Workout

I like to keep my intellect in good repair. Whenever the Vicar finishes a chick-lit novel I bag it for my bedside table. I'm serious about my looks. Every six months or so, when my hair can no longer be restrained by my bath hat, I pour a friend a gin and she shears it for me. I have, though, never given much thought to my fitness.

It came as a shock, when I hit 40, to realise I could no longer do a forward roll, but I found other evening pastimes that respected my unbending joints.



When my back began protesting at tasks I used to take for granted, I was regretful...


…but I failed to heed the warning signs. It was only when I struggled to heave myself off our sagging  sofa that I decided I must face what the other school-gate mums embraced routinely and embark on a fitness regime. They all subscribe to David Lloyd, but I reckon no gym can beat The Vicarage with its state-of the-art facilities and 24/7 opportunities for body-honing. My daily workout has made a new matron of me. Why, the churchwarden, when trying to estimate my antiquity last week, only added a year to my age!

The Stepper


I usually spend twenty minutes a day on a stepping routine to boost my cardiovascular fitness and strengthen my quads, glutes and hamstrings. Adding a weight-bearing element helps slow bone mineral loss.

The Treadmill


The sprint to 9am Sunday School at 9.04am each week has improved the flexibility of my joints, invigorated my circulation and helped fight cellulite.  And this vigorous church treadmill is, of course, so very good for the heart.

Rowing Machine


The forward and backwards motion raises the heart rate and increases oxygen uptake, but the real beneficiaries are my rhomboids, trapezius and lats as I flex my back and shoulders. Thighs and calves also get a surprisingly thorough workout as I brace for the thrust. Traditionally, of course, this exercise is performed sitting down...



Weights


Regular resistance training can increase your basal metabolic rate by up to 15 per cent and for every additional pound of muscle burns 50 calories a day.


Press ups



Every evening I extract the cats from under the beds in order to shut them in the kitchen for the night. This lowering and lifting from plank position engages arms, chest, abdominals and other core stabilisers and so strengthens the upper body muscles. The New York Times decreed it 'the ultimate barometer of fitness'.

Aerobic Dance


The nightly ritual of dish-washing has an important impact on heart and lung efficiency and releases endorphins to improve mental health. For maximum effect, stick Elvis Presley on the stereo, grab a mic (a hand whisk or potato masher are useful for this) and start boogying round that tea towel while you're drying the pans.

How do you keep fit?

Comments

  1. Older Single Mum2 March 2015 at 23:01

    It's no wonder you've got such a fab figure with workouts like that :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarah3 March 2015 at 08:33

    Amazing workout! I just had my cardio vascular workout chasing a frog out of the kitchen helped enormously by two cats and a dog. I am now exercising my bicep by lifting a very heavy cup of tea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron3 March 2015 at 14:26

      That's a failsafe manoeuvre, although a pint of beer has more beneficial effect (on the biceps, that is!)

      Delete
  3. Leonie Daecher14 December 2018 at 17:41

    Top 3 methods to win no deposit bonus casino canada in 2019. The full guide is available at the site above.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Mail Columnists Should Wear Burkas

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has provoked the ire of Twitter with by declaring that mummy bloggers are blinkered dimwits whose lives are spiced by Napisan. I'm afraid I have to sympathise with her, for all of her prejudices echo my own: Writing about my life has pretty much ruined it. Supper last night was an elderly carrot glued to the fridge shelf by a pool of brown mucus and the floor was flooded when I left the bath taps running because Blogger has diverted me from domestic essentials. I've had to shut the children in front of the television when a new post has assailed me and some family members no longer speak to me because Twitter interactions leave me no time to reach the telephone. But there is a big part of me that thinks writing should be hard: you should cringe whenever you press that 'publish' button. Artists – and I'm sorry, I do consider myself an artist – have to wrench the dirtiest, most disgusting part of their inner soul and show it t...
Read more

The Various Uses of Rubber

I have ordered a new pair of wellies from Amazon for the daily walk to school. My current hardly-at-all-old pair has developed a fissure along one toe. I only noticed this when I was wading along the stream that flows brownly past bobbing Argos bags en route to the afternoon pick up, and I was not pleased. They are a glamorous pair with pink spots and white swirls, bought to ease my daughter's pain in ackowledging a wellie-wearing, stream-paddling mother in public. I now distrust wellies with spots and swirls, so order a safe-looking green pair. Better to be waterproof than glamorous. Royal Mail gets them as far as my door, thrusts through a 'Sorry you were out' card, and promptly loses them. Amazon is sympathetic and dispatches a replacement pair. This also makes it to my door and again a card is left. This time I decide to pick them up in person from the Royal Mail depot. The man behind the glass screen makes off with my delivery card and probably has a cup of tea and...
Read more

A DIY Guide to the Middle-Classes

I wonder sometimes what I am. I have lived the last decade on an inner city council estate, amid Oxford academia, in a remote country town and in London suburbia. In the first we were, with our relentless consonants and sagging bookshelves, regarded as aristocrats. In the second, as the 'squeezed middle'. In the third, as city sophisticates and now, sometimes, isolated in my tweed amid the Ralph Lauren and the hoodies, I feel myself a bumpkin. Class should no longer matter. Nowadays, for most of us, it's more a question of perception than birth. But the perception matters. My daughter battles to adjust speech, habits and dress to blend in with each new environment; the political parties compete to woo the amorphous throng they deem Middle England and Melvyn Bragg has started a television series on class and culture. The British, he decides, no longer define themselves by class, but by the music they listen to, the books they read. I listen to Dolly Parton and Beethoven....
Read more