Entrepreneurial/Instructional

Well, I am feeling exuberantly cheerful this morning after a rather hilariously enjoyable session with M. at the gym. It was a good workout in itself, rather all the things I most like to do & feel are beneficial (will give details below, but first must find a site somewhere with pictures--in general I am firmly of the I-would-rather-have-the-thousand-words school of thought, but when it comes to abdominal exercises there is no point me floundering around inarticulately with useless words)--but really it was more interesting than usual because M. is on the cusp of completing a long-awaited goal and is making an exercise video! So we were going through the routine he wants to use and consulting about potential pitfalls and modifications...

(M. is a quite lovely and unusually well-qualified trainer--he's contemplating going back to school to become a physical therapist--but in the meantime he does quite a bit of acting, singing and modeling as well as the fitness stuff. And I cannot resist providing a link--I am such an inveterate Googler--that I find mildly hilarious & that gives quite the wrong impression of what our sessions must be like!--oh, wait, it no longer exists--at any rate, a very funny modeling portfolio, just as well it's not there anymore I think...)

(Ever since I first met him more than a year ago he's been talking about getting some kind of thing going where he'd do these fitness videos and make a deal with Verizon and people would have them on their phones--this is still preliminary, he will produce it himself and a friend will direct--somewhere between a demo and something for actual distribution, I think they'll sell 'em but really it's for making pitches to someone who might do a big-budget version.)

(We had a very funny conversation last week about what he's going to wear for the video, he's really excited!)

Now, let me see if I can actually reproduce this workout in detail--the broad outlines are clear, but I may miss a few things...

(I am doing no good with picture searches this morning, I will just have to describe them instead...)

First group of exercises (3 times through):

60 seconds plyometrics-style running-in-place-with-high knees (last 15 seconds fast)
15 pushups with "kick-backs" (between pushups jump feet forward and then back again)
60 seconds plank
15 cobra
15 sort-of-crunches with medicine ball (these are where you start out lying flat on your back with the ball in your hands, come up while raising straight legs up, then lower everything back down--feet don't touch the floor, they just kind of lever up and down)
15 "toe-touches" (start flat, come up and touch toes, raise straight legs up as close to horizontal as you can manage and slowly lower torso and legs together back down to the ground)
15 of another ab thing where you come up with your arms out to the side as you bend your legs and pull them up also, then flatten back down--your shoulder-blades never hit the floor, nor do your legs

Next set (3x):

15 "quadruped" (which always makes me think of eighteenth-century natural history! you know, you're on all fours and you raise arm-and-leg-on-the-diagonal in alternation)
15 lunges with medicine ball/upper body twist

Next set (3x):

15 squats with medicine ball raise while squatting
15 plie squats holding medicine ball
15 regular calf raise (also with medicine ball--in fact the medicine ball is going to be M.'s "gimmick" for the video--or perhaps trademark is a more polite word!--so we had some funny parts where we were trying to see if it could be integrated--hmmm...)
15 calf raise with toes turned in

Next set (3x--the only times we have 2x are if we're doing a full-body workout and rather pressed for timme):

Hmmm, here's where I can't remember what we did! But it was 3-4 more of these rather evil abs exercises that are very delightfully good for you...

Final set (3x also obviously...):

30 seconds side plank / 15 side crunch (on each side)

I was sorry it was over!

[Ed. I found the link! Here it is--and if the DVD's ready in time, I am going to get lots of copies for Xmas presents for the people I know who might be interested!)