Barefoot & On the Mat 12/15-21: "The main reason Santa is so jolly...."

[JustSandra]

“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.”
― George Carlin

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the weekly Barefoot & On the Mat check-in thread. This is a long-running check-in here at VF. We are a cozy, friendly group who enjoy a wide variety of workouts but who have a special appreciation for those traditionally done without footwear. If you regularly include yoga, pilates, barre, qi gong, Classical Stretch/Essentrics, Ellen Barrett, Tracy Anderson, etc. into your fitness life -- or even if you simply like to shuck your shoes for more traditional exercise -- you will feel right at home!

Please feel free to join in. We always love hearing from new, returning, and guest Mat Mavens!

[JustSandra]

Hi again!

My apologies to our Garrie for the above quote. However, I like remembering George Carlin and how he was ahead of his time.

Here's last week for me. Not great, but a huge improvement over my pathetic November. Basically I'm just trying to get in at least *something* six days a week!

Sunday: Upper Body from Jessica Smith Walk Strong 3; Classical Stretch 1228.
Monday: No workout (planned).
Tuesday: Two miles outdoor walk; Classical Stretch 1227
Wednesday: One mile outdoor walk; Upper Body from Fitness Fix Sports Conditioning.
Thursday: 360 Abs from Jessica Smith Walk Strong 1; Classical Stretch 1226.
Friday: Program B (Lower Body) from Margaret Richard's Getting Better; Total Stretch from Jessica Smith Walk Strong 3.
Saturday: No workout (I am going to try a regular walk to/from work on Saturdays, but iffy weather caused me to drive instead).

I hope our Mat Mavens who celebrate are doing okay with their Christmas preparations. I do have all my presents, but haven't tried to decorate my house -- some years I do, but other years it doesn't happen and this may be one of them.

Waving to all -- be back later with today's workout!

[Paine]

Strong & Limber for Life (all upper body work plus Quads, Calves and Abs)

We got back from California late last night. While I was in California, I did a lot of walking in the neighborhood. Several days I walked to Trader Joe's and one day I walked farther to Target. It was nice to walk outside.

I thought about bringing back some exercise DVDs but decided I didn't want the hassle of bringing them back to CA however this morning I found myself wishing I had brought some of them back! Oh well.

It will take me time to catch up with everyone.

Sandra, thank you for starting our week with that funny quote. I loved George Carlin! Many years ago my 2 older kids saw George Carlin live and they said he was great.

While in California, I ordered my grandson's Christmas presents online and had them sent to my daughter's house. I did that to make sure they would get here in time. She still hasn't received them yet so I'm glad I ordered early. We won't be putting up a tree this year. All our xmas decorations are in CA.

[Garrie A.]

Sandra: Thanks for starting us off! No need to apologize, LOL. My Mom decorated a front porch and finally got an inflatable Grinch she wanted.

Paine: I wish there was a Trader Joe's near me. My VF Secret Santa got me some dark chocolate goodies from one.

Carolyn: Welcome back! We've missed you. Luckily Spring rush isn't as bad as Fall sometimes is (this past Fall was ridiculous--several instructors kept ordering the wrong books ). And the extended hours only last one week this time! I'll be excited to hear your thoughts on RaviAna's new DVD.

Beth: Sorry you got caught in a whiteout. Glad you made it back okay though.

Gayle: I added three sets of barbell hip thrusts to last week's STS leg workout. This week I will not make that same mistake again.

Anny: Moving and rearranging counts as functional fitness!

Here was last week for me. I started Mesocycle 2 (Hypertrophy/Muscle Building) of Cathe's STS program.

Sunday:
STS Disc 13 (Chest, Shoulders & Triceps)

Monday:
STS Disc 14 (Legs)
Three sets of barbell hip thrusts (12, 10, 8 reps with one minute rest between each set)
TAUGHT Step class

Tuesday:
TAUGHT Pump class (using very light weights and coaching some)

Wednesday:
STS Disc 15 (Back & Biceps)

Thursday:
TAUGHT Zumba class

Friday:
No workout (the college was closed due to freezing rain and I decided to make a lazy Friday out of it!)

