Pilates Persecution

As you know (if you are a regular reader), I have been accumulating coupons (see previous post Discount Devotee) for various deals over the last month or so and some of those deals were for Pilates classes. I have really been looking forward to trying a class that uses the Reformer rather than just a mat class (mat classes weren't very exciting and there's only so much you can do)! So I FINALLY went to my first semi-private session last night with my friend Lauren!

In case you are not familiar with these classes, this is what a pilates reformer looks like:

Seems fairly harmless, right? Plus, I have been working out on a stability ball and Bosu for years, so I felt that I could handle the core work we'd be doing on the Reformer.....no problem!


WRONG!


Right off the bat, the instructor (Let's call her Pilates Persecutor or PP) threw me a curve ball. Apparently there's a specific way to get on the Reformer. You sit on the mat thingy (which slides back and forth). Then you're supposed to lift your legs into a V position with your arms straight out in front of you and turn 90 degrees so your feet are hovering above the bar.

HUH? How the hell do I turn without using my hands??

Well, she demonstrated the move beautifully......and then I mimicked her move but totally cheated and put my hand down to turn myself. Still not sure how the hell you're supposed to turn on your ass without using any limbs.....gotta figure that one out I guess.

Next up, we sit in this V position with the bar beckoning for you to rest your feet on it. But no....we have to keep using our abs to hold us in this torturous position. THEN without touching your feet to the bar, you SLOWLY roll back "one vertebra at a time" until your head is resting on the mat thingy. I proceeded to follow instructions, however I grouped my vertebrae into the lumbar, thoracic, and cervical areas as I lowered myself down. Five or six vertebrae at a time is close enough to one, right?!  Ahhh...now I can rest my poor abs.

Wrong again!! We repeat this move ten times WITHOUT touching your feet to the bar! (I am beginning to imagine PP holding a whip in her hand while she stands over us) I'm not sure how Lauren was doing at this point....I was too intent on imagining the instructor with her whip.

But then PP decides to show mercy and we are told to place our feet on the bar (Thank God!) and just push away from the bar and then lower yourself back down. THIS I can do!! Whee!! Now I am enjoying the reformer more.....definitely using the muscles in my legs but not killing my back. That feeling lasted for the first set of ten. Then you do two more sets ~ first set with your toes on the bar, second set with your arches on the bar, third set with your heels on the bar. THEN you make a V with your feet, "heels touching at all times!!" and repeat that whole series again!! OH MY GOD......my legs were SHAKING at the end of that one!

After that we had to put our feet in the straps which are connected by cables to the mat thingy so that we can lift our bodies by moving our legs. Or you can work you legs by pulling on the straps with your hands. I sense more torture coming my way...

Sure enough, with our legs straight up in the air we now have to draw circles with our legs going as wide as we can. My legs are not responding well at this point....I am not sure if I'll be able to stand once we are done, if we are ever done....

We ended up doing a lot of inner thigh work...not really sure why PP decided to concentrate on that area. Maybe she was trying to tell us something. As far as I know, Lauren is doing okay so far...I haven't heard any cursing under her breath which is what I would have expected if she was feeling tortured.

We finally ended the session with some stretching - definitely needed that! It was a little touch and go when I first got off the reformer but I managed to stay in an upright position without too much difficulty. Before we left PP informed us that we would probably be sore on Sunday - two days after the workout. I had my doubts about that....not about being sore. I was pretty sure I would be sore! I just had my doubts about the soreness not showing up until Sunday. Maybe Lauren and I did better than PP thought we would. Maybe we tricked her into thinking we were total fitness fanatics. Maybe I am delusional after being tortured for an hour with straps, cables, and a whip (imagined or not)! Lauren and I decided to numb our post-workout pain with some beers at a nearby Mexican restaurant.....I felt MUCH better afterward!

