Sam you B…..eauty!

On Thursday, the four soldiers, in our class of eight, who had not been nailed by the flu or some sort of injury made our way through a strength workout.  Us girls, Tessa and I, had Sam as our trainer.  We started with some stretches, not static stretches but dynamic stretches, so swinging our legs up as high as we could, and then our arms.  We learned that you only do static stretches such as stretching your legs up behind you and your arms across your body after a workout.  This is to ensure that all the muscles and joints etc are back in the right place.  But to warm up you need to be moving, to warm up the muscles. 

We then went on to do strength exercises.  We started with squats.  One thing I should warn is that I cannot multi-task, so counting and working out did not work.  Tessa did all the counting.  I think we did 20 squats.  Then it was push ups, ladies push-ups, I tried for men’s but Sam likes ladies doing ladies push-ups.  We did 40 push ups.  Sam wanted to work us to the point that we would call her mean names.  She achieved this by Friday morning when I could not lift my arms.  After push-ups it was sit-ups time, 3 reps of 12. Ending off with 40 lunges.  We then moved into a long cool down of static stretches.  Bongani gave us a general workout program to follow and I should make a move on that soon.  But for now, Sam you absolute beauty.

Basic strength workout:

Warm up: dynamic stretches - swinging the legs

20 squats
40 push-ups
32 sit-ups
40 lunges

Cool down: static stretches

NB: Perfect form while doing repetitions is more important than the number you can do.  Rather do less reps correctly.

Cholesterol testing as easy as 1, 2, 3.... maybe easier!

I also decided to check my cholesterol levels this morning.  This was inspired by the fact that my mom and sister have high cholesterol.  This was much easier to do than I expected,  I didn’t drink or eat anything and simply went to the pharmacy this morning at 8:30.  One prick of the finger, and my cholesterol, at 4.6, is apparently healthy.  I still need to confirm this but I will go with what the nurse said for now.  Mmmh I was thinking of changing my diet, if my results were high, as apparently chicken couscous salad every night is unhealthy but as a result of the low cholesterol levels the motivation is lacking.... but we are starting slowly.  Now that the electricity is back on perhaps I will make something substantial for supper but after a day filled with take-outs my taste buds are craving more msg-packed meals. Back to my tea and milktart.

A healthy BMI

Well, I can definitely feel the results of yesterday’s “fitness” test.  Apparently, Tessa, a fellow classmate can too, because I just liked her facebook status saying “Everything hurts-I can’t lift my arms...Stupid fitness tests”!  She doesn’t seem too happy about this but I am over-the-moon.  I am a pain=gain kind of girl (although this is not correct thinking, more on that later).  Perhaps some stretching was in order.

The test wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, or expected, but nonetheless, it’s going to work.  Ultimate letdown as I walked into the HKE laboratory.  Not the fact that I felt like a lab rat in a laboratory, but that I noticed the predominant female presence.....  I have decided to use this to my advantage and to get my body looking like those skinny....

For starters we were split into groups of four.  My group was given heart monitors and made to do steps for 6 minutes in beat to some machine basically “up, up, down, down” and after every two minutes the pace increased.  According to Daneel (another classmate) mine was good but seen as we are both learning, I’d rather wait for the trainers to give the report back.  Turns out we are having group exercise once a week with the trainers, they are not being individually allocated, and then we will do later tests to see our progress.  My dream of a personal trainer is dashed.  But perhaps, group training and group weigh in’s are the way forward?  The group environment certainly made the guys more competitive.

We were then taken to get our BMI and hip-to-waist ratios done, highlight: I LOVE THE HKE SCALE! I weigh 59.4kg according to their scale and I was thinking I’d be 62kg.  Apparently at my height of 1.64m I have a healthy BMI of 22something, which is healthy.  My hip to waist ratio, well let’s just say, I am a pear.  Which isn’t bad, but isn’t great either.  I want them to be equal apparently according to the one trainer.   In which case, point proven, my thighs need to go.

Further tests that were done include, flexibility, power (this included jumping up as high as you could), balancing on one leg with your eyes closed- I think I would definitely kick butt on survivor. My stomach has just reminded me about the sit-ups and burpies.  Oh and of course the push-ups.  I chose to do the men’s push ups.  Bad choice? Nah, I could only do 16 in 2 minutes but this will improve and my teacher-arms will disappear.

Furthermore, we are encouraged to do exercise at least 3 times a week excluding our once a week standing appointment with our trainers.  This is not a problem for me as I take spinning classes three times a week and of course underwater hockey and ballroom.   I suppose this should all be rounded off with a balanced diet....but we are starting off slowly.

First lesson on my way to health: BMI is an adequate measure.  Sure it is not the only measure but it is accurate.  Unless you are a short body builder who has a ton of muscle, you will get trustworthy results.

How to measure your BMI: (Your weight) divided by (your height)²

My BMI: (59.4)/(1.64)²   =22.085

A healthy BMI is between 19 and 24.  A BMI of 25-30 means that you are overweight.  Anything above means that you are obese.  A BMI of less than 18.5 means that you are underweight.

That's the best image of me in a costume, if these 20 weeks work, the final picture should be in a bikini.

20 weeks to "fitness" begin

Well, tomorrow is the big day.....we are being allocated a personal trainer and customised training programme.  Truly living the life! What’s not to love about an Honours course that requires you to get fit, oops sorry I mean conditioned? It’s every lady’s dream.  I have high hopes for this 20 week programme, my personal trainer is going to have to prove his muscle.  His or her I guess, but I’m hoping for a male personal trainer.  Now, now I understand the working relationship between personal trainer and client -purely professional.  But, I know myself.  Give me a male personal trainer and I’ll definitely work my ass off, literally. 

My fitness profile:  I am relatively fit or conditioned.  By the end of the programme my terminologies will be impeccable, stay with me....  I have always played sport, you name it. I have tried them both socially and on a competitive provincial level. I am also an indoor cycling instructor, and have taken up underwater hockey and ballroom dancing this year.  Therefore I qualify as fit? Yes, I would think so.  I may be told differently tomorrow, however the thing that bothers me is my thighs.  No surprise there, but they bother me.  No matter what I have tried, nothing seems to work.  I can run until even my dogs get bored and still the flab does not turn into muscle.  This is the challenge I will put to my PT tomorrow.  And if after 20 weeks, I can confidently and almost gloatingly (I swear some women gloat in their bikini-toned bodies) my PT would have shown his or her weight in gold.  We’ll get technical tomorrow!