Saturday:
CO-TAUGHT Fusion Fit class (half of the class is a mix of dance, kickboxing, and light weight cardio/4 limb with the second half being flowing yoga and final meditation)

Today I started week 2 of STS Meso 2 with Disc 16 (Chest, Shoulders & Triceps). This week the weights increased to 75% of 1 Rep Max, and Cathe introduced a new-to-me technique called "Back Off Sets." After your third set of each exercise, you have about 20 to 30 seconds to reduce (back off) your weight by 40%. Sometimes I had to pause the DVD to reduce the weights on my barbell. Then, for your final "back off set" you work until failure. The weight may be lighter, but oh my lanta do you feel it! For safety reasons, I had to do a few less reps in the back off sets than what I could have done for Bench Presses (since I was using a barbell). But I still felt it.

Speaking of Secret Santa, I was also gifted two beautiful balls of fingering weight sock yarn and three DVDs: Tracey Mallett's Pilates Super Sculpt, Steve SanSoucie's Stepping Alive, and Amy Bento Ross' Stepletic.

I'll be back to chat more later. Waves to all!

[toaster]

Sandra, thanks for starting us off with that cute quote! DH and I saw George Carlin live I think just a year or two before he died.

Paine, the year we decided to move, we got rid of our old large artificial tree and decided not to put up a tree that year. However, DH got me a little tabletop sized prelit tree, so we still had something. Hope the presents for your grandsons arrive soon!

Garrie, I don't go to our Trader Joe's all that often, but I'm glad we have it! I actually got DH a little set of dark chocolates of the world for Xmas; they are cutely wrapped like little books. Here it is on Amazon (the price in the TJ store was half that):
https://www.amazon.com/Trader-Joes-C.../dp/B00ADG744Q
I also got myself these and they were yummy!
https://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/5010

Here was my workout week:

Monday
30MTF Circuit Burn - Cardio & Boxing premix
Do You Yoga (YT) 30 Day Yoga Challenge - Day 9, Balance, & Day 8, Seated Flexibility

Tuesday
30MTF Your Best Body - Workout #2
Do You Yoga (YT) 30 Day Yoga Challenge - Day 10, Standing Poses for Hips, & Day 11, Shoulder Opening

Wednesday
Yoga Ranger (YT) - Restorative Yoga for Burnout

Thursday
TAUGHT yoga at noon; yoga at studio
Do You Yoga (YT) 30 Day Yoga Challenge - Day 12, Side Body Stretch

Friday
recumbent bike, 20 minutes
Classical Stretch - 1023, Lengthen & Strengthen Core
Do You Yoga (YT) 30 Day Yoga Challenge - Day 13, Emotional Release

Saturday
30MTF Build & Burn - Tabata Legs
Grateful for Mobility (YT) - Day 1, Upper Back
Do You Yoga (YT) 30 Day Yoga Challenge - Day 14, Juicy Yoga Twists

Sunday
LEKFit (YT) - 15m Ballet Inspired Arms
Essentrics - Full Body Toning
Do You Yoga (YT) 30 Day Yoga Challenge - Day 15, Hamstrings & Inner Thighs

[cyana]

Today:
Holden Streaming Class 11.29.2019 (which was actually a "Classic" class from 11.30.2018 as he didn't each on the 29th). This one included healing sounds and a color meditation.
R/A - Happy Hormones - Warm-up 2, Happy Hormones 2, Magic Medley and Closing Prayer.

Finally did some R/A, which I've missed. Hoping to take advantage of those Matrix options and do more. Next I need to get some Essentrics done!

Sandra - DH and I always liked George Carlin. Great quote - got a chuckle out of it!

Garrie - You know I my Grinch. When we were at the farmer's market yesterday, I noticed one of the restaurants downtown had several very well done Grinch scenes painted on their windows for the holiday. I was so impressed! I wasn't familiar with Back Up Sets term, either.

