39. Below The Belt + Red Hot Core + Hula Hooping.

Well that was certainly an idea I had.

Hello balance! Only toppled over once today, I managed hood ornament and road warrior 3 without issue. Although obviously with bendy legs. I didn't get as flexible this time, usually I'm shocked at how limber I become once I'm warmed up but I really didn't feel it this time. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough.

Actually managed a 10 count push up!  Using my knees of course. I was ok with all the push ups in both workouts, I wavered a bit during red hot core but I survived!

Standing split is the WORST.  It's degenerated so badly. Also all those down dog crunches and three legged dog are great, but I am super useless at them. My supporting leg is wobbling around all over the shop. Ditto for any one legged moves.

Hahahaha still broken aeroplane. Wow. Ridiculous. Still pretty impossible. Even with my leg bent. Did I mention I wasn't even aware there were muscles in that bit of leg? Good grief.

Hooping was ace! Loads of Rob Zombie.  Must sleep now, can't focus.

38. Fat Burner.

To the surprise of no one I didn't do any exercise while I was away. I didn't even chase the various kids around because I was in a nice skirt.
My darling boyfriend has decided to try a gluten free diet for a while so I'll be sort of joining in with that, though it's not far off what I have been doing recently, apart from cereal.
My legs did not enjoy this. Ouch. I wore really heavy boots for the funeral and so they were already unhappy. Broken table crunches weren't as shocking as I was expecting, I've kind of retained some strength which is nice! I managed 4 out of 5 sets of push ups, still using my knees but I'm ok with that.
Thunderbolt is still pretty bad, still can't get my heels down in down dog, although once again, this didn't deteriorate as much as I'd feared while I was lazing around in lovely Scotland.
Got to get back to work on my stomach, hula hooping season is looming. That said, our performance on Saturday was an absolute fucking shambles. The sound guy cocked up our music so our whole routine was a mess. So I probably burned a few calories off in rage at least.
Anyway, gotta get back to doing a bit of stretching every day now.

37. Fat Burner

I know I'm going to miss this until at least Tuesday next week. It's Grandpa's funeral so I'll be in Scotland from Sunday. I did an hour of hula hoop practice yesterday and we've got a show at a festival tomorrow so that'll be a little bit of exercise. I'll try to do lots of walking in Scotland, might even take my travel hoop!

This workout is pretty easy now, it's weird to think how hard I found it at first, which gives me great hope for broken aeroplane. Managed 4 out of 5 sets of push ups, still on my knees. Flexibility is improved and I can see the improvement during the workout as I stretch. Heels still aren't on the floor in down dog but hey ho. Lunges are pretty good, nice and sustained and balanced-ish. I think the Below The Belt has really helped that.

I listened to P!nk while doing this, which was ace! Except it was really hard not to just dance around the room. So I'm going to do that while the bath is running instead.

Oh, also I've been SO GOOD with dieting. I've eaten fruit and yoghurt for breakfast most days, and some kind of salad and either fish or chicken for lunch. I've had loads of avocado and spinach and I've been putting boiled eggs in my salads and it's fucking delicious. My friend and I have been trying to go to the market together because you can get loads of fruit and veg but it's normally way too much for one person so we go together and split our spoils, it's fiendishly cheap. I have lost a tiny bit of weight, I think. I haven't weighed myself but I feel like I'm a little thinner. Annoyingly it's mostly boob but you can't have everything.

36. Diamond Dozen + Red Hot Core

It's weird how I consider the diamond dozen to be an easy workout these days. It's because there are lots of pauses while he explains stuff and I can dance around.

I feel way more flexible! Fuck yeah! Literally I can almost touch the floor with my knees straight once I've warmed up a bit. Down dog is still not right but I'm closer, I feel like my spine has lengthened rather than my hamstrings but I'll take it!

Still can't do more than three push ups on my knees. But hell, even three is pretty amazing!

I feel like I've lost a bit of weight, just not off my sodding stomach. I'll try to weigh myself at some point soon.

35. Below The Belt

Not so bad this time. I heavily modified the broken aeroplane! Holy crap I didn't even know I had muscles in that part of my leg, much less that they went that way.

Lunges are fine, balance is still an issue, but only the odd wobble.

I'm a little worried I've fucked up my back with my piss-poor attempt at thunderbolt, might have to keep my arms down for now. It's just my very lower back, I don't know if it's because my spine is quite curved at that point anyway. I'm trying to keep my tailbone tucked in as part of improving my posture but whenever I straighten up my back I instinctively stick my belly and bum out.

