Thursday, January 27, 2011

XBX kicked my ass

I'm a slug. I did day one of XBX yesterday. Felt pretty easy. Woke up this morning with hamstrings so tight, I can hardly move my legs.


So even though I should do it daily, I'm not doing it today.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

My program of choice

So, how am I getting fit?

To this point, I've been a bit of an exercise equipment hoarder. I'm one of those people. The hope-springs-eternal-if-only-I-had-the-right-equipment-I'd-be-fit-people. Or I fall back to my tried and true program of hand weights and a whole lot of dog walking. Which has worked in the past, but I clearly need something I can stick to.

Then I saw this on Slate. Sarah Wildman describes watching her dad follow JP Muller's program. This is a century old fitness program that will look very familiar to anyone who had a gym teacher that loved a good old-fashioned round of calisthenics. Wildman's video of her father is pretty compelling evidence.

I'm not using this program. It reminded me, though, of the calisthenics my grandfather did every day. And he was quite fit into his 70s.

From my grandfather, my mind jumped to my aunt. When I was little, my aunt worked out according to the Royal Canadian Air Force program. For men, this is the 5BX or five basic exercises program. Wikipedia has an article about it, of course. I remembered that my aunt was very fit then.

I found the women's program called XBX. You might get lucky and find a copy at a used bookstore. But there's various versions online.

There's 10 exercises. You progress through 4 levels following charts. The charts lay out how many days you spend at each level. Apparently, it should take only 12 minutes a day.

I'll begin tomorrow at the easiest level and give a full report on my daily progress.

How opening a jar opened my eyes

First post and I'm not exercising yet. That will come. And like the true procrastinator I am, I say that will come tomorrow.

First, I wanted to talk about how I got here. I opened a jar. Of peanut butter. Last week, I took a jar of peanut butter out of my suitcase (I'd been in another city and taken the pb on the plane with me). I tried to open the jar. It resisted. I insisted. Finally, I had to get a knife out and pry the lid. And there was a distinct sucking noise. The jar had vacuum sealed on the plane.

I sprained my wrist opening a jar.

I need to get fit. I'm only 32 and I sprained my g.d. wrist opening a jar.