word wrecker

Goal Post #17 follow up When I chose titles for these two goal posts I had a completely different intention in mind for the month of March (to eat more veggies) and it wasn't clear how the alliterative idiom would relate. When I changed the intention to a workout I hoped the injury part wouldn't happen. Oh well. Ten days into the new HIIT workout routine my right hip started giving me trouble. Aching, popping, generally feeling old, etc., but I kept at it. After all, a slight ache shouldn't block the goal. However, I did start paying better attention to form and slowing down with things like squats to avoid really hurting myself. Seventeen days in it was time to change things up a bit. First, I removed the bent over delt-raises and replaced it with a bear crawl shoulder tap  and moved triceps extension to just after squats. At the literal half-way mark in this five week experiment some results were already apparent. First, my yoga poses felt more stable and I could

Side post #1 Earlier I've discussed my attempts to start practicing meditation and how taking even five minutes can help when you're stressed. What I haven't talked about yet is how meditating, even sporadically 5-15 mins at a time, influenced my workout habits. Starting out with exercise almost two years ago, I needed lots of distraction during walks, yoga, and on bike rides. Music and audiobooks provided this in spades. Music especially helped during planks and burpees. With planks, the time goes faster and a good quick tempo helps set a pace for burpees. Late last summer I realized that not only had it become easier to walk, practice yoga, and bike ride in silence, there were times it was preferable. This ties into meditation because becoming comfortable with silence is a big part of finding stillness and peace of mind. No space is ever completely silent, but turning down my own noise lets us hear all the smaller sounds that surround us. Right now, I just comple

Goal Post #17 Intention: regular HIIT workout Daily planks and yoga have done wonders for eliminating my back pain and overall muscle tone, but my cardiovascular, bone and joint health could improve if I occasionally did more intense exercise. After all, just saying I'm considering doing more burpees didn't actually translate into more burpees. Additionally, the workout I'm starting includes weight lifting so we're way into uncharted territory now. Also breaking with routine, I started doing this workout the last Friday in February, a full week before March started. The goal is at least three HIIT workouts per week without scrapping daily five minute yoga and 90 second planks on the off days. After getting comfortable with the current rotation of moves I'll see if mixing it up works for me or throws off the whole routine. After all, I am a delicate system who does not handle change easily. HIIT workout with 30 second intervals with 15 second rests burpees