My Exercise Routine

There are two pastimes I’m loving at the moment and one involves being sedate and calm, while the other is at pretty much the other end of the scale. These two are passions that have always been there, but have stepped up a gear recently. They are reading and exercise, and I wanted to write a little bit about the latter. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram then you may be aware of how much I’m enjoying my exercise routine at the moment, and as it’s quite varied I thought I’d share a little bit about each sport/activity.

Boxing

In pursuit of a new exercise fix, I recently joined a boxing gym and I absolutely love it. At the moment I’m just doing non-contact classes, which combine skipping, shadow boxing, circuits and punch bag work. The latter is incredibly therapeutic after a hard day at work, and the one hour classes are intense and ludicrously sweaty, but over in the blink of an eye.

Aerial Silks

The circus skill I wish I could be better at! Never does my body ache so much the next day than after a silks class. Circus is quite big in Bristol and there are two places (that I know of) that offer beginner silks classes – Circomedia and The Island. Both these companies/venues also offer static trapeze lessons, something else which I’d love to try.

Running

I started running a few years ago and I find that, for me, it’s something that if I don’t do regularly, I find it difficult to get back into. In May I completed the Bristol 10k in my fastest ever time, and although I have run a couple of half marathons in the past, I think it’s a much better distance for me to race and train for. At the moment I’m only going out running once a week max so I’d like to double this. When I feel like I don’t want to lace up my trainers, reading a chapter of Running Like a Girl by Alexandra Heminsley usually spurs me on.

Hula Hooping

After a six week hooping course earlier in the year, which involved circus moves like getting the hoop from our waists to above our heads, I’m now the proud owner of a turquoise and gold hula hoop. I try to use it when I come home from work and hoop for ten minutes each day, but I’ve been so busy that this is currently only happening a couple of times a week.

Self Defence

Probably the most important course I’ve been on, the four week course I took part in this spring was run by Tracy of Brainbox Coaching at my local Sweaty Betty, and didn’t cost a penny. Each week we learnt about the psychology of attackers and victims, what to do in different types of attacks and we even practiced our moves on Tracy’s 6ft, 18st trainer friends, which really gave a realistic sense of what a scary situation might feel like. Tracey and Sweaty Betty will be running more courses in the autumn so if you’re Bristol based this is definitely worth booking on to.

Yoga

I used to go to a free yoga class once a week (also at Sweaty Betty) but haven’t had the time with silks and boxing. I’d love to start again so if any of you have any recommendations for short routines or YouTube classes that I can do for ten minutes in the mornings then please share them in the comments!

Bloglovin |Twitter | Facebook