Category: Body pump

Workout To The Beet

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Did you watch Food Unwrapped last night? The girl with the bad hair (okay, so I’m not going to be offered a part in a Timotei advert any time soon, but I wish she’d sort that bale of hay on top of her head out; it’s worse than that restaurant critic woman on Masterchef’s hair) checked out the benefits of beetroot by checking out the muscles on some rugby types and also by having her stamina checked on a stationary bike – once with having beetroot before and once without. The results showed she had far more energy after having the beetroot and so I put it to my own scientific test this morning by having some beetroot juice (I would have gone for the checking-out- the-muscley-rugby-types method but, alas, we were all out of those and, to be honest, rugby players just don’t do it for me anyway).

No, it's not vodka and cranberry juice.

No, it’s not vodka and cranberry juice.

This juice is made of 2 apples, 1 beetroot, 2 carrots, 3 celery sticks, 1/2 a cucumber and 1″ ginger and it really energised me. It energised me so much I lifted heavier weights while doing body pump this morning, despite me not having done any strength-training for weeks, if not months (if you don’t count the 20 minutes of kettlebells I did the other day).

Beetroot works!

Juneathon Day 4 – A Bit Of Body Pump

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I SWEAR I didn’t slack off on Day 3 – I went for a three mile run, which turned into a six mile walk and when I blogged about it, it turned into a 750 word (so far) essay on wearing glasses. Because it turned into a 750 word (so far) essay, I didn’t have time to finish it before making dinner, then after I’d watched Eastenders, I went back into the conservatory to finish it on the laptop but Shaun said he was going to do his exercising in the conservatory and I’d turned off my main PC upstairs and so I couldn’t finish it. ‘Aha!’ you’re thinking – it’s a laptop – you could take it into a different room (which is also what Shaun said) but if you’ve seen how I’ve got my laptop set up, you’ll see it’s not exactly ready to be picked up and taken elsewhere. It’s on a stand thingy so it’s at an angle and not lying flat and I’ve also got a keyboard and a mouse plugged into it, and the cables for that are woven through the stand thingy, so I’ve kind of unlaptopped it really.

Anyway, that’s just to let you know that I did jog, log and blog yesterday; there’s just not much evidence of it at the mo.

Because I’m off to help out at a book launch this afternoon, then out to the theatre this evening (ooh, get me Miss Culture Vulture), I didn’t have time to do much this morning so I did a bit of body pump. A bit as in everything except the laying down bits, the abs bit and the stretching bit. Yes, that does leave other bits you cheeky gits.

2014-06-04 10.01.54

Janathon Day 29 – forgetfulness

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I did a new body pump DVD this morning then went to the gym and went on the cross-trainer and went on the treadmill then when I got home I was going to blog but ran out of time because I was going out to lunch

lentil-nut-and-quinoa-burger

and when I got back, I’d forgotten all the things I was going to put in my blog.

Probably wasn’t very interesting anyway, although I do seem to remember it was going to contain the word ‘wankers’.

Janathon Day 16 – Almost sabotaged by Windows

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I was up later than usual and I had an editing and copywriting seminar in the morning, so to save time, I decided to body pump in my pyjamas and slippers and I even did it while I was still drinking my cup of tea. Now, that’s dedication.

Halfway through though, Windows decided to interrupt my workout by installing updates, then restarting the laptop.

windows-updates

Yes, I swore at it.

Still, deciding my time could probably be spent more productively than swearing a lot and staring at the screen watching the percentage of completed updates slowly creep up to 100%, while I was waiting I emptied the dishwasher.

Dedication and multitasking, and I hadn’t even finished my cup of tea.

I am hardcore.

Janathon Day 13 – multitasking

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Body pump in the conservatory was planned for this morning but the laptop decided not to work until I’d restarted it and let it do its disc check thingy (haven’t seen a disc check thingy since the days of *shudder* Vista), so while it was doing its thing, I decided to make some peanut butter granola bars. These are super-mega easy to make, can be adapted to fit in with your store-cupboard ingredients and are quite healthyish I think (healthier than Ferrero Rocher, peanut butter fudge, salted chocolate, chocolate biscuits, pizza and garlic bread – which was yesterday’s diet – anyway).

peanut-butter-granola-bars

(Photo from my Planet Veggie blog)

By the time I’d put them in the oven, the laptop had decided to play nicely and by the time I’d finished my workout, the granola bars were cool enough to eat. Result. (Obviously there was a bit in the middle where I’d taken the granola bars out of the oven.)