It is now not even 24 hours later and yes, I am sore!! My inner thighs are definitely feeling the workout we did last night! Strangely enough, my abs aren't sore, my core isn't sore.....the only thing I feel is soreness in my inner thighs!! I am not sure if I should be thrilled in thinking my abs are stronger than I thought, or if I should be depressed that my inner thighs are so weak! Each time I go to cross my legs, I get a lovely reminder of our workout. I guess I won't be wearing a skirt in the next few days. Sigh....

(Okay, for those of you who know me, you know this isn't a problem anyway since I RARELY wear skirts!)

Lauren and I are signed up for TWO classes next week. Apparently we are masochists. Actually, I already knew that I was, but wasn't sure where Lauren stood. Even though I am in pain now, I am looking forward to trying some different exercises on the reformer next time. Plus we have a different instructor for next time, so it will be interesting to see how the class is. It's the whip wielding instructor's husband that will be teaching us though, so I'm not sure if that means it'll be harder or not. Maybe I should have a couple drinks to numb the pain BEFORE class next time.

For your amusement, here are a couple exercises I am interested in trying at some point.....although I may need medical attention if I actually get to try these. Stay tuned....

In a Wii Bit of Pain

So I know that the Wii has been out for a long time but I've never been that into video games, so I didn't get caught up in the excitement with everyone else. My good friends Mariana and Steve introduced me to the Wii Fit which was fun and I can see (as a Personal Trainer and Exercise Physiologist) how it could be beneficial for people to use as a workout tool. There are definitely some challenging programs available!

So this past weekend my friend Pita had a Wii party so that we could watch each other get super competitive and make asses of ourselves. It was a blast!!

The best game we played was the Raving Rabbids Dance game. You can't understand a word the Rabbids are saying but the game is fairly easy to pick up. You simply follow the dance moves that a stick figure is doing on the screen. The trick is that you have to do the correct move at precisely the right time during the song to get the most points.

I am not a dancer. I have definitely been known to get down on the dance floor in clubs....after consuming an alcoholic drink....or four. So dancing is not my strong suit...or my weak suit for that matter. Luckily, these dance moves are fairly basic, mostly arm movements since you are holding the controllers in your hands. It's the timing and coordination that is the killer!!  I definitely needed a few practice rounds before I got the hang of the game but it's still challenging! Some of those moves come at you FAST! Then of course there's the added challenge of having your opponent standing too close to you so that you either hit them (sorry Mariana) or you get your controller tangled with theirs (sorry Lauren). See....it's a good thing I haven't tortured my friends with club dancing lately....someone could have been seriously injured!

Some photos for your enjoyment.....


Here is Lauren and Juan competing against each other. Note the intensity of their concentration.


I don't remember who won this round but I think it was close.

Here you see Lauren again, this time competing against Mariana (the former Rabbid Champ!) Ha Ha Ha!

Notice both of them are smiling and acting like their just playing for fun but really they are both SUPER competitive!

I LOVE this picture. It's not so great of Lauren and Steve who are competing BUT look past Steve. That's Helen, Pita's Mom, who is mimicking the dance moves!! She was rolling her eyes about the game at first and then she felt the need to join in with the dancing! We didn't get her to actually play though....maybe next time.....

I do not have any pictures of Todd competing against Pita, sorry.....things got a little crazy with that duo. Furniture was overturned, fists were flying, legs flailing, and the Wii nunchuks were all over the place! I think we need to pad the walls for their next match.

Discount Devotee

Somewhat recently a good friend introduced me to online group discounts (Thank you Mariana!). Not just an online coupon for random, everyday, boring items like body wash or tampons. I am talking great coupons for restaurants, spa treatments, kayaking rentals, scuba diving lessons, Pilate's classes, etc! Sounds good, right? But what's even better is that the discounts are anywhere from 40-80% OFF! That's right people! Get ready to add to your bookmarks!!

At first I was skeptical. How good could the deals be? What would possibly entice me to use the service?? Well, first of all, it's FREE. Free to sign up, free to peruse the various offerings, FREE!! Ok, no worries there. Maybe you have a little more to clutter your email inbox but for a chance at a good deal, I can handle hitting delete a couple more times a day! So my first group coupon crack-pipe was Groupon. They send you an email five days a week with the deal of the day. Easy enough. I check out the deal and if I don't like it, I delete it! If I am interested, then I just buy that coupon and I get several months to use it before it expires. AWESOME!

