Home Exercises

I'm writing this while sitting at my desk - sweating. OK, it is fairly hot in here. Thermometer says 77 F /25 C degrees. But really I'm sweating because of forty five minutes of exercising quite hard. This is the eighth time I have subjugated myself to a home exercise program. I am over one quarter of the way to 28 days of home exercise. People say that if you do something for 28 days then it becomes a habit. What started as a resolution becomes routine. Twenty eight days is sort of a month with a few times missing. Not perfect but doable. Anyway who decided on the 28 days (or one month as other say) anyway?  Got to look that up.

There are several reasons for home exercise rather than classes  - such as the Pilates classes that I have been taking  at my Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Club since 2001. First is that I can't seem to make my classes travel to France and elsewhere with me. I can't do classes in San Francisco and home exercise while I'm on the road. At least I have not been able to do this in the past. Even with the best of intentions, my home exercising on the road has only lasted for one or two rather desultory sessions. My hope is that I will soon be so acclimated to my home exercises that It will naturally follow that I continue the routine while traveling. Knock on wood.

The second reason for home exercising is time. The Pilates classes are on a fixed schedule. They are never exactly when I want them to be. Also, with my slow walking, it takes time to change and get to the club and set up the "toys" and put them away. A one our class easily consumes one and a hlaf hours of clock time. I am currently fitting my home exercising in between getting up and taking my morning shower. Thus my exercise time is pretty much 100% exercise time. An extra benefit is that I have watched the news - which might cut down the time I spend reading the news on the Internet.

The third reason for home exercising is that I am the captain of my own industry. I am designing my exercises around my own particular abilities (and disabilities). I have to be wakeful and conscious. and at the same time still do the exercises. Of course I am standing on the shoulders of giantesses. I could only have created the program I have devised after taking classes from Elaine Enochs, Marianne de Sassise, Laura Vincent, Akiyo Kinst-Hori and Dawn McMahon. My program takes routines or thoughts from each of these lady's classes and and is beginning to combines these into a program just right for me.

The downside of home exercising is that I lose face time. I miss being with other people in a class. I miss having people telling me what to do and having to do it even if I don't really want to do it. More time by myself means less time with others. I will have to find a way to compensate for this. I will have to find ways to use the time that I have saved to get out from my office and have conversations with people. More on that perhaps another time.

In the meantime, let's do 10 roll-ups...