Peanut butter granola bars (makes 9 bars, 150 calories per bar)

150g granola (or muesli)
4tbsp crunchy peanut butter (or smooth)
4tbsp Golden Syrup (or healthier stuff)
1 tbsp wholewheat flour (or plain)

  1. Slowly melt the peanut butter and Golden Syrup in a saucepan.
  2. Add the granola and flour to the peanut butter and Golden Syrup mix and stir thoroughly.
  3. Press the mixture into an 8” square tin and bake in the oven at 180C for about 8-10 minutes, or until the edges are turning brown (it can burn easily, so keep an eye on it).
  4. Score lightly into 9 pieces.
  5. Leave to cool, then cut them into 9 pieces.

Janathon Day 10 – I remember when…

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…I didn’t leave assignments until the last minute. Oh, hang on, no – that must be someone else I’m thinking of. I’ve got an assignment due at midnight and at the moment I’ve only written down a few notes and made a couple of sketches (I’m designing two adverts – one for readers of The Telegraph and one for readers of The Sun, then talking about why I’ve used certain words and images in them), so if anyone sees me on Facebook or Twitter between now and then, unless I’ve said ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED, YAY, please send Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey a message telling them to disconnect me from their social networks.

Ta.

In the meantime, here’s what I’ve done for Janathon so far today.

body-pump

This weekend’s activities will hopefully be a parkrun tomorrow and a 38 mile bike ride on Sunday. Although, this depends on a) whether I get up on time; and b) how far I get with my dissertation proposal that’s due in by midnight on Monday.

Janathon Day 8 – body pump is great

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Just a quick blog today, as I MUST get on with my university assignment that’s due the day after tomorrow, which I haven’t started yet (I must admit I was relieved yesterday when I went in and found out I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t started it yet).

So, today’s Janathon activity was my body pump DVD. I used my Scosche Rhythm armband heart rate monitor again, but this time with the Rhythm app, which tends to be more accurate than the MyTrek app (or maybe it’s the monitor that’s more accurate, not the app, I’m not an expert on these things).

scosche-body-pump

Janathon Day 5 – I’m still alive

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There’s no actual reason to inform you I’m still alive, but it rhymed with five, so it seemed as good a title to give it as any.

I am still alive though, you’ll be pleased to hear, despite having achy legs – whether this was from yesterday’s 28 mile bike ride or the gym session the day before that or the run the day before that or just a Janathon accumulation of aches, I don’t know. But hey, aching muscles means I’ve been doing something, so yay.

It’s possibly not the best idea in the world to do body pump when you’ve got aching muscles but I was up early and didn’t want to wait for the gym to open at 9 before Janathoning as I needed to go to the Post Office and into town to the bank* and get back early enough to still have most of the day to spend doing my marketing assignment that I still haven’t done (tutor emailed me today and said she’d marked the first assignment and it was very impressive – didn’t tell me the flipping mark though, did she? Bah), so needed something I could do indoors (okay, I could have gone for a run but I don’t like to run on aching legs in case I make them worse, especially as I’ve only done one run in about the last two months).

So I did 30 minutes of my body pump DVD (yes, I skipped the floor bits and the stretching bits) and then found out how hard it is to put on mascara after doing body pump for the first time in ages. Oh, my aching biceps! Still, it didn’t look quite this bad (thanks to rundelrun for the pic).

mascara

Then I cycled into town and back and now my Janathon is over for the day. Back to university tomorrow, so this is where I might have to start getting creative with my exercise. Does exercising my brain muscles count?

*The bank has a snazzy new machine where you can deposit cheques and cash without needing to key in your PIN or use an envelope. You put your card in the machine, then the cheques and it scans the cheques and prints off the scans onto your receipt. So cool. Although not as cool as BigZigFitness’s bank – he can scan cheques on his phone into his account!

