Sunday - MM Strength # 3, Kries Segments

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone!Today I did the 3rd workout on Montenegro Method Strength. This one was "core" focused, but you do end up working your entire body. In this one, Marta does 3 circuits - each time she runs through the circuit she adds a variation to the exercise. Each circuit had:

Squat - variations were overhead presses with rotation, single arm, double arm, and then a "power" squat

a "bus" driver - which is a lunge, but you do various rotational exercises while holding on to a dumbell.

a rear lunge - again, different variations - holdind a single dumbell and doing rotational and balance moves

an oblique exercise - holding light weights and doing various side bends and presses - w/ or w/out weights

a plank exercise - adding various options - such as leg lifts, leg lifts to the side, etc.

a side plank exercise - again, various options including bicep curl, lat pull down.

Overall, it wasn't too bad for me! I used light weights b/c I was being cautious - but I don't think you can go too heavy with this - for one thing, for some of the exercises, my shoulders were fatiguing from holding the weight away from my body with my arms extended. I mostly used 5's but sometimes I used 8's and sometimes 3's. I think this one would be a good one to do w/ a med ball b/c often you are only holding a single dumbell.

The pace was nice, slow and controlled so even though I was nervous about doing rotational exercises for the potential to throw my back out - with the pace, it was entirely safe! My core feels nicely fired up - legs also got a workout in as well since we did squats and lunges.

I ended up my workout by doing a few segments from Kries' Hot Body/Cool Mind Level 1. I ordered Levels 2 & 3 from (Totalfitnessdvd.com) yesterday. She is having a 4 th of July sale. And, these workouts were on sale - $9.99 each. I also ordered the Belly Off workouts - I had been eyeing them for some time. One is a body weight routine and one uses dumbells. They are both lead by Jack (?) - he seems to be a nice calm presence. The body weight one was most interesting to me, but I threw the other one into the cart since it was on sale. The 10% off code also works with the sale. So, some good deals at 's. Not everything is on sale, though, so you ahve to search around.

Oh - the workouts I did from 's DVD - were standing waking energy - t'ai chi-ish and the 5 Tibetans. Nice!

Tomorrow I think I will do MM Endurance - I may venture into MM Endurance # 2. I haven't done this yet!

Hope everyone has a good 4th! I'm trying to get the family moving for another walk/hike in the woods!Take care-

Donna