Beth - DH loves the TJ's dark chocolate peanut butter cups. Those things fly over the shelves like crazy in this part of the world. I think TJ has a great selection of cheese and way cheaper than the Whole Wallet. Glad you made it home safely during that whiteout last week - scary.

Paine - So do you have biceps like Popeye after all that functional fitness last week? Glad you made it back safely. I wish I would've had the option of ordering DS's presents and having them sent to one of our parents' houses back in the early days as we'd frequently travel for Christmas and that was a major challenge to pack and hide!

Carolyn - I'm glad you enjoyed Sedona. I'll be waiting for a review on R/A's new DVD once you have time to try it out.

Anny - I sure wish I could send you our rain! We need it to, but you definitely need it more.

Gayle - Your work-outs are reminding me that I need to pull out a Jessica DVD soon. She's one of my favorite no-dread instructors. Hopefully I can get this insomnia under better control so I can get back to consistent work-outs before I start my work day.

Linda - Hope you and the man had a good week-end.

Hope everyone's week gets off to a good start.

[gjv]

Hey all. I got to do some snow shoveling today! We only ended up with 2 or 3 inches tho. I also took a short walk, all bundled up.

I did Jessica's Boost Metabolism, Strength Interval Walk too.

Cyana, I just love your long posts!

[toaster]

Gayle, glad you didn't get too much snow! We had wet snow last night (after rain all day), more flurries today, but no real accumulation.

cyana, I've been meaning to revisit Raviana too; this week will be hard b/c I have things to do 3 of the 5 evenings. The dark PB cups at TJ are yummy too! I don't like cheese but am pretty much into anything sweet that they have.

[Paine]

Garrie, we don't have a Trader Joes or a Whole Foods Market in our area so it will be nice to be able to go to those stores when we move to CA.
You mentioned working to failure in Cathe's "Back Off Sets". I've been wondering if I should work to failure for each upper body exercise when I do a Margaret workout. Margaret works me pretty well but not always to failure so I was wondering if it would benefit me to continue the exercise until failure.

Cyana, you are right that I got a ton of functional fitness while in CA, carrying boxes, cleaning up and reorganizing the everything. I did do a few exercise DVDs while in CA including Jari's Ripped & Chiseled, which nearly killed me! I had big DOMS for several days after Jari.
I wish I had a solution for insomnia. I suffer with it too. The sleep clinic I went to was no help for me either. Taking hormones would probably help but I refuse to do that.

Carolyn, I too want to hear what you think about the new Raviana DVD.

Beth, I would be quite frightened to get caught in a whiteout. I'm glad you are safe!

Cyana and Beth, I know all those chocolate treats at Trader Joes are glorious but it's better for me to avoid getting started to avoid possibly binging.

[Garrie A.]

Paine: Good question. For me, it all depends on the workout. Margaret's workouts are low weight/high rep endurance workouts. For these types of workouts (Margaret, Jari, Cathe Power Hour/High Reps, Les Mills Pump, etc.), the goal is to work the muscle over a period of time, not in specified sets and reps with measured rest periods. So my goal for those workouts is to get through each segment without having to rest too many times, feeling a good deal of muscle fatigue (but not failure) by the end. If I wasn't feeling it by the end, then I know to increase the weight. But, in the STS workout I did, Cathe has you do three sets of each exercise : first set is 12 reps, second is 10, third is 8. Those sets are done with weights 70% of 1 Rep Max (1RM), with a 1 minute rest between sets. Then, for the "back off set" you reduce the weight by 40% and go to failure. Failure is where you can't complete one more rep, your form starts to slip, or both. If my form slips, then I know I've hit failure and then I will stop. For some exercises (examples: barbell bench presses and squats), I don't train to failure since I don't have a spotter at home. Short answer: hypertrophy and strength workouts I try to hit failure/maximum fatigue, endurance workouts I go for the burn/fatigue but not failure.