For years I have struggled with doing regular exercise. All the advice suggests you find something you enjoy doing, and therein lies the problem. I don't really enjoy any form of exercise. When I was overseas I played tennis; I was not very good at it and I can't say I enjoyed it that much but I did enjoy the social side, particularly when we all went out for lunch afterwards. Tennis essentially became the thing I did before I had lunch. In every location, I have always managed to find groups of ladies with whom I enjoyed playing, which is not always as easy as it sounds. Unfortunately, back problems have meant that I cannot play tennis any longer so now doing exercise is very much a case of doing it because I know I should (have to!) For the last few years I have been dragging myself down to the local community hall to do an aerobics workout once or twice a week. I really don't enjoy it.
Now we are in lockdown, I decided to see what was available on the internet. (YouTube has been quite the revelation to me!!) I found a 30 minute 'low impact full body HIIT workout' by Heather Robertson. Much of this was gobbledy-gook to me but I have discovered I quite like this kind of workout. You do something for 45 seconds, have a break and then on to something else. I can't do all the exercises exactly as Ms R does them but I can find a decent compromise that seems to work for me and I am doing this workout three times a week.
The first couple of weeks were very hard; I had to take a break every 10 minutes and I was extremely stiff the following couple of days to the extent I could hardly bend my legs in the first week. I am now into week 4, and while I still can't do 30 minutes straight through (have to stop for a few minutes after 20 minutes) the stiffness has gone and I'm still enjoying it. Once I can get to 30 minutes straight through, I'll look for something for 45 minutes.
Currently I am also working on holding a plank for a minute - I am up to about 40 seconds now and I am trying to do press-ups properly. I don't appear to have any upper body strength! It's all go, :-)
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