So this is day one--sort of. If you read my last blog, I'm not planning on starting the full nutrition plan until this weekend after pay-day. I'm planning on eating well this week no matter what--minus today because it was my birthday and work brought in cake (can you really blame me?!). I kept it to one sliver of a slice, though! That counts for something, right?
Day one in the 21 Day Fix is the Total Body Cardio Fix. I had read horror stories regarding this work-out but didn't really take them seriously. I don't think I fully understood how intense these work outs would be considering I can do them from home in my living room. Well, let me tell you (or let my quads tell you, rather)...
It starts off with a warm-up. There's a group of people keeping up with Autumn Calabrese (the creator of this masterpiece [or nightmare, however you decide to look at it]) and then there's a woman who does a modified version of the warmup or the exercise. I foolishly thought I could keep up with Autumn and the rest of the crew. I was horribly mistaken.
I think the moment I realized I was in trouble was when I became aware that we were still on the warmup and I was looking for a water break...
It's been 7 months since I've gone for a run. It's insane to me how hard of a hit my body has taken in seven months of limited to no physical activity.
The workouts go something like this: Autumn goes over two exercises--the first one is something she calls "Surrenders". She even states that this one is the hardest of them all, because we have the most energy right off the get go. Uh, I'm not sure who she's talking to but I already feel winded... Why in the world would we start with something that sounds so terrible?! The Surrender consists of holding weights at your shoulders parallel to the floor, then taking turns--first set of these exercises you kneel onto your right knee, then bring your left knee down, then up with your right, up with your left. Repeat. I was about ready to surrender after this set, but somehow kept going into the second exercise.
The next exercise are the side-shuffles. Sounds easy, right? Well, after those Surrenders, my knees, quads and shins felt like they were waving a white flag. I definitely went with the modifier for the first few rounds. Instead of two shuffles, I did one. Ideally, it's two shuffles to the right, reach down to the floor between your feet (shoulder-width apart or a little bit more) keeping your back straight and your head up--chin parallel with the floor, then shuffle left and do the same thing.
Then you go back to Surrenders (I did the modifiers on this round--which consisted of doing the same motions, only minus the weights).
Then back to the shuffles. Because I modified the last round of Surrenders, I was able to do the full shuffle exercises.
She highlights these "twenty second breaks" at the beginning--saying we'll need them. Twenty seconds have never gone by so quickly before in my entire life.
Round two.
We start with something called "Squat Wood Chops". I felt excited about this round because it's name reminded me of pork chops... Clearly, I'm delusional by this point (and very obviously hungry). But no, this exercise is where you basically bring the weight up over your head as you squat--not my most favorite, as I mentioned previously. My. Quads. Are. Dying. They hate me by this point and I'm only pissing them off more. The second exercise is called Cross Country Skiers, which genuinely scared me at first. You basically lunge-jump while lifting a weight of your choice above your head. I modified this one a bit and didn't really "lunge-jump", more just lunged while lifting the weight above my head. Now my shoulders hate me. Fannnnntastic. Again, you do each exercise a couple of times (honestly? I didn't pay attention. The only things I listened for her to say were: "Ten more seconds!", "Okay, five more seconds!", "DONE!")
Round three. Ohhh, round three. I wasn't sure I would actually make it to you. I'm still not too certain I'll be conscious by the time you're over. We begin with the Weighted Jog, where you hold the weight straight out in front of you, arms parallel with the floor and jog in place. Shockingly--I'm still shocked--this wasn't bad? I'm thinking at this point my body went numb and I simply couldn't feel the pain anymore. Then there were the knee pulls, which consisted of also holding the weights, standing in a lunge and bringing the knee behind you up to mid-waist level. This one was one that I definitely felt in my butt and my quads. Holy quads. Like I really don't even know how I stood in the shower after all of this.
I was extremely thankful for the last round, as it focused on the abs. I still had to do some movement with my legs, but the "frog crunches" wasn't nearly as scary as it sounded. I liked taking the focus off of my quads and onto my abs--however now my abs feel like they hate me, too. MY WHOLE BODY HATES ME.
...but it'll love me later on.
As an overall review--so far, so good. Autumn is encouraging and seems to know the exact moments to say something like, "I know you feel like you want to quit right now, but you can push through it. Tell yourself you can push through it." As crazy as it sounds, in those moments I did want to quit, and in those moments I did tell myself to push through (I'm pretty sure my legs were yelling back: "YOU TRY 'PUSHING THROUGH'! NOT AS EASY AS IT SOUNDS!") But we did it.
Also--I will honestly note that I took breaks. Yeah, it happened. You're supposed to do it straight through but my out-of-shape self couldn't handle it. It got to a point where twenty seconds wasn't long enough, but that's OKAY. At least I'm telling myself that's okay. One day at a time, folks.
I'm stoked for this program. I'm excited to get on the nutritional part of it, as well (I'm blaming the pain on the cake; yeah, let's blame the cake). Here's to a new year!
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