Shred, Day 1

I have been reading about Jillian Michael’s Thirty Day Shred over at one of my new favorite blogs, Healthy Tipping Point. The first few times I read about this video I didn’t think it would be something that I would enjoy because I usually don’t like videos, even though I’ve bought 4 or 5 in my time (including a Yoga for Beginners DVD I’ve never played). However, I have come to realize that I’ve almost exclusively been running at the gym and not fitting in my weight lifting as much as I would like. However, today I decided that I would see what all the hype was about.

I bought the DVD as well as 3 pound weights (I usually use more weight but Caitlin said it was pretty tough for anything more than 3 and she’s rather fit). The DVD has three workouts each getting harder. Each workout has a two minute warm-up and then 3 sets of 3 minutes strength training, 2 minutes cardio and 1 minute abs and then a short cool-down. At first I thought it was going to be easy, and from the outside looking in it does look easy, but it’s actually rather hard. I worked up a good sweat within 5-8 minutes.

In addition, to the Shred, M and I had decided to do an 8 minute Ab workout DVD on nights we don’t do pushups (I found that DVD at my apartment this weekend as well), so tonight I did the Shred and then 8 more minutes of abs. Normally, I forgo the abs (the thought process going something like this: if you can’t see my abs why should I worry about them? Of course, I know this is completely not true and that strengthening the abs can help tons with running) so I’m hoping this has some good effects on my running.

WIth the 30 day shred, 8 minute abs, and the hundred pushup challenge, the next 29 days are going to be hard and hopefully very beneficial at the same time. I will likely be putting my Shred updates within my daily posts from here on out, but since this was day one I thought I’d give it a special shout out.