So I found a couple deals that I took advantage of ~ $25 worth of chocolate at Chuao Chocolatier for $10 (Niiiice!) and $45 worth of food at Bombay (nice Indian restaurant) for $20 (also quite awesome!).  So far...loving the Groupons!

Then my crack pushing friend, Mariana, introduced me to FOUR other sites!! All using the same concept, with one of the sites even lowering the deal price when more people sign up for the deal! How incredible is that?!

So now I can get my coupon high from Buy With Me, Reader Steals, The Daily Save, AND Living Social! WOOHOO!! I am in coupon bliss......ahhh....

Then the coupon crack started to take hold. I think I might be salvageable but it could be touch and go for a bit. I currently have coupons for an Indian restaurant, two kayak rentals, dance lessons, and THREE different Pilate's classes!! None of which I have actually started using yet. I LOVE getting the high deals, in case you couldn't already tell, but now I need to actually USE them!!

Well, maybe one of my new coupon hustling sites will come out with a deal for a twelve step process to wean me off the deal dependence.  I may be contacting one of you to be my sponsor. You never know when the urge may hit me to buy a hang gliding lesson at 60% off!! Be ready for that midnight phone call when I may need you to talk me out of that deal!! Then again, maybe I will be much happier just riding the coupon high....

Weather Wimp

I am officially a weather wimp. Actually I have been for several years now…it’s a side effect of living in the mild temperatures of San Diego. Growing up in Phoenix, AZ I was very used to the heat. It really wasn’t intolerable until it was over 105 and at that point you didn’t notice the increase in degrees so much. It was just DAMN hot! But as a kid, you play outside anyway. Or maybe you play in the pool for hours on end, which is what I did. That’s how I acquired the lovely shade of green in my hair for four to five months out of the year. Excellent look for those swim team pictures.

As I got older, I learned to make adjustments to handle the heat better. Don’t touch the metal seat belt with bare hands unless you want to get a second degree burn! Don’t leave the windows on the car rolled up all the way, otherwise the temperature hits 130 inside and you pass out from the mini heat wave that hits you when you open the door. Unless you’re in a pool, do not go outside for any length of time from 11 am to about 3 pm during the summer months (which are from March to the end of September). If you do go outside, you risk heat stroke! My Junior High PE teacher was nice enough to introduce me to that. Well, not heat stroke, but I did get heat exhaustion running the mile in class. At the end of April….at 2 in the afternoon. Great idea to have kids running in the extreme heat of the day!

I am not a runner, never have been really. I was a swimmer, that was my sport. Not sure if I will ever be a runner...not unless I decide to take up running late in life, like that bodybuilding Great-Grandma who started running at age 56! That is an amazing story!

Anyway...

In college I went for the other extreme in temperatures. Well, maybe not extreme but I did go to school in Flagstaff, AZ where they get a “real” winter. Many people don’t realize that Flag is so high in elevation but it’s higher than Denver! Anyway, not only do they get winter in Flag, it lasts for a few months and I remember having several blizzards in the years I lived there. It was great!! When spring came and the mercury hit 55, we were excited to wear our shorts outside! Very odd to walk outside with snow on the ground and be comfortable wearing shorts. When the temperature hit 70, we’d head outside to sunbathe….such bliss.

Now that I’ve been in temperate San Diego, I get cold at 70. I’m serious!! At work, our thermostat is kept around 70 for our patients who are exercising. For those of us who are not exercising though, 70 feels cold! So I am at work wearing my pullover and drinking coffee to keep warm. Very sad. I have dreams of living in gorgeous Colorado where the climate is very similar to Flagstaff but now I don’t know if I could handle it!

