Hate To Exercise

Sometime in January 2021.

Lol, my captions recently seem to be all music / song related. I moved on from using book quotes at the very beginning of this diary, to song titles and lyrics – or a play on…. Ah, well if the shoe fits.

So what’s this all about. Well – following the I can get no, motivation for exercise phase the other day – I’ve been trying to find my motivation; and it comes in the shape of music and song. Let’s face it most of us like a good boogie from time to time. (by the way, have you seen the original video to this song – it’s from 1977, and quite frankly those sorts of sounds from the ladies, well, they belong in the bedroom – not as opening lyrics. Have a listen).

Anyway, in an attempt to get at least some exercise this month, last few days, I’ve gotten into a routine of having the music play in the living room constantly – mostly quietly as I work. I have a well cosmopolitan playlist on Spotify, that includes music from UK, US, China, Korean, Turkey, Russia, Poland, Spain – to name a few; and many of these in native language and many of the lyrics I know off by heart, and dare I say it correctly – as I have a tendency to try and learn them. After all I’m learning Mandarin, it’s only fitting that I learn the lyrics of the songs I’m listening to. As well as being a compilation of global music, it’s also a compilation of various genres – again ranging from classical (and yes – I do mean Mozart and Bach like – love his Tocata & Fugue); through some gentle blues, via alternative zen sounds, to pop & K-pop (OMG!!!) and finishing with some rock – nothing too heavy, but a touch of Guns & Roses and similar. It does mean that every now and then, amongst this medley are tunes that just make me wanna get up and dance. So, I dance – sometimes for a song, sometimes for two.

Yesterday however, in my effort at being more active and making up for the lack of HIITs this month, I pushed the boat out. I shimmied and shook that booty for a good 20 minutes – aiming for an amount of time similar to my usual HIIT sessions.

Now when I say I shimmed and boogied – my dancing amounted to a little bit more than moving on the spot from one leg to the other. The benefit of having taken some dance lessons in the past, is that I have basic understanding of many latin dances – let’s take jive and chacha as an example – both of which are fairly energetic (actually jive is a killer), and require considerable effort. Throw into that some gymnastic moves – high kicks, bridges, semi-splits (can’t do a full one just yet), alternating between high-cardio and prolonged stretch positions (bit of yoga ideology there) and few HIIT moves.

I’ve ended up with a work-out that equalled in intensity to my HIITs. It’s a kinda ZUMBA thingy – just of my own design. The aim was to get active, work-up a sweat, raise the heart-beat – do something, but do it in a way that I enjoy it and don’t loathe it as much as I loathe the HIITs.

I tell you what – holding 1.5kg weights for the entire duration of Roxette’s It must have been love – whilst moving my arms into various work-out positions – presses, raises, stretches – etc, is an effing killer. Between trying to hold myself for 30 seconds in as much of a split position as I can (so that I can do a full split one day), and working out my arms with the weights – I’m feeling a touch sore today. Actually my legs more than my arms. The gymnastics of dancing around my living room – have put more pressure (stretch) on my legs than any of the HIIT sessions so far. Pulling my leg muscles in very different directions – which can’t be a bad thing in a long term. I think I will throw this version of a dance work-out into the mix from now on.

Can’t do a high-kick for anything today. Legses need a break.

So, clearly January is my month-off exercise. I ain’t gonna deny that – I’m just going to do something about it in February. Absolutely. And I know I love to make excuses – one of which is the fact that last few weeks it’s been so cold that the idea of changing into my HIIT kit, or even getting dressed in one in the morning and working in it until a session time – was extremely unappealing. I think part of the fun of doing the HIITs earlier in the year was the fact that I would just throw on the leggings and sports bra and t-shirt in the morning and I was all set for whenever the HIIT desire caught up with me. When it’s this cold, all I want to do is sit snuggled up on a sofa in my big winter jumper. My current residence has huge flaming victorian windows – single-glazed, so it never really gets very warm in winter, especially during the day when the curtains are open. In the evenings it’s a touch better.

See, see how difficult it is for someone like me to get motivated to lose weight and tone up. Any excuse, any reason.

That’s not the reason for today’s entry. Where was I? Oh right, yes – January is my month off exercise. 2.5 HIIT sessions that’s it.

Today however I took a long, continuous stroll from my ‘old place of work’ – called the office. Any of you office workers remember what that is? What it looks like? Yeah, me neither. It just so happens that my dentist is in the city, near my previous ‘work place’, so I ended up in that neck of the woods. Seeing as I used to walk from work home quite often (something that is now a distant memory, and unlikely in the future due to some other changes coming up in my life) – well I decided to take a leisurely stroll home.

I have one word for what happened next. Ouch!

I’ve always been a walker. I used to walk home after work – about 5k. I go fell-walking every year and generally take every opportunity to walk rather than use transport. So I thought I’d be fine. Well – I wasn’t it. No amount of 25 minute Shreds/HIITS can compensate for the lack of walking – specifically lack of training my body and posture in an upward position for a prolong period of time. I suffer from back-pain anyway due to a really weird incident some years ago, so lower back pain is nothing new to me. Today was quite uncomfortable though. My spine always felt a tad compressed after a long walk, but today I was getting to a point when I was seriously considering quitting and getting on a bus.

This is what happens when you spend your entire days sitting glued to the sofa or chair. At least when I worked from the office there was an opportunity to walk – to the office, from the office, across the office to meetings, bathroom, restaurants, coffee shops. Now – now it’s a 10 steps journey from one side of the room to the other.

Moral to the story – never mind the HIIT sessions, I need to get out and start walking again. Get my body stretched, pulled, pushed and exercised in a different way. Strengthen up my core a tad a more, so that walking doesn’t become a real chore in the old age. Basically, start walking again. I might be getting some help with that soon though – fingers crossed – so motivation should not be a problem, for a change; but we’ll see. That’s still a few months way, and subject to few considerations. I’ll keep you posted.

Yes Sir, I can boogie… boogie woogie all night long..

Pain in the Effing Back