Weights

If you caught my New Year's post (not linking it, it's only a few entries back) then you may remember that one of my New Year's resolutions was to have more balance in my life.  This is kind of an "all-inclusive" resolution, but one thing I definitely wanted to work on was adding a little more balance to my work-outs.  I wanted to do more cross-training (truth: any kind of cross-training would be more than I was doing last year) and I wanted to incorporate weights into my routine.  I have been successful with one of these and unsuccessful with the other.  


The cross-training has not happened yet.  I had the best of intentions today, but sometimes these things don't work out.  The gym I belong to in Charleston is pretty good.  There are a lot of locations all across the Low Country, so you're never far from one.  Which I like a lot.  They have a wide variety of classes offered all day.  Which I also like a lot (actually these are the two reasons I joined this gym, but I never really take advantage of these things).  Two of them have pools.  


So today I decided to skip my run and go for a nice swim instead.  I got all ready, packed my gym bag, and drove over to one of the locations that is advertised as having a pool.  Technically the gym does have a pool.  I mean there is a large-ish, in-ground pool-like structure, but in no way, shape or form was it the type of pool that I expected to find at a gym.  I was expecting lap lanes and found a place where you can splash around with your kids.  A few gym members were bobbing around on pool noodles and I knew that there was no way that I could swim laps there.  Pretty disappointing.  I think I'll give the other pool location a shot, but I think this time I'll do some investigative work before.


Ok, so the cross-training's been a total bust.  But the weight lifting has not.  And I'm excited about it.  A few weeks ago I bought a book on weight lifting for women.  More specifically I bought this book:

which you can purchase here

This book's pretty intense.  I don't know if I'm as weight-lifty as the guy who wrote it (ok, actually I do know that I'm not nearly as weight-lifty as he is.  Exhibit A: I said "weight-lifty").  But its full of great information and misconceptions about women and weight-lifting, comes with a nutrition section, and (here's the best part) SIX MONTHS of weight lifting work outs.  


It's broken down into stages and each stage is made up of two work-outs that you do for a certain amount of times.  In stage one, you do each of the two work-outs 8 times or a total of 16 lifting sessions.  The best part is that it's not a long, drawn out sequence.  Both sequences in stage one are only five exercises long.  Even when I really took my time today, I was done in less than twenty minutes.  Which is totally great and really manageable.  And if soreness is any kind of indication of effectiveness, it's totally working - I'm crazy sore from my Monday weight lifting session and I'm simultaneously looking forward to and dreading the soreness I'll feel tomorrow.


I think I'll take some before and after pictures, but I won't post them until I see a major difference.  So there's that to look forward to :)


Hope everyone's having a great week so far!

Amazon's Epic Fail

Like everyone else, every once in a while I get these "Amazon Recommends" emails from amazon.com.  

I usually enjoy them - they keep me posted on new DVD releases, what's new in the world of political science books, and offer me deals on literature.  

Today something went horribly wrong.

When I opened my recommendations "just for me" this is what I saw:

I do not sleep out doors.  I do not camp.  I do not know why this was recommended "just for me."  But it did make me laugh - targeted marketing gone horribly wrong.


But if you camp, check out Amazon...I hear they're having some great deals.