Pump it up

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This morning I went along to the gym for my usual body pump class where I was very hardcore and used heavier weights and hurrah, my arms didn’t crack on the tricep tracks, so the glucosamine that I’ve started taking again must be doing their thing (or it’s the magic bracelet) and then after body pump I went and did twenty minutes on the rowing machine, then I had planned to do just a mile on the treadmill, although running on the treadmill doesn’t really count as running, but then I decided to do Thru the Gears and then usually on a Friday I go and do spin too but as I have a five mile run tomorrow, I didn’t really want to wear myself out even if it is Juneathon and so I wimped out of doing spin and got changed and then I had to go to the library and I decided to leave my bike where it was and walk the half mile to the library as after all, it is Juneathon, and Juneathon is all about making an extra effort and so I walked to the library and as I passed Top Shop, I saw a sign saying 20% off for students this week and so I went in and saw a stripey t-shirt that I had been eyeing the other day and I tried to work out what 20% off would be and then I saw a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it and I wondered if I was too old to wear a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it and decided I was and left the shop and opposite was Dorothy Perkins with a sign saying 30% off today and so I went in but there was nothing I liked so I went back into Top Shop and thought fuck it, if I want to wear a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it I will and so I bought the Mickey Mouse t-shirt and the stripey t-shirt and with my student discount got £8 off and then I went to the library to collect the books that had been reserved for me and then I strolled back through the town looking at all the teenage girls smoking over their babies and got back to my bike and cycled back.

Stats
Body pump: 45 minutes
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Treadmill: 15 minutes
Walking: 1 mile
Cycling: 5 miles
Calories: about 845
Stripey t-shirts: 1
Mickey Mouse t-shirt: 1
Library books: 2
Teenage girls smoking over their babies: A few

Spin and stuff

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I did a load of exercise last week. It even included a bit of running, but it mostly included cycling to the gym and going to spin classes and a body pump class.

This week I hadn’t done much exercise, except for a bit of running on Tuesday. But today I made up for that by cycling 2.5 miles to the gym, going on the rowing machine for 15 minutes, doing a 45 minute body pump class, doing 15 minutes on the treadmill, doing another 15 minutes on the rowing machine, then doing 10 minutes on the elliptical-trainer before going up to reception and asking if they had any spaces left on the spin class that was about to start.

The man said yes.

So after all that exercise, I went and did some more in the form of a 45 minute spin class.

I’ve been going to spin classes for about a month or so now and I had originally thought that they’d be like body pump, i.e. follow a format and specific exercises to the same music each week, until they bring out the latest version (or whatever you call it). But no, spin (or RPM as it’s called in my gym) seems to be whatever the instructors choose to make it.

I’d been going mostly on Wednesdays which has a great instructor who has played, amongst dancey stuff that I’ve never heard of, a weird Nirvana ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ cover and Prince. Cool.

One week I was hardcore and after my Wednesday class, I booked myself on another class the following morning. I don’t know what music this instructor played as she had us bouncing up and down on our saddles like we were doing aerobics and I was too busy being traumatised by flashbacks of Helen’s and mine Mateivator workout the other month to notice what music was being played.

Today’s instructor was brill. None of this up and down and bouncing around and trying to keep coordinated with the others nonsense, but a really good workout alternating between fast sprints and hill climbing. She really pushed us, telling us to up the resistance (the other instructors mostly leave us to get on with it; the Wednesday instructor one morning even got off her bike and came over to mine and turned the resistance down to zero; she obviously knew I was a lightweight) and the music was great. Today’s tunes included Massive Attack, Credit to the Nation and Rage Against the Machine (turning it off before the naughty words [unlike the XFM DJ who left it on while he went to the toilet about eight years ago when I was listening to the radio at work]).

After my mammoth three hour workout, all I wanted was a cup of tea. Proper tea. With moo juice and sugar. I gave up tea years ago and only drink fruit or herbal tea or hot chocolate (and wine and beer, of course) but as I was getting changed, a cup of tea was all I wanted. Actually, I wanted a fry up too, but didn’t think they did that in the gym cafe so I settled for a cup of tea.

The cafe was empty except for one young lad with mousey brown curly hair, wearing a blue denim jacket and camouflage combats. He soon left, leaving me alone with only the sounds of the air-conditioning and the squeak of the milkshake machine to keep me company.

I finished my tea and headed off for my 2.5 mile cycle home. Passing Rocky’s Cafe and the smell of fry ups didn’t make me want one any less, but because I am a finely tuned athlete, I went home and had a home made muesli bar and some home made spicy cauliflower and potato soup and now I think I need a bit of a lie down.

Stats
Cycling: 5 miles
Rowing machine: 30 minutes
Treadmill: 15 minutes
Elliptical trainer: 10 minutes
Body pump: 45 minutes
Spin: 45 minutes
Time: 3:02:57
Calories: 1,469
Cups of tea: 1
Fry ups: 0
Young lads with mousey brown curly hair: 1

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