New Workouts For Spring 2017
I have been doing some new workouts for Spring 2017 and wanted to share them on my blog. The workouts are called Classical Stretch, by Miranda Esmonde-White. They are broadcast on many PBS stations but I had never heard of these workouts until a friend from church recently told me about them.
I found out my local library had the book Aging Backwards by Miranda Esmonde-White and I checked it out. The first half of the book is about aging and a lot of information on your muscles and cells and joints and how they age. The book goes into a lot of detail on the Eccentrics, or Classical Stretch, exercise program and how she developed it and why. It explains how and why exercising and doing the right type of full body exercises can make you feel better, prevent injuries and keep us young even in our old age. The second half of the book are the exercises with photos and explanations on how to do them.
After checking the book out I decided to order one of her dvd sets. They are around $65.00 for a set of 4 dvd’s with a complete season of Classical Stretch. I ordered season 10 – Strength and Flexibility. It is one of the more recent seasons. You can go on to the classicalstretch.com website and when you click on store on the left side there are options that you can plug in like your age and fitness level and it will give you suggestions on what workouts are best for your level. The strength and flexibility one came up as one for me so I chose it.
So far I have done about half of the workouts out of the 30 workouts on the dvds. Each workout is approximately 23 minutes long. I really thought they were going to be too easy for me since I workout regularly – like 5 or 6 days a week – using some pretty hard workouts sometimes. But, I have been pleasantly surprised that the workouts are not what I expected. They are easier than my Cathe Friedrich and P90X3 workouts but they seem to work and they are lengthening and strengthening my body – especially my waist and my hips.
I have never done Tai Chi but I believe the exercises are part Tai Chi (as she mentions that the stances are in a couple of the workouts) part stretching, moving yoga and pilates all combined. At least that is how I describe it. I have been using the workouts about 3 days per week and some days I actually do 2 of them since they are shorter than what I normally do – if I do 2 workouts then it is about 46 minutes and I really feel a total body conditioning.
The workouts are all done in bare feet with just your body weight and minimal to no equipment. They are divided into All Standing, All Barre, or All Floor. When you do the All Standing it is just your body weight. If it is a Barre workout you need a chair. The floor workouts it is nice to have an exercise mat and she also uses some risers with a few exercises that look like large yoga blocks but she also says you can use a phone book or an encyclopedia.
I would recommend these workouts to anyone who is looking to get an overall total body workout, improve their posture and get more toned. I think the workout dvd’s I bought are possibly for a more experienced exerciser but I believe there are many others that are suitable for beginners.
So, I have now incorporated Classical Stretch into my weekly workout schedule – at least 3 times per week. The other 2 or 3 days that I workout I am still doing my Cathe workouts doing cardio or weights or a combination of both using her Strong and Sweaty series and Low Impact Series.
What workouts have you recently tried?
Have a great week!
-Kimberlee