Florida Chick Tries Pilates

After 7 days of getting my butt kicked by Jillian, I woke up this morning and decided I just couldn't take it any more. The truth is, I knew that if I had to do one more plank-jack, pendulum lunge, or squat-thrust I might just give up on this exercise thing altogether...I also knew that if I didn't do anything, I would probably not do anything tomorrow either...or the next day...or the next... so I compromised and found a nice 24 minute pilates workout (I love On-Demand) that I thought would get me through the hate cycle of my love-hate relationship with Jillian, without totally blowing the past 7 days of hard work.


Now, I've never done Pilates. I've done yoga and yogalates (a very trendy combo of yoga poses and pilates strength exercises...or that's what the brochure said anyway) but never plain ole pilates, but I've heard it's what the ballet dancers with amazing legs use so I figured what the heck. Now I'm sure that in general, pilates does amazing things...but I have to admit that after 7 days on Jillian's shred, the leg portion of the workout kind of reminded me of my highschool days when Monica and I would spend hours in legwarmers doing "Buns of Steel" in the living room; the knee squeeze exercise also brought back memories of using Suzanne Sommers' thigh master while watching 90210 - yes, we had a thighmaster.

The ab section was better, and I almost passed out when I had to do the 100 breath pulse thing - apparently a pilates staple...and although I initially wondered if it was really doing anything to improve my six-pack, as I'm sitting here writing, I'm realizing that I have a slight burning sensation in my stomach muscles - apparently the exercises need about 9 hours to brew before the pain really sneaks up on you.

Overall, the 24 minutes of pilates was a nice break from Jillian's constant demand for double jump ropes and walking push-ups, but I suppose that if I'm actually going to shred the size of my rear so that I can wear skinny jeans without looking like an upside-down triangle, I should stick to Jillian and let her continue to let her make me sweat and cry (yesterday Carson walked in and asked if I was OK) ...and if all else fails, I can always wear vertical stripes...