thighs, and those thigh muscles that help you balance when you leaned to the side. Well, as you all know I have lousy balance—so those thighs muscles were really getting a workout.So a bit of experimentation has gone on today. The experiment? To see if I can manage to wear my new black high heel shoes all day after a Pilates class. Well, it’s almost 4 pm and so far so good. Of course, I haven’t been doing circuits around the office like I normally would but I'm managing. (Photo- my new black shiny new heels… aren’t they cute?!!?)
I was not the first one to class this morning. I’ve been focusing on my collections booklet (my poems, my paintings, and what not) that I give out each year as Christmas presents. I lost track of time and was a little speed demon in the car on the way to class this morning. (Thank goodness, there were no cops.) So I get there and roll out my sickly green exercise mat. Lay down on the mat and away we go… This was not Aladdin’s carpet ride—darn it!
So we do a Superman. Lying on stomach with arms out in front off the floor and lifting feet and possibly thighs (if you can manage that) off of the floor too. Then, you raise opposite arms and legs at a time. Then, hold everything up for a minute. You know, sometimes, a minute can seem like a REALLY long time. Hey, and then we get to do roll-ups! I actually managed to do 5 of them total. A sign of improvement! YES!
Next, we are impersonating a table (again- like in yoga last week). From the table pose, we brought one knee in and up towards our chest and then kick your leg out straight behind you. We did this for about 50 times. Then, hold you leg out behind you raising your leg straight up as far as you can. Keep doing this until the teacher counts down …5, 4, 3, 2, and 1. Now you get to bend that leg at the knee and try to curl it up into your behind. Lucky you! Okay, now is the fun part. You touch that knee behind your other knee that’s on the floor and then raise that leg back and up as far as you can. Then, for the encore… you get to pretend you are a dog watering a fire hydrant. I couldn’t resist not making the comment that the last I checked we were all females here. Raise that bent knee up, and out to the side as close to 90 degrees as you can. Oh, feel that burn… in both thighs! Now repeat to the other side.
Then it was on to the balance beams. No, we did not try to balance on them. We just used them to lean on a little as we swung our legs (one at a time) to and fro in all kinds of different combinations. I was surprised that I was starting to feel the burn in my outer thigh that was standing still. Well, I happen to discover those muscles that attempt to compensate and balance. Obviously, they hadn’t worked in quite a while. OUCH!
But wait! There’s more….we took it back to the mats~! (As close as I’ll ever get to taking it to the mattresses—[The Godfather]). We do some bridges and squeeze those butts up and in. Then, hold your butt up there, and while still squeezing push your knees out wide and back in. Jane Fonda eat your heart out! We now end up doing a series of abs exercises. Work those stomach muscles with legs in the air, then the bicycle legs. Then, you do opposite elbow brought up to opposite knee with the one leg crossed over the other. Then, bring that crossed over foot to the ground, and do alb crunches towards the ceiling. Now do everything for the other side. Then, we do some “In and Outs”. These are like doing a sit up and at the same time raising your legs towards your stomach at the same time. YIKERS! Then, we finally get some good stretches in and the class is finis! Yes!
Also, if you have read this far into my blog… I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope it’s a wonderful restful food fest filled holiday for you! I am planning on doing the Cold Turkey Run in the morning, later a dinner at a restaurant (not sure what’s open—an adventure for sure), and then catching a movie—Blind Side, hopefully!
No comments:
Post a Comment