Instead of the Dishes » Fitness, Health & Fitness, Mommyhood, Travel » January Cross Training: Week 2 #xtrainJan16

January Cross Training: Week 2 #xtrainJan16

January 15th, 2016 | Add a Comment

I’m kicking off the new year with a month of cross training – a different workout every day! You can see Week One’s workouts here. Here’s what I’ve been up to this week:

Friday, Jan 8 – PiYo

My mom and I traveled to Galena, IL on this day. We got stuck in Chicago and ended up driving across the state, which made our travel time a lot longer than planned. Luckily, my mom is a total trooper, and she was all ready to do PiYo from my teeny tiny netbook screen in our hotel room at 8pm. We pulled Melissa McAllister’s PiYo Demonstration up on YouTube. Neither of us had ever done PiYo before and we found it moves really fast, so we watched the video once so that we would know what the moves were. It was fun, although we found the voice prompts a little lacking, considering that you can’t keep up and be looking at the TV the whole time.

Saturday, Jan 9 – Lap Swimming

After a fun day of exploring Galena, we took advantage of the heated indoor pool for some swimming. It turned out to be movie night. I have swam laps bajillions of times, but never during movie night. Can’t say I got to take in much of the Cat In The Hat movie, but it was interesting background noise! I love swimming laps because I find it very calming and peaceful. When your head is down, all you hear is the movement of the water and your out-breath bubbles. It gives you time to think, and you’re getting a good, no-impact workout at the same time. This pool was certainly not 25 meters, but it was plenty long enough to swim constant for 20 minutes.

Sunday, Jan 10 – Walking

Temperatures were in the negatives for the majority of the day (high was 2)! Luckily the resort we stayed at had plenty to keep us busy. We had “spa time” in the morning, and mom wanted to do some walking. So, I downloaded the Runtastic Pedometer App, and we walked two miles by looping the main and lower levels of the resort several times. We enjoyed the wintery scenery from all the big windows, art in the hallways, and were maybe a little tempted by a life-size gingerbread house in the lobby. And, of course, even with the brisk pace, we also talked a lot!

Monday, Jan 11 – Circuit Training

Monday was our day to travel back home, but not until evening, so we got up and hit the gym. The fitness room at the resort was very well equipped with weight machines and 4 different types of cardio (stair climber, bike, eliptical, and treadmill). So, we did four circuits of weights and five minutes of cardio. It took a total of about 45 minutes, but it went by really quickly, and was pretty fun! I liked moving around a lot and the constant change. My husband says that weight machines aren’t as effective as free weights, but I like having them to guide my form. Surprisingly, this was my favorite workout of the week!

Tuesday, January 12 – Workout Fail!

Mom and I got stuck in Chicago on Monday night and so we got home a day late, on Tuesday. I had concerns about getting my workout done while traveling, but I should have been concerned about working out AFTER travel. Turns out, I was exhausted and my mom wasn’t there to say, “C’mon, let’s go!” Everyone needs a rest day though.

Wednesday, January 13 – Zumba!

When I started this project, my friend Julie invited me to Zumba! She is a newly certified instructor and a regular in classes at the Ozark Community Center. Turns out several of my friends go to those classes too! So, despite the fact that I have zero coordination skills for this type of thing, I gave Zumba! a go. I would say that I managed about 50% of the moves – the ones that were the most repetitive. Honestly, this was probably one of my least favorite workouts because of all the brain power I had to use to concentrate on the moves (sorry, Julie). But, I think I was still tired from traveling, and as my friend Lesley (who was also in the class) pointed out, you really have to go to Zumba a few times before you get the hang of it and can judge whether you like it or not. It was definitely more fun to have friends there. So, I’ll be giving it another try in February.

Thursday, January 14 – Yoga Fusion

This is another class at the OC that I have been really interested in trying. It is described as “a fusion of basic yoga moves and stretches combined with light resistance training.” I was surprised to find that the majority of the class participants were all good friends, and all older than me by at least 20 years! This is the friendliest class I’ve been in too – several of the women introduced themselves to me and offered encouragement. The class was quite challenging – we did poses while standing on balance balls, and it turns out that V presses with 5 pound weights while in Warrior 2 was a lot harder than it sounds! So, while I didn’t really get my heart rate up, I definitely stretched and worked my muscles and challenged my balance skills.