Wisdom from tonight's pump soundtrack

When love becomes a lie,
It's time to say goodbye.
When love becomes a lie,
Don't waste your tears,
Just say goodbye. (song here)

Let mercy come
and wash away
what I've done. (song here)

it's all about you!

body pump 71 review

Have been doing this one for a while now. Here's what I think.

BODYPUMP 71

Warm up: Magnetized (Original Mix) – James Sampson

Yeah. Normal.

Squats: Summer of 69 (Picco, Jens O & Maddin Original Mix)– Mega-mania

Pretty easy, this one. Some bottom halves, but there's not much else tricky so it's fine. The music is cliched - not the original song, but the mix bits. Cut and paste from 50 billion other songs.

Chest: Right Round – Flo Rida

Hard. I've fatigued out every time. Then there's push ups at the end. Hard.

Back: When love becomes a lie (Cascada Remix) – Liz Kay

No row in between the clean and presses - tiring but over pretty fast. The bar is really heavy for the rows by the end.

Triceps: Black Fingernails, Red Wine – Eskimo Joe

I do my own thing for triceps, so can't say.

Biceps: What I’ve Done – Hiroshi Free

Fine. Lyrics for this song interesting. Change about 5 words and we'd sing it in church...

Lunges: Doesn’t Matter – Mamad Voltek

I like this. With step. Not really hard.

Shoulders: Operation Blade 09 – Public Domain

It keeps going at the end when you think it's all over! Overhead presses, plate work, push ups, plate work, overhead presses.

Abs: Circus – Britney Spears

On step. Interesting. I like it. Funny plank hold at end off step.

Cooldown: Sober – Pink

Always love pink.

Body Pump 70

I've done this for a month now. About time I wrote it up...

Body Pump #70

Warmup: Don’t Leave me with the Light On – Danzel

standard, nothing too special.

Squats: It’s All Your Fault – Pink

Love the song. A little shorter than normal, but still fairly intense.

Chest: Infinity 2008 – Guru Josh Project

Horrid. The song works in 5 bar phrases which are hard to get used to. There are a lot of extra slow presses using the whole 5 bars to go down then up, but then the singles... Ouch. I've recently put my weights up (20kgs) and if I'm still alive at the end I'm doing well.

Back: True Believer – E-Type

Don't be tricked - there's a false ending about 90 seconds before the real end. It's hard work and there are not many breaks.

Triceps: Keeps Gettin’ Better – Christine Aguilera

No bar (which I like). Pushups, kickbacks, overhead plate thing.

Biceps: Gotta Be Somebody – Nickelback

This one's not too bad. Pretty standard.

Lunges: Raindrops (Encore Une Fois) – Sash! feat. Stunt

Hurts. One leg then squats (feels unco since one leg is fatigued) then other leg. Lots of bottom half pulses.

Shoulders: Thunderstruck – Hinder

Terrible. Really bad. Side raises till you die then mac raises then bar over head.

Abdominals: Love Lockdown – Kanye West

Interesting stuff with plate then side hover rotation things. Tough.

Cooldown: If I Were A Boy – Beyonce

Yeah.

Overall, hard work. Good music.

now I've heard it all

Pink Floyd's 'Have a Cigar' has been turned into workout music. It's used as the triceps track on Body Pump #32.

Look it up on iTunes. Have a cigar (workout remix) by T.Sign.

It's pretty bad, but only because it should never have been done.

pump rage

At my gym, Thursday body pump class is always busy. It's best to arrive half an hour early, get all your gear (bar, clips, step and weights), then go play on a cardio machine till the class starts.

Today most of us arrived early and by the scheduled start time there were no weights left. There was much anger amongst the just-on-timers about how unfair it was that we early birds had hogged all the weights.

I admit that I use a lot of weights. Use, mind you, not hog. I don't just look at them. They are on my bar and I lift them.

One angry on-timer expressed her concern to me that it wasn't fair that I had so many weights when she didn't have enough to have a good workout. What should I have done? Given her some weights so that she could have a good workout? If I had worked it so that we each had the same number of weights, she would have had the weight she needed, but I would have had much less than I needed.

An ethical dilemma. Is fair distribution the same as equal distribution?

What would you have done?

I don't think that I was under any obligation to give her my stuff. The rule is first in best dressed.

But generosity suggests that I should. I'm not obliged to help, but am free to do so.

What would you have done?

As it turned out, I was saved making a decision by the fact that I had already arranged to share my weights with the girl next to me during certain tracks when I didn't need them all.

body pump 69

I've done body pump 69 for the last few weeks. Here's what I think:

01. Better In Time - Jamie Knight
Warm up. Nothing special here.

02. Get This Party Started - Dan Winter
Squats. Four rounds - one short then 3 long. Then bottom halves before the singles may fatigue you a bit, but what the heck. Put your weights up anyway.

03. I Don’t Care - Fall Out Boy
Chest. They say to put your weights up because it's shorter than normal. It is - by about 15 seconds. Put your weights up, but expect to die. It's hard.

04. Castles In The Sky - Liz Kay
Back. Couldn't they find another song? This is the lunge track in some other release. It does make for an intuitive back track though. Not too hard, but there are alot of rows and not so many dead lifts.

05. Shut Up & Drive - Rihanna
Triceps. On bench extensions and presses, then stand up for overhead plate work. I like #68 better.

06. So What - Pink
Biceps. Love the song. I think Pink could have a career solely on her body pump royalties. Lots of fun and fairly short. Might as well put your weights up.

07. Stand Alone - Dyce
Lunges. Mix of lunges and 3/4 squats. I'm a little confused about what 3/4 squats are. One instructor says you only go 3/4 the way down, another says you go all the way down and then just come a quarter of the way up... I know which is easier. Dynamic lunges at the end. Because there are squats you need to put your weights up.

