Winter of Discontent

"Winter is Coming."

The month of February has not been kind to me or my family.  This has left working out in quite the mess.

First, we had a blizzard.  This meant school closures, and me not having time to work out.  However, there was shovelling, and pulling the little ones around in sleds:

Then, we had illnesses in our house.  First me, then the kids.  My illness left me not able to exercise, and the middle-of the night sessions with sick kids also did not help.  At that point, more rest for the body was more important than getting up to work out.

So finally, FINALLY, this past Monday I was able to get up and work out.  The week before I bought a new workout DVD, I found in the clearance aisle:

"Really, just 30 days of jumping, that's it."

I popped the DVD in, and selected the 10-minute cardio level one. I hadn't worked out in about two weeks, this would be a good way to start, right?  The workout is done by contestants, no BL Trainers in sight.  They go into a "warm-up," a term I use very, VERY loosely.  It was all upper body, wave your arms around, reach for the sky type of thing.  That was my first warning that something wasn't right.  We're going to be doing some cardio, right?  Shouldn't we do some leg warmups?

It then goes right into the "cardio blast" workout.  It was bad, really bad.  A LOT of jumping up and down, and about 8 minutes into it, I stopped.  My knees weren't happy, and it just did not feel like a workout.  But, did I think it was a bad DVD?  No, not at the time.  At the time that residual Evil Gym Teacher in my head was telling me "It's a professional video!  You're just out of shape, that's why it was hard!"

By the afternoon, I was walking with a limp.  The next morning, I could barely walk on one foot.  My heel was in so much pain I was hobbling around.  As I reflected on the previous mornings' workout, I saw two problems with what I did:

1. I did the workout without shoes on.  I haven't had a problem with the other DVDs, but there was not a lot of jumping up in down in those.  Not having shock absorbers pretty much wrecked my heel and my calf muscles for awhile.
2. I didn't listen to myself.  I knew the workout wasn't safe.  I knew something didn't feel right, but instead I doubted my knowledge of smart/safe working out because I still don't acknowledge that I CAN know these things, even though I'm obese.

I'm keeping myself on the DL until my calf muscles stop twinging in pain, which will probably be the rest of this week.  When I start up again Monday, I will go with what I know is smart: warming up, not too much repetitive motion that feels strained, TRUST MY INSTINCTS AND KNOWLEDGE.  Oh, and tossing that DVD in the trash.