remains on the floor) but this is loads better than I've managed before. I even did them with my 5 kg bell balanced on my hip. I've come to the conclusion that these, a bit like the hip pump and crunches, are something that just suddenly work. I've been doing some extra work to strengthen my shoulder/shoulder blade area and I found today that keeping my elbow right under my shoulder and my shoulder blade strong really helped - I think this is where I was going wrong before. Next week I might try with my legs extended properly.

On the hip pump and crunch front, I can really do these properly now, and my feet go higher than they used to on the hip pump part. It really is amazing that such a short workout so few times a week results in noticable improvements in ability.

As far as spelling kettleworx goes, I can't do this as fast as they do on telly, so now I just spell something a bit like T-T-O-O-X-X-I-I. Which I'm sure is a word, in some language.