Sun, rain, and on Saturday a hail come snow storm albeit very briefly, the last 7 days have certainly thrown a lot of weather at us. So much in fact that I've not felt my usual urge to drag my sorry ass to the gym on my usual days. If it has been nice, I've been compelled to make the most of it and get stuff done, and if it has been awful, I've stayed in rather than keep getting drenched. In my defence, I have been doing the odd session at home using routines on YouTube on the tv in the treatment room (having moved everything out) as well as some new apps that I've discovered, which I'm going to share with you now, so you too have not got an excuse to fit in just a little bit of exercise at home. Remember, holiday season is on the way, and we've all got to try and fit into our swimming cossies at some point!!!
I've started more and more to believe that exercise for me does not have to be 100% fast fast fast all the time. I actually do enjoy taking the pace down, protecting myself from injury, taking added pressure off joints etc so what I've downloaded are more geared towards improving my flexibility and strength as opposed to going at it hammer and tongs and sweating like a glass blowers behind!
SWORKIT is split into 4 sections; Strength, cardio, yoga & stretching. You can set the amount of time you wish to train and then you are guided by a trainer through a whole routine of exercises whilst a video plays of someone demonstrating the move so you can see what you should be doing. Have used this a few times now and I enjoy it although in the stretching section it tended to repeat some exercises a bit too often.
STRETCHING is linked in with SWORKIT so you have the same narrator and models demonstrating. Split into Full Body, Head to Toe and Pilates Essentials sections, again I found the stretching slightly repetitive. The Pilates section is really good (I did a 20 minute teaser to test it out) with little to no repetition. If you are a newbie to Pilates I'd take it steady as the exercises are one size fits all with no modifications available for beginners or if you're carrying an injury. Aside from that, a really good app to try if you're unable to make your usual Pilates session.
Finally, DOWN DOG, I luuurrrvvveeee it!! I have the free version but am tempted to pay the £2.99 a month to get the full content. Choose your exercise time and off you go, again with a model demonstrating each move. I chose intermediate as opposed to beginner. By Christ, half way through, the exercises ramped up a bit and I was questioning my decision but stuck with it. With the free content your only musical accompaniment is alt beats, like an Ibiza soundtrack which I enjoyed too. Another plus for the app is that it shows you the artist name and track title.
There you go, some interesting and fun apps to get you moving, and make yu more supple and spry. Let me know if you try them and what you think.
Til next week
