Rubbing My Hands with Glee!

I'm rubbing my hands with glee because I have a whole week of reveling in workouts to my hearts content without feeling the low motivation and exhaustion from fitting it around the reality of real life, like ya know, work. Yippee!! My doc's free ticket to ride was a Godsend! lol! ... Though I'm still blurry as all get out and I have to be super duper careful about not letting any sweat get into my eye's — I can have a ball.

The Viper

And yes, it does sound deadly because it is! This is Cathe's Viper from her Terminator dvd which I decided to do today. However, I made my own version of it and replaced the Muscle Endurance weights segments with Muscle Max's weight segments which are more heavy weight focused then ME's high rep focus. I used my good ol' dvd recorder to do this. The Viper is a 'deadly' circuit workout mixing one Cardio & Weights step combo with one Imax 2 step interval with a Muscle Max upper body weight section and then you cycle through three more of these. I felt the burn in my lungs and my muscles. And of course, once again, had to pace myself a number of times as I'm still working up to these one's. What with plie jacks, air jacks, power 7's mixed up in the intervals with no let up, she just kills ya in a good way! She really doesn't mess with words when she calls it "The Viper." lol!

Here's a sample of The Gauntlet from the said dvd:

 

 

My Schedule

This is my hopeful rough schedule for this week. I just got an awesome new 12 disc yoga series called The Ultimate Yogi by Travis Eliot which I'm chomping at the bit to get started on. I don't plan to do it as the full 108 day rotation as it's designed for (WAY too much to commit to AND as I have other goals in mind). I just plan to fit a disc in here and there into my ashtanga and fitness schedule. So here's my tentative schedule for this week subject to change on a whim and a dime:

Tues: 

YOGA

• Ultimate Yogi Strength (disc 3) + the floor work from Eoin Finn's Power Yoga for Happiness (as it includes the pickup jumpbacks and jumpthru's that I need to keep working on, plus some nice juicy arm balances. teehee!)

• Goal: to build shoulder girdle strength for pickup jumpbacks

Wed:

STEP & WEIGHTS

• Cathe's 4 Day Split High Intensity Step + Shoulders and Back or Biceps

Thur:

YOGA

• Ultimate Yogi Cardio (disc 2) + the floor work from Kino Macgregor's Primary series dvd

• Goal: to build coordination and shoulder strength back up for pickup jumpbacks

Fri:

GYM

• Legs, back, chest, triceps

Sat: 

STEP

• Cathe's new X10 dvd the step & weights portion

Sun:

MYSORE??? OR HOME ASHTANGA

• may not want to harrass myself by going to Mysore the day before going back to work. Great excuse right. lol! 

... practice and all is coming. 

Waaa!! Lost my Mojo!

Waaaa! I can't believe I lost my mojo! Well to be clear I actually lost my pick up jump back strength. Before, with regular Mysore practice (my regular is once a week, said sheepishly), I was  able to lift myself up and swing my feet through my my arms and hold it there in a bent armed lolasana for like five seconds with feet off the ground and all! I was practicing this at home as supplementary practice to gain strength for full jump back. And I was astounded as to the strength gains I made with just doing my Mysore class once a week, no skipping jumpbacks between sides (huge impact) and another shorter Ashtanga practice weekly, gave me huge inroads on my strength in this area. I could actually hold bent armed lolasana with feet fully off the ground which to me was amazing! Before this was unthinkable. I felt strong like bull!! Haha!! But I had a sneaky suspicion that this strength gain could very well be elusive if I don't keep up my consistent practice and do these exercises regularly. Well wouldn't you know life got in the way!! Waa!! As noted before one of my weaknesses is having terrible stamina, in life as well as in practice. Well as it turned out for the past month, extra time at work what with looming deadlines just before leaving on a one week vacation for laser eye correction surgery (in both eyes no less, so excuse me for any typos, etc as I'm majorly squinting through a thick fog right now) really made a dent in my practice. I'm just not good at juggling. Now four weeks later I thought let me practice my jumpback, great idea right?! Ha! Low and behold I can barely hold my feet off the ground! It's atrocious!! Grrrr! 

Oh well, all is not lost. I have a full week off from work. No deadlines, no overtime. Yeah! Since I just got both my eye's lasered and tasered yesterday (the taser is the corneal cross linking I also got on my right eye to stabilize my wonky cornea) and I'm in a huge disorienting foggy cloud with extreme light sensitivity which feels like my eyeballs are burning off. Despite that it went really well beyond the twitching legs, nausea inducing PAIN with a capital P!! AND they forgot to pack my Demeral, Valium and sleeping pills. I resorted to downing good ol faithful Aspirin to take the edge off. Though, mind you, I haven't taken anything like Demeral and Valium in over 15 years, neither for eye surgery or post surgery (I've had two previous eye lasers done but only one eye at a time — makes a world of difference!— two eye's being the worst in pain, OUCH!). However it would"ve been nice to know it was there purely for psychological reasons! Haha! The great news was my doc gave me the go ahead to workout since what I got was PRK not the LASIK flap version (not safe to workout for a week with the flap version), so I'm good to go!! Yippee!! My eye's are still sore and focusing for long is a strain and disorienting. But hopefully by tomorrow I'll do a small practice and by Monday I can get my butt in full gear with a whole week of freedom ahead of me to get my mojo back! Lol!

