Category: kettlebells

The Bells, The Bells…

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Hark! Is that the sound of bells heralding the end of Janathon? Why, I do believe it is. Unless you haven’t done yours yet – in which case, GET OUT THERE YOU LAZY SLACKER.

I know I’ve been the slackest of you all and it’s such a shame as, in the first week of Janathon, I HAD ALL THE ENERGY. Yes, all the energy, even yours. Then it went. Gone. My energy kaputted itself out of existence. Bye bye energy. It briefly came back over the last couple of days and I would have made more of an effort today if I hadn’t spent the day saving escaped bunnies, being a plumber’s assistant and making up stupid names for cottage pie.

But I did do some kettlebells later on in the day. Here they are.

The bells, the bells... (Yes, I know... I already made that joke)

The bells, the bells… (Yes, I know… I already made that joke)

So… thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s Janathon – I hope you enjoyed it and reached your personal goals whether that was to do one mile without stopping or to do one hundred miles over the month (or to do 400-odd like that nutter in Australia). Thanks also to those of you who took part in the DGDVC and I’ll embed the videos into a blog post some time next week and let the public vote for their favourite. If you haven’t done a DGDVC but still want to give it a go, feel free to send a youtube link to me over the next few days and I’ll add it.

Special thanks to Deputy Helen for being Deputy and helping to arrange some of the prizes and – more importantly – accompanying me to drink wine and eat pizza. But because we’re so hardcore, Helen and I haven’t even finished Janathon yet, as we’re doing a 10k tomorrow.

Wish us luck!

Shamed Into Blogging

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The Running Goth has outed me at least three times in different places over the last couple of days for slacking, so before she finds anywhere else to shame me,  here’s an update.

On looking at my Running Free Online calendar, it’s not as bad as I thought. Okay, so the blogging perhaps maybe kind of a little titchy tiny bit slightly got a tad slack but I have sort of done some exercise. Look.

rfo-19Jan I think the 10 minutes last Monday must have been some kettlebells, the 4 miles on Wednesday was, in fact, a 6 mile walk in the countryside (my Garmin doesn’t like pausing too often and when it does it robs me of my mileage. Stupid Garmin). This countryside, to be specific.

countryside

The bike ride on Friday was cycling to the station before I went pizza-making with Helsbels where we put in further Janathon effort by kneading the dough for our pizzas. It counts. Shut up.

waitrose-pizza

The bike ride on Saturday was me cycling home after the pizza-making class, after midnight.

Okay, so I was slack last week – I admit it and I did annoy myself by being so slack but after such a promising start to Janathon where I had an immense amount of energy, that energy just seemed to disappear last week.

I promise to do better this week.

Janathon Day 25 – Fitness Blender kettlebells workout

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fitness-blender

After trying out the Fitness Blender kettlebells workout I’d found on youtube yesterday (the video is on yesterday’s post), I thought I’d do the whole 33 minutes today. It comprises a 3 minute warm-up (mostly jogging on the spot), then 3 rounds of kettlebell exercises. Yesterday I’d only completed the first round so I was excited (that may be a slight exaggeration) to find out what exercises were in the other two rounds. I wasn’t excited for long though, as the second two rounds were exactly the same as the first round.

Oh.

I had a look at their website just now and they have dozens of free workout videos on there, for all kinds of exercise (cardio, yoga, strength, etc.). You can search for the kind of workout you want, including type, difficulty level, duration and calories burned, or the equipment you own (including ‘slosh tube’, whatever that is).

I only discovered Fitness Blender yesterday – is this a website everyone else in the world had already heard of?

Janathon Day 24 – my first foray into kettlebelling

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I have no idea if ‘kettlebelling’ is a valid word – it sounds a bit rude, doesn’t it? Still, Argos delivered my kettlebells today (I say ‘delivered’, I mean the delivery man dumped them on the ground and left me to lug them indoors) and I was desperate to try them out.

kettlebells

Not having any kettlebell workout DVDs, I looked up kettlebell workouts on youtube instead and came across this beginner’s one from Fitness Blender.

Choosing the lightest weight (2.5kg) because I’m such a weed, I skipped the warm up (it involved jogging on the spot and I was wearing normal clothes, i.e. not gym kit and sports bra) and did ten minutes of the kettlebells bit.

I don’t know what I was expecting but those ten minutes were fun and more of a workout than I thought it’d be – my heart rate was definitely raised, although I couldn’t tell for sure as my heart rate monitor decided not to work. It was a weights/cardio hybrid I’ll be giving it another go at the weekend when I’m more appropriately attired and not about to make my dinner.

fitbit

Argos also delivered to me (and this was handed to me, not dumped on the ground) a Fitbit which I was mega-excited to get as it’ll track my steps and sleep and stuff. And it’s orange, which is obviously the best thing about it. I’ll write more about that another time, when I’ve played with it for longer.