You Are Your Own Gym (yayog)

Android

iPhone

Firstly, I did not read the book by Mark Lauren. I’m reading Bryn Greenwood’s “Last Will,” a George R.R. Martin book and a few non-fics right now. It takes a long time for me to get through any book but reading several at a time means longer!

BUT: I’m doing the workouts!

For TWO DOLLARS, I bought the app (after reading rave reviews). It’s on Android in Google Play and iPhone. Let me say (in case you haven’t clicked the Mark Lauren direct link), it’s about working out for strength USING YOUR OWN BODY and no equipment. Granted, I’ve used a towel, a chair and a table across two workouts but the idea is it’s no “equipment.”

Allow me to backtrack:

I was never athletic as a child or in school (almost never–at age 15, somebody handed me a shillelagh and told me to drive a heavy wooden ball past kids…my school didn’t have a TEAM but regionals tried to recruit me; turns out, if you needed a rough and tumble kid, one who grew up working on a ranch 4 hours a day for over 10 years was a good choice: push people out of the way? Try a COW or pitching 70lb bales of hay around!).

I began working out at uni. I worked and was a full-time student. Nowadays, that’s like 12 hours a week. I had 28 credit hours one semester.  I didn’t live at home. I’d spent my life working on a ranch, then suddenly SITTING ALL THE TIME felt WEIRD! I discovered that I love fitness. Sometimes I’m fatter and sometimes I’m thinner. Sometimes my health permits me to do what I want and sometimes it doesn’t. Right now, I’m not allowed to lift heavy weights. I’m going through a different kind of circuit: loads of medical tests and appointments. Just as I was getting ready to figure out some kind of theraband something (maybe fire up the old p90x discs), I stumbled across YAROG.

I’m super-impressed. For one thing, let’s say you weren’t interested in the guided workout programs:

1. Basic (this is where I am; I can do more of somethings and hardly do other