Lift to Lose Lower & Yoga

[Guest guest]

I tourqued my back picking up not very heavy boxes, must have twisted funny and my lower back on the right side hurts. I did a quick warmup with and then the Lift Weights to Lose Weight Lower Body workout anyway, but skipped the core bonus workout because I didn't know if crunches would be all that great for my back today. I followed Track 1 on LWTLW. When you follow track 1 you use ankle weights and dumbbells, following track 2 you don't. There are no alternate exercises for those following track 2, everyone does the same thing, but the onscreen cues tell you when to pick up and put down your weights. The ankle weights are on for the entire workout. I wasn't sure what weight to go with (Kathy doesn't give ideas for that in either workout) but tried 8s, hoping it wouldn't put too much pressure on my back. They seemed pretty good but again, with a very fast pace like the upper body workout, sometimes they were a bit much (especially with alternating plie squats and one foot dragging on the floor to meet the other). I used light ankle weights (1 or 2 pounds, I'm not sure) and they were too light but at least didn't hurt my back. It was a good workout and went pretty quickly. Kathy was slightly more restrained in this one, but not much. Afterwards, I decided to do the lower back practice from Yoga for Stress Relief. It was the first time I've done that one and I liked it. It was longer than I'd wanted (35 minutes) but I tried to not stress about the time and got into it. My back still hurts but I did not notice many of the poses got easier and my back was not hurting or hurting less as I did them so I count that as very good.

I have today off but am trying to catch up on the million and one things that have been neglected lately so it was a bit hard to take over an hour for a workout, but I'm glad I did.