Kettlercise For Women - 5 Weeks Later

   Well, I have to admit that time has gotten away from me. I've been using Kettlercise For Women for 5 weeks now, and while September started on a Tuesday, meaning I would usually have started a new workout on Monday the 31st, I didn't. I didn't even think about it, I just kept using Kettlercise.

   And, what's more, I doubt I'll be doing a new workout this month. Given that it's already the 5th of September and I've not given it a moment of thought, I've not got anything new to use. Why? Because I've been so hung up on my book that, for the past five weeks, I've given nothing else any of my time. My days have consisted of getting up, checking on mum, doing my exercise and then sitting in the living room with her, reading over my book. Every. Single. Day. And I've been loving every minute of it. My exercise hasn't suffered and neither have my duties to my family, but once my exercise is done for the day, it entirely leaves my head.

   In truth, Kettlercise was unexpectedly good, and I'm actually still not that well-acquainted with the routines even after 5 weeks of use - I'm still struggling with it, so I think using it for the remainder of September is a good idea, as long as I swap around the in-between days.

   As promised, I did start using the full program, but that was poorly advertised. The 'express' program has a 5 minute warm up, 20 minute workout and 5 minute cool down - both are bang-on with dynamic stretches in the warm up and static stretches in the cool down, and the workout itself is good, though I did find that too many of the moves were low-impact so I modified them to make them compound rather than isolated (adding a squat into the over head presses, for example, rather than just standing there and pressing).

   The 'full' workout, however, was a 10 minute warm up, 35 minute workout and 5 minute cool down. The warm up, again, consists of dynamic stretches, and the cool down of static, but I was led to believe that it was going to be 60 minutes total, with about 45 minutes of work. Now, don't misunderstand me, when I finished that 35 minute workout my god did I feel it, so if it had been longer it would have been too much, but I was misled. The full program also has a few isolated moves, but I didn't modify those because I was expecting 45 minutes of hard work. Even then, though, I was still knackered and feeling it for 2 days, so that was awesome.

   The DVD is great, both workouts are great, and I choose which I use depending on time and energy, but I always modify the express program to constantly engage my legs so I get more out of it, so they end up being equal work, really. I really do recommend it! And I'm quite content to keep using it.

   I was alternating it with yoga because I was concerned that I was actually overworking myself - turns out I was, but more on that in another post - and I actually had one day in the middle of each week off of exercise, or deliberately simple yoga, as additional recovery. And I have to say, after having slowed down but still ensuring I got 3 great workouts in every week (non-consecutive days of Kettlercise), I actually feel renewed and raring to go! My enthusiasm had dropped over the last couple of months and it was all starting to feel like a chore, but now I'm back to how I used to be and quite excited about it all.

   All in all, this month was great, and while I'll be adding a little more cardio in again, I'm still going to make sure I take the time to rest and, if I start showing signs of overwork - trouble sleeping, irritability, forgetfulness etc - I'm going to force myself to take a step back. I've gotten it into my head that if I go 2 consecutive days without exercise I'm going to gain everything back again, and there's no good reason for that to have gotten into my head at all. It's just a paranoia about undoing my hard work, which is just stupid. Unless I stuff my face silly and don't move for a month, that won't happen.

   And consider this notice of September's workout, too :P I think I'll revisit some old routines throughout the month - maybe Kickbox Fusion, Shaolin Warrior Workout, Irish Dance Masterclass; these are the three I've wanted to come back to for some time now, so if I've not committed to anything in particular this month, I won't feel like I can't give them another go.

   Also, Seeg and I have been rewatching Naruto right from the beginning, and it seems I've taken on Abarame Shino's habit of saying 'why?' before explaining things. Worse still, I've not even been saying 'why' in English, I've been saying it in Japanese. Oh dear, I'm one of 'those' anime fans. If I start wearing cat ears and saying 'kawaii' someone will have to shoot me.