In all honesty I kinda don't like this workout. My legs aren't one of the areas I want to improve, and I HATE that bit at the beginning when he's all "hey chicks, everyone knows you guys want nice asses, right?" I get that maybe most women do, but if he doesn't do a similar thing for guys regarding, I dunno, huge biceps or some shit I'll be less than impressed.

 I'll keep at it a few more times, and see what it suggests in the plan. It's nice to encounter new moves and there are some bits I really enjoy. I feel like it probably really helps my flexibility, by the end of the workout I could touch the floor almost without bending my knees so which was pretty amazing so I'll definitely keep trying it even if only for that, plus it does tire me out.

34. Fat Burner + Red Hot Core

My neck and shoulders have been killing me these last two days, I hope this helps, plus the bath I'm about to have.

Thunderbolt is still awful, I can get my arms higher if I don't look up so that's been making it slightly easier.

I tried coming up on one leg during lunging diamond cutters and I was surprised at how much of a difference it made! My legs really felt it.

Push ups continue to be ok, I managed 3 out of 5 on my knees and planked for the others. Although this time the 10 second one during Red Hot Core completely defeated me. Managed it for a bit but just had to lie down.

I've done at least 5 sun salutes every morning since Wednesday and it's kinda nice, I am so inflexible in the mornings so it's a good way to wake up. I hope it's not what is hurting my neck though, bending over really strains my shoulders and neck, I'm not sure why.

I'm insanely hungry of late, I think it might be the week before my period but I'm really struggling to go more than 4 hours without eating. Yesterday was reasonably healthy, although I tried pork faggots for the first time and I cannot imagine they are made from the choicest parts of the pig. Gonna try to stick to fruit and veg today, maybe some salmon later. For now I'm gonna have a banana so I don't pass out in the bath.

33. Hula Hooping

A good hour of hooping before the club opened. Isolation has actually improved, it's almost like having better upper body strength helps these things!
Tried a bit of Frank Turner, a couple of songs are good for hooping. I finally remembered to try out Ghost Town by theSpecials and it was aawesome!The trouble is I'm not very good at choreography, I really want to work out a better routine but I just don't know what to do with myself.
I must remember to take my old phone so I can film this embryo routine of mine.
So sleepy now, I was going to clean and do yoga but I couldn't bring myself to vacuum this late, even at the weekend so I'm just going to sleep instead.

32. Energy + Fat Burner

Well. That was an interesting idea.

My Grandpa died so I spent a few days in Scotland with my family. It was kinda fun actually, my sister does climbing at her Uni and they have free yoga lesson at the climbing centre so we had fun comparing and contrasting styles. She taught me Sun Salute which is series of moves I'm going to try to do every morning to improve my flexibility, plus she said it took her about 6 months to be able to touch her toes which makes me feel better about my piss-poor hamstrings. It was sad, but kind of ok, he'd had a nice life and he was very very old.

So I'm not sure why I decided to do both of these things today. Weirdly now my calves hurt loads, though that might be from wandering all over the hilly terrain of Scotland in DM's that don't tie up. Oops. Energy was fine, standing split is still useless but I'm trying to keep my hands closer to my feet in an attempt to be more flexible and it doesn't seem ot make that much difference so maybe I'm bendier than I thought. I tired to lift my knees off the floor during the crocodile bit of push ups, that went ok once but made the rest of the workout much harder on my arms.
I stopped for some breakfast between workouts, fruit and yoghurt. I'd been to the market before I had to run off North so we've got LOADS of fruit in the fridge, a completely ridiculous amount of oranges for a quid which I will never eat all of and must take to work. We also got a bunch of veg so I'm going to have awesome couscous and veg today, oooh, maybe with eggs!
Fat Burner was ok, I'm getting used to the speed of it though thunderbolt is still a nightmare. I worry that I curve my spine inwards too much when I try to straighten my back so I'm concentrating on keeping my tailbone tucked in but it's ruining my form on almost everything else. Stupid spine. Push ups were HARD. I tried again to lift my knees off the floor but I nearly died and couldn't even plank without my knees on the last push up of all. Now my arms hurt A LOT but they're always the first thing to go when I stop doing yoga for a while so I wanted to push myself a bit since I've missed a few days. Thanks me! You jerk.
Right. Now I must get my shit together. My Education boss has given me the day off but I know I got behind before I left so I'm going to go in for an hour or so, then go see the cool exhibition my friends are running in town.

31. Below The Belt

Bloody hell. That was a shock. There were at least two points during this work out where I actually laughed out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of the idea that I would be able to do these poses. At least one of those times I surprised myself.