One thing that I have exchanged for my inability to handle weather is my tolerance for earthquakes. They didn’t scare me too much before I lived in CA but I hadn’t really experienced one. After a decade of living here, I’ve experienced several now and they just don’t bother me much. Several years ago I was working in a building on the fifth floor and we used to have the fighter jets from Miramar fly by regularly which made the building shake. It’s amazing how quickly you adjust to things like that. My boss at the time was from Chicago and scare to DEATH of earthquakes. He somehow managed to handle the shaking building when the jets flew by BUT one year we had an earthquake hit (about a 5 on the Richter scale) and that really made the building shake more than the jets. My boss ran down to the café on the corner and refused to come back into the office for the rest of the day! Too funny! It was just a little earthquake!!

Recently we had another quake hit; this one was 7+ on the Richter scale, so definitely noticeable! I was at home when it hit and although I noticed it I wouldn’t have put it at a 7, I was surprised at how long it lasted. I went to check on my aunt next door; who was standing bug eyed in the doorway, and noticed that the quake was still happening about a minute later. Very curious feeling…but not scary. Nothing broke, nothing fell, and no catastrophe befell us. No biggie, right? Apparently there were several aftershocks over the next couple of days, all around 4 on the Richter, and I didn’t feel ANY of them! Apparently it has to be at least a 5 or higher for the earth to move me. I think I’m ready for the big one, whenever it decides to hit CA. And I know how to swim if we lose CA to the ocean! HA!

Nature versus Duct Tape

Last spring I had a lovely family of birds move into the exhaust pipe for the fan in my bathroom. No, they weren’t in my bathroom – the pipe opens to the outside of the house directly above my bathroom window. When my Aunt had the house re-stuccoed (my word, not Webster’s), the guys apparently removed the covering that had kept nature out of that pipe in previous years. Unfortunately when they finished their job, no one re-covered the pipe and the birds thought it was a magnificent place to nest. For about a week after that I would hear various fluttering and chirping whenever I was in my bathroom – they were happily dragging all sorts of sticks, grasses, and lint into their new little abode. This wasn’t too disruptive….until the family grew. Suddenly I would hear several baby birds crying constantly to be fed. At first it was nice to have nature so close and it was very nice to hear the sounds of spring whenever I was in my bathroom. That lasted about two days for me…..then it was annoying. I suppose it would be like having a newborn in my apartment always crying for attention, except this was at least four or five newborns and they weren’t mine. So it was more like being in a grocery store and watching someone else’s kid throw a temper tantrum while the Mom is happily looking through the peaches and ignoring her child……you REALLY want the Mom to do SOMETHING to make the noise stop!

I am not mean enough to have gone in and swept the nest out of the pipe….I just waited until the baby birds were grown and the family vacated the premises. So a couple months later my Dad was nice enough to cover the pipe opening with some wire mesh and secured it nicely with a metal band. IT looked great to me…no more birds fluttering and chirping while I am trying to go about my business. So I thought everything was good…

Then I heard the fluttering start up again about a week ago. I figured there was no way the birds were back in the pipe….it’s covered now! I’d look at the opening periodically and the mesh was still in place, so I guess the birds just kept coming back to check out their old home….who knows. Last weekend I heard more of an intense fluttering and chirping going on by the pipe and went to have a closer look. The birds were pulling at the wire mesh to try to get back in! And they were actually making headway!

Apparently instinct is pretty damn strong and these birds wanted their old nesting area back. They had made a small hole in the mesh at this point, so I figured I had to do something to keep them out. I chose the man’s quick solution – I got out my enormous roll of duct tape that my Dad had bought me at Home Depot (seriously it’s about 100 feet of duct tape). I snipped off a couple pieces of that to cover the hole in the wire mesh and went on my way. I might as well have just hung a welcome sign out for the birds. I could have provided them with a whole ball of lint from the dryer! Alas, the duct tape did not work……here is the newly remodeled nesting area:

 

In this first picture you can see the pipe above my bathroom window...

 In this second picture you have a wonderful close-up of the hole the birds made and the nest they have built.

So much for the duct tape.....

Nature 1, duct tape 0