... so CONSISTENTLY practice AND keep getting back on the horse if life gets in the way and all is coming. 

My Cardio Baseline

 

Had a busy day today bringing my sweet furry Maine Coon of a cat home from exile at my Dad's, picking up litter (huge bags, wearing wrist braces no less), her food, and all sundries home. Lots of stops and lugging of heavy things. Yet I was determined to do my Insanity step DVD back to back with 4-Day Split's biceps when I got her settled in with my two other adorable Tonkinese platinum mink boy beauties of which now that both have finally grown out of kittenhood and are the same size (one is 7 months older than the other yet they're brothers and the younger one is the uncle of the older one, try to figure that one out! lol!), I can hardly tell them apart visually, especially when I want to place them fast. What a conundrum! Next time I'll get a platinum point so I can easily tell them apart. Didn't think it through the first time. Haha! Anyways don't judge, they're oodles of animal lovers in my building with multiple households of 2-3 dog owners, or one dog with one cat, and my many friends with 2 or 3 cats in tow. So please no labelling allowed. lol! But I digress ...

Intensity and My Baseline

 

Anyways, I was determined to do Cathe's high octane step workout as I wanted to go out with a bang before my Corneal Cross Linking (CXL) and PRK on my eyes on Friday. With that I won't be able to lift weights and step for about a week. Woe is me! And the CXL for one of my eye's has the potential to knock me out with fatigue for a good two months. But I'm really hoping that with the improvement of the procedure, it's much shorter in duration from 30 minutes to just 10, I'm crossing my fingers it will be less intense. We'll see. No pun intended. So Intensity was in order. I wanted to give it all I got just in case. And what fun it was! But make no mistake about it, it was INTENSE!! It's like Cathe mashed together high intensity step along with plyometric blasts, along with high intensity interval training put together without any breaks. Holy green smoothie Batman, it's CRAZAY! This was way advanced for me! I had to break to a side step ALOT though I was very proud I kept on going. And even though it really was too advanced aerobically for me I had to admit sheepishly, but my legs could actually keep up with the plyometrics really great it's just my aerobic capacity could not YET. And I say YET with emphasis. As I'm using the breaks as my baseline and plan to do it at least once a month to check how I improve, hopefully taking less and less of them. Also, I like to make the excuse that I use two risers to Cathe and crews one. Which I like to say does make a difference. So there take that for advanced! lol!

... practice and all is coming.

For the Love of Cross-Training

What I love about cross-training — as you can see I'm NOT a yoga or ashtanga purist believing that I should only give myself solely to ashtanga/yoga (therefore I will never move forward as quickly in ashtanga but there are cost/benefits to everything, oh well) — is that it helps in so many areas of my life. And each practice helps and informs the other. The weight training makes step a breeze in my leg strength and plyo strength, it also makes my cardio output less burdensome. This also helps in yoga as it improves my core/bhanda control and strength, shoulder and back strength for arm balancing, leg strength in warriors and chair pose, and overall stamina in ashtanga. The cardio helps with ashtanga breathwork and lung capacity and the ashtanga breathwork helps in cardio keeping my breathing calm and even and less laboured. The leg extension machine and other leg work in the gym including Cathe's leg work, and the warrior postures in yoga are rehab to my knees and without it my knees would totally decompensate. And ashtanga gives me the focus, balance, and flexibility that makes me feel so lithe and fluid in my everyday movements and makes my muscles that much stronger and more tensile in weight training. So it's a win-win situation all around. So I will never be a purist in anything as I need a wholistic approach to stay young and my most best and vibrant me!

Oh, and a little tip for all you PMS'ing or peri-menopausing or pausing ladies out there and yah, even you gents, cardio is KEY for balancing those niggling, nasty, misbehaving hormones! Along with a daily dose of maca. lol! ;)

... so practice, in whatever makes you whole, and all is coming.

Happy Thanksgiving! ... And Cross-Training with Cathe

Thanksgiving Time!

Happy Thanksgiving all! ... I'm thankful for great family and great friends and all my joints, ligaments and tendons still behaving themselves so I can Get Up and Stand Up again and again and again! WooHoo! With all the injuries I've had in the past including chatarunga shoulders, tendonitis in bicep brachialis AND achilles at the same time no less, patella femoral syndrome, facet joint problems, wrist injuries (too much handstands, lol!) — I'm not talking out the side of my mouth, I truly mean it! Hallelujah and amen, I can truly Get Up Stand Up! But I digress ...

Cathe's New Vids

    

I celebrated with my family yesterday and had such a fun time playing dressup as we had an edict to appear on the red carpet at their home for pictures dressed all out in hollywood glam, all baubles and bling. I channeled one of the glam girls in Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love video. It was a hoot! So today on this Thanksgiving day I got to relax and do some much needed cross-training with good ol' but perpetually young Cathe again. I did her just released Party Rockin Step #2 which is a more dancey step routine with Cathe's famous blasts thrown in for good measure to up your cardio capacity to the max.

And I tacked on part of her new Flex Train metabolic weight training for good measure.

The step was really fun and by step combo 4 the music got better and better with an AMAZING remix of Rhianna's Umbrella song which I actually DESPISE, talk about ear worm, but done in this remix it's flippin amazing! Now, why didn't she do that the first time! And there's nothing like pumping music to keep me going in cardio especially when it's really ramping up in intensity, which Cathe is the queen at. So it was a fun step workout with just enough intensity. Though, if I am honest, I'm used to her being way more generous with her intensity like in 4 Day Split High Intensity Step, Athletic Step, her Imax's & HiiT's (talk about turning purple), Body Max 2, Step Works (oldie but goodie), etc.

Then her Flex Train was also quite fun mixing metabolic training with high rep weight work in a non-stop pace so my heart rate stayed somewhat up. I stopped after completing the bicep work. But man she worked my shoulders real good. This one doesn't really get you in the legs much but that's okay as it's safer for my knees not to do that right after step workout anyway. And even though it's more high rep she still gets the muscles real good and I find, as I said before, it really benefits my strength work at the gym. I find I can ratchet up my weights much faster this way. Quite interesting.

... so practice and all is coming.

Get Up Stand Up! Samastitihi!

The other night I decided to do what Bob Marley invokes and just to Get Up Stand Up (... stand up for my rights!) in Samastitihi! If I can just get myself into that position then by all "rights" I can get my butt moving. As it's all downhill from there. So that's what I did to psych myself up to do my practice. It worked. Oh, and a promised treat of my delectable and oh so moist and delicious homemade chocolate blueberry muffin for my dinner. Shhh! Don't tell anybody. ... A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

... practice — however you can, even if you gotta use a Bob Marley invocation and a muffin — and all is coming!

I Feel GoooOoood!

... because I got it all done! Lately, well for a while now really, I've been struggling with motivation. Everything and I mean everything I do I have to mentally push and psych myself. I've often wondered if it's a leftover of chronic fatigue or lack of consistent sleep. And I've forgotten what it feels like to not have to push. But nonetheless, I feel that if I keep on being consistent in that push, that it will get easier and easier just like developing your muscles or finally getting that posture. It's "practice makes perfect." And I try to be a believer. It's not let me down yet! And the other option is not worth thinking about. Though it can feel like a bit of a slog. Haha! Oh, but when I get it done I feel SO good and so accomplished that it's all worth it.

Case in point, I finally mapped out my sunset picture I took while sailing with my friend that I'm going to paint! Yes! Choosing the colour theme, paint colours to use, and my approach. And then checking my supplies. You see, I haven't painted in ages! And I've finally decided to get my butt in gear. I miss it and it gives me great creative outlet. And it's just TIME! The sail and the pics gave me inspiration. Finally. And then I did my Cathe's Cardio & Weights dvd and this, my blog. Now, I know it doesn't seem like alot on a Sunday but to me it's a nice accomplishment instead of just vegging out in front of the TV when friendly plans fell through.

Cathe's Cardio & Weights is so much fun as it's a nice blend of step aerobics that she sneakily ramps up in intensity on every cycle. The first combo is lightweight so you get a false sense of easy, then she does the good ol' bait and switch. Haha! And the next 3 are nice and intense. Ouch! Then in between every step combo she does compound weights which ain't nambypamby believe me. Your muscle groups get worked out! And she manages to do this by pre-exausting the muscle first and then going a little heavier with different counts that really work them out. Her technique's really push my muscles even though I'm using lighter weights than the gym, yet her method is exactly what builds my strength so I see amazing gains when I go heavy back at the gym. Nice!

 

Last week was a write-off in making it to mysore. But I did get in two ashtanga type practices with my fav dvd's. So last Thursday I did my good old Rocket dvd, which is a mishmash of 1st, 2nd and 3rd series all in one practice. I love it because it's fun and gets me using my bhanda's and doing jumpthroughs with all the arm balancing thrown in and is a nice break from form.

All in all I had a great week and a great start to the new one.

... practice and ALL is a'coming.