08. All I Ever Wanted - Basshunter
Shoulders. Push ups at the start and end. I think it might be hard but it doesn't stand out in my memory...

09. All Summer Long - Kid Rock
Abs. Lots of different things in this one. I like it. Leg extensions, side crunches, normal crunches, hovers.

10. Let Me Be Myself - 3 Doors Down
Cool down. Normal. Nice song.

Overall, it's a fairly easy release. You need to put your weights up to hurt, but chest will really hurt. Nice music. Highlights? chest, biceps, abs.

gym

I worked out at the gym 4 times in the last 36 hours and am now tired tired tired.

I normally do light weights (reasonably light, anyway), high reps (4-6 minutes constant). This morning I did heavier weights but low reps. This afternoon I felt like I was swimming uphill. Hard work.

Hard to feel fidgetty when your body is so stuffed. Time for sleep.

hook me up

In contrast to what I've said elsewhere, I think that the current body pump triceps track (#68) is about the best ever. Who needs a bar?

a question

How much gym is too much?

Do I have a problem if one hour a day no longer feels like enough?

body pump 68

I've done the new release a couple of times now. Warm up and squats are pretty standard, the chest track is good - doesn't feel as long as some others. I expected the back track to be harder with clean and presses not broken up with rows, but it's actually pretty easy - as far as back tracks go. The 4 clean and presses are all over in 12 seconds (I watch the clock!) and there are only 3 or maybe 4 sets of them. The triceps is different to normal, with no bar work. I'm not sure what I think of it. It's hard to make it hurt because at our gym the heaviest weights you can hold in one hand are 2.5kg. Song is cool. Biceps are pretty standard, though there are no full singles - all the fast ones are bottom halves. Lunges is fun. Right leg with bar, right leg without bar, left leg with bar, left leg without bar, then front squats - where you balance the bar on the front of your shoulders (tricky to do if you're using a decent amount of weight) and squat. The position of the bar makes it pretty intense (but fun!) I can't do the cross hand grip thing, but I don't think it matters. I just hold the bar like I'm going to do a shoulder press. Shoulders, abs, and warm down pretty standard.

stress, metabolism and weight loss

Since I'm on a weight loss kick at the moment, I thought I'd post a few thoughts on the subject. I'm a little hesitant to do it, ultimately it's not something that really matters and in the game of weight loss, women often feel very beaten (when the playing field was never level to begin with...) But anyway, here are a few ideas.

1. Weight loss and stress
Most women fall into one of two categories: stress eaters and stress non-eaters. Me, I'm a stress eater. Put me under a bit of pressure and that block of chocolate, tub of ice-cream, or loaf of bread looks irresistible. My stress non-eater friends assure me that their plight is pretty bad, but I wouldn't mind it occasionally (They tell me that they get anxious and can't eat and later because their stomachs are so empty the thought of food makes them nauseous, so they continue not eating, and just feel sicker and sicker...) Unsurprisingly, stress non-eaters tend towards being underweight, and stress eaters tend towards being overweight. It's not rocket science.

But what this means is that it's very difficult to lose weight if you are stressed. A friend of mine has put on considerable weight in the last few years. She has a very high maintenance family (no, worse than you are thinking) as well as other significant pressures. To label her as greedy or undisciplined because of her current waist circumference would be unfair.

So, unless you're a stress non-eater, you'll lose weight best when you feel some degree of calm and contentment about yourself and life. This will be a considerable hurdle for many of us. (An aside: ever notice how being told that you're chubby doesn't make it easier to lose weight? It causes stress and makes that mud cake all the more appealing!)

2. Weight loss and metabolism
I read up on this last night and am pretty taken with it. Hope it's useful to you.

Our resting metabolism (which is the amount of energy we use when we're doing nothing) is dependent on the amount of lean muscle we have in our bodies. The more muscular we are, the more energy we use, simply because it burns a lot of kilojoules just to maintain muscles. So if you have a slow metabolism (if you put on weight easily), you could increase it by getting a bit more muscular. If you want to lose weight, the most efficient exercise to do is weight training. If you walk you'll burn kilojoules while you're out walking, but if you do weights, you'll burn the energy while you're working out and your metabolism will increase and you'll continue to burn the kilojoules during the day.

Now here's what was new to me. When we lose weight, we lose it from fat AND muscle. If we only diet and don't exercise, we will lose weight at first but pretty soon our weight loss will decrease because our metabolism has slowed because our overall amount of muscle has decreased. So if you diet for a couple of weeks without doing any exercise you could end up with less muscle and a slower metabolism - resulting in weight gain reasonably soon. Interesting, huh?

3. Weight loss and the future
It's not a competition. The person who dies the thinnest doesn't win. (In a hundred years time none of our bodies will have much flesh on them.) The person who averages the lowest BMI over their lifetime doesn't win either. Actually, how much we weigh is something of an irrelevancy in the eternal scheme of things. Most women worry about their weight far too much. And because of point #1, such worry is counterproductive. We need to be more concerned about loving Jesus and serving our neighbours and families than we are about our dress size.

If you're interested in a much more thorough look at dieting - check out these posts on Jean's blog.

body pump 67

Body Pump is my favourite class at the gym. I love it. If you don't know what it is, look here. Basically, 8 working tracks plus warm up and cool down, each focusing on a different muscle group - legs (squats), chest, back, triceps, biceps, legs (lunges), shoulders, abs. All good. Trick is to pick just the right weights to use so that your muscles fatigue about 10 seconds before the end of the track.


The new pump cd was released last week (number 67). Has anyone done it yet? There are some changes in a couple of the tracks. I don't get the point of the rows in the second half of the bicep track. Am I doing them wrong? I think it would hurt a whole lot more if we just kept on with the normal curls.