Jumpin' Jehosephat, I'm blabby today!!

Good thing tomorrow is Sunday - we have had 2 very difficult days in a row. The creepy part is, I have a love/hate thing with them. HATE the workouts while doing them, but feel all cool and buff afterwards.

Yesterday - the evil Dr. Tabata came back to visit with his Russian Kettlebell friends, in other words, Kettlebell hell. For anyone who may not remember exactly what this is here's the description - full strength for women is with 16kg in each had - I did 12 kg (AKA 26 lbs per hand!! - sounds more impressive that way.)

Tabata Intervals (20 seconds work/10 seconds rest repeated 8 times) applied in turn to:
- Front squat - one kettlebell in each hand
- Double clean-and-jerk - again, one kettlebell in each hand
- Alternating floor press - still one kettlebell in each hand
- Alternating rows - and there is still one freakin' kettlebell in each hand
- Two-handed swings - woo hoo - this is just with one - a nice ending!
with a one-minute rotation break between exercises.

The reality is- this one doesn't sound so bad in theory - and the first four rounds, it's quite doable. Then come the last four - these are the ones that you suffer through. It's the lowest number of reps that count (kind of backwards, because if you have a bad round, why keep going in the next rounds?? I mean really....bad mentality, but when you're exhausted if you push past that number it doesn't count anyway - so why go there?) I think I got 5/4/7/7/10 last time - at least I did improve - 7/4/10/10/10.
What I can't figure out is how to make the clean& jerks and swings any faster. It's possible to maybe get 1 or 2 more in the first rounds - but they still take time if you're gonna keep form up...right? I vaguely tossed around trying this one full strength (16kg) but chickened out and wanted to see what I could do the 2nd time first. Maybe I'll try it next time, of course, then I'll have 2's and 3's. We'll see - play it by ear. The one really cool thing about this one - is when you leave, your arms are pumped!! So, while thoroughly exhausted, you're likes"yeah, uh huh look at me, I'm buff all right!" - okay, maybe not quite that hokey, but you get the gist!

Today....the "Dirty Thirty" a modification of the Filthy freakin' Fifty. Which means you do 30 of the following:

- 30 box jumps (24"/20")
- 30 pullups
- 30 kettlebell swings (24 kg/16 kg)
- 30 walking lunges
- 30 knees-to-elbows
- 30 push press (75/55)
- 30 back extensions
- 30 wallballs (20/16)
- 30 burpees
- 30 double-unders

Again, just looking at it, it's all good - not a big deal. In reality, it's alot of freakin' work. I started with the wallballs - and I am very happy with that - I got the most difficult, time consuming things done in the beginning, and the last part went pretty quickly. Although it was a bit disconcerting to be on my 20th burpee (burpees take 942 years to get through!), and watch people change stations 4 times. Add to that my singular double unders, and note it took about 20 minutes to just get through those 2 things! There are a lot of different elements to this one, every time I looked up thinking I was only a round or two away from completion, I would check out the board, and there would be 18 more things to do. (yes, exaggeration, it's a gift!). So I completed this in.....oh nuts, I can't remember - I think it was 28 minutes or so. Now, the thing I did like about this one, is that it is do-able. Filthy Fifty is do-able if you are a super-hero - at least doable in 45 minutes. I am no super hero, but give me an hour/hour and a half, and I'll finish it.

So, long story short, I've worked my ass off the last 2 days. Therefore, if things worked the way they should, I should have a totally hot bod for 2 days, right?? Here's my view on how the world should work: if you work out like a fiend for a day, you should see the immediate gratification the next day,and if you do nothing the blub forms overnight. So one day, you're Carny Wilson, then if you work really hard, the next day you look like Halle Berry, sit on your butt and eat bon-bons and Carny comes back.

Now wouldn't that be a fun world????