Oh thunderbolt, you are the worst. I can squat quite deeply now but as soon as I have to raise my arms it's impossible. I can't keep them back by my ears and have my back straight and bend my knees very far at all. I'll have to take some pictures of this epic failure so I can measure my progress.

Ahahahahahaha what even is broken airplane? Where did that come from? Not a hope in hell. Also I'm going to have to call it broken aeroplane, sorry. I can't even lift my leg off the floor at the moment but I really like the transition into broken table and I'm looking forward to being able to do this one smoothly. That was one of the points that made me laugh at the possbility of doing it and I was not surprised by my abilities. On the other hand road warrior 3 was more possible than I originally scoffed. Still not amazing and my legs weren't anything approaching straight but balancing was ok. I still struggle coming up into superstar from anything but I do feel like my balance has improved.

Hood ornament is kind of fun, I nearly died after 8 broken table crunches but I made it all the way to 10 on both sides! Also yay push ups, I even stuck out the 10 second exploding one.

Unfortunately about 10 minutes from the end of this workout I got a call from my Mum saying they don't think my Grandpa is going to last the night so I've had to rush off to Scotland which also means I probably won't get anything done but meh.

30. Red Hot Core

Just a sneaky one before work. Left hip slightly happier today which is nice. Still trying not to use any modifications apart from my inflexible legs, jackknife is still a mess, though I feel like there's been a very slight improvement and yesterday I almost managed to touch the floor at some point so clearly my flexibility is improving, just very very slowly.

Gotta go to work now and attempt to stay awake during films.

29. Fat Burner

And kind of half of Red Hot Core before I realised I am too sleepy for this shit and I had to stop.

Three push ups on my knees, I am a goddamn machine. Broken table crunches like they were nothing. Except really really hard nothing. I'm going to see what the next workout is like, I have literally never even played the second disk so this is pretty exciting.

My hips were better in the figure 4 stretches, actually nearly got my foot to my face! Down dog is slightly improved, I think doing two days in a row has helped so I might start trying to stretch out my hamstrings on a daily basis.

Left hip was still clunky during scissor crunches, it's not painful, just weird.

Now I must bathe and sleep,  it's really warm tonight!

28. Energy

This is actually for yesterday, I snuck a quick one in before the pub so I had to run off as soon as I could and thus, no time to blog.

I'm REALLY pleased with my arms, there's no visible difference (that I can see) but I feel way stronger, I'm still using my knees for push ups but at work I'm finding lifting and carrying easier and I was playfighting with a friend of mine and she said she thought I was stronger.

I'm really displeased with my hamstrings, literally no improvement at all. I feel slightly more flexible otherwise but honestly I can't say as I've noticed any difference. My standing split is marginally better than when I first started but hasn't improved in the last, say, month or so. I also haven't lost any weight but I'm ok with that, I'm still unhappy about my various wobbly bits but I know I'm pretty skinny and my diet is awful so if I really want to change it I know where the problem lies.

I'm gonna put up some photos I took the other day of my various lack of flexibility.

Excuse my pyjamas. I have a couple more but because I'm using my crappy phone the angle is all wrong and you can't really see what's going on. Bear in mind these are photos taken after at least 2 months of working out. Awful. Actually I'll put this one up too because it's the WORST.

What the fuck is that? Ye gods, I despair.

I'm hoping I can stick to a vague schedule in the next few weeks, my Grandpa is alive but the doctors are suggesting weeks rather than months so I'm going to try to go up and see him as much as possible. It's going to mean long train journeys up to Scotland so I'd better find a huge crochet project to be getting on with, we do need new cushion covers. I might try to dig out the MP3 version, but the Boyfriend purchased this so it'll probably be buried in his emails somewhere. I'll give it a go, maybe the hotel will even have a gym, do Holiday Inns have gyms? I somehow doubt it.

Anyway, to summarise: yay arms! Boo hamstrings. The end.

Hula Hooping

A good hour and a half of hooping at the club. Gotta improve that isolation, tried to film my routine but they were doing stocktake so I couldn't have music on. Shoulder hooping is weird, I can maintain it while walking round in a circle one way but not the other. Foxton Locks festival is coming up so I should probably be practicing that routine but I forgot. Halfway through my Mum called to say my last remaining grandparent is in hospital with probably cancer so it was a bit lackluster after that. We'll know more tomorrow but bleh.

27. Diamond Dozen + Red Hot Core

Oh today. Birthday party at the weekend so I'm suffering a little, but today was good.
Still all the same though, no hamstrings, no flexibility, blah blah blah.
No or very few modifications during Red Hot Core, but my left hip still clicks a lot during scissor crunches. Upper body strength is good, still ok with one or two push ups on my knees which is cool.