ActivTrax – Slowly but Surely

Had a pretty good week last week:

Sunday – Went to Anytime Fitness with Andy, followed his ActivTrax routine with MUCH lighter weights
Monday – Signed up at the Anytime Fitness, once again followed Andy’s routine with lighter weights
Tuesday – Went to yoga with Heather at Ultimate Fitness
Wednesday – Went to Anytime Fitness and did my first ActivTrax Workout #1
Thursday – Took the night off but can’t remember why
Friday & Saturday – Took these days off
Sunday – ActivTrax Workout #2

So far it’s not so bad but I’ve bumped the time of my workouts up to about 35-45 minutes of weights so the breakdown is as follows:

5 min – Warmup
5 min – Stretch
35-45 min – Weights
20 min – Cardio

So, I’m at just over an hour. Andy would like me to increase it even more to coincide with his 1.5 hour workouts. We’ll see. As I’ve said before, baby steps. If nothing else I can spend another 20 minutes on the treadmill, or 20 minutes playing on my iPhone in the car.

What are your thoughts on ActivTrax? One of these days I will post more specifics for those of you who are unfamiliar with the program.

One Extra Hour

By now I’m sure you are all aware that we turned the clocks back this past weekend for Daylight Savings Time. Andy and I were celebrating our anniversary in Galena (details and photos will be posted this week!) When we got home I was in an “in-between” mood, not sure what I wanted to do. Andy decided to pounce on this opportunity and convince me to go to the gym with him.

You may recall awhile back that I have already joined Ultimate Fitness in Bettendorf. While I enjoy the gym for the classes, I’ve never been a big fan of the rest of the gym. I was (poorly) attempting to take advantage of the ActiveTrax that came with my membership. I only made it through one workout and for one reason or another I never got back to the gym.

So, yesterday I decide to spend my extra hour from Daylight Savings working out at Anytime Fitness, which is Andy’s gym. Although I probably would have equally enjoyed that extra hour sleeping, or reading, or plain wasting it surfing the Net, I’m glad I went with him. It may very well turn out to be a turning point in my life.

I’m really trying to look at exercising in a new light. Andy has gotten into the routine and truly made a lifestyle change; he has been going almost daily for the last two months. (Yay Andy!) Equally important, he has the mindset that it truly is a lifestyle change – not a fad, not a short term weight-loss or muscle gain goal, an honest change to his life and daily schedule. And it’s not just for his own purposes, it’s for us as a healthy couple and for our future family. He put it to me this way, “If you start working out regularly now you can add 11 healthy years to your life. Maybe you’ll still live those 11 years without working out but maybe you’ll do so with some kind of illness…we’ve got a long life together ahead of us. I want to enjoy it.” Well said. I’ve decided to look at it like that a little more rather than a chore. It’s one more thing we can do together that will improve our overall quality of living. How can I argue with that?

I will probably continue to hit UF for the classes, because those are usually more enjoyable than weights, but we’re headed tonight to get me signed up at AF as well. It’s an investment in our future and well-being. Andy goes at least 5 days a week so there’s no real reason I can’t do the same. Besides, it’s really hard to say no when you carpool and your 6′2″ muscle bound driver is heading straight for the gym after work.

I got all that out of one extra hour yesterday. Feels rather productive so far. What did you do with your extra hour?

ActivTrax Day 1 – For Real!

Once again, I tried to be an overachiever at the gym and doubled up on my workouts. (Actually, it makes me feel like less of a loser for skipping out so many in between gym visits!) Heather & I tried out yoga for the first time, which I really enjoyed. It wasn’t difficult, but it was challenging.

After yoga last Tuesday I decided to see what the big deal is with this ActivTrax that Andy is so obsessed over. I must admit, it was pretty good. I grabbed my customized workout sheet, decided 40 minutes of yoga should be an acceptable substitute for the recommended 5 minute warm up, and went to each machine, listed by number, on my list. I was able to do most of them as instructed but there were maybe two that I could not to the minimum reps. I don’t know if that was because I’m that weak, or if doing yoga beforehand hindered my strength a bit.

It was an arms day so I did all upper body stuff in about 20 minutes. I did wuss out on the ab stuff because I just wasn’t feeling it that night. But, then again, when am I ever in the mood to do ab work? Surprisingly, for possibly the first time ever I did enjoy the ab workout in my Zumba class taught my Dominic; one girl in the class said he had the best ab workout ever and I do believe she is right.

So yeah, after the machines and skipping abs, I did another mild 25 minutes on the treadmill. In hindsight I guess I only put in about an hour and a half of actual working out, which is nothing to true gym rats, but quite a lot to couch potatoes Internet Junkies like me.

Honestly, it’s not working out that gets me, it’s just GETTING myself to the gym. Or GETTING OUT of bed early. My original goal was to do ActivTrax 3 times a week. Now that I’m over my 10-day cold, that seems attainable but we’ll see. Right now I’m happy with establishing good habits of just DOING something on a regular basis. I still probably prefer classes but it was nice to have a “virtual” personal trainer of sorts. And I like checking things off lists so it’s got that whole mental thing going for it.

Andy showed me his guns the other day and after his nearly consecutive 40-something workouts, I can honestly say I can truly see the results. I’m a long way from 40 workouts but I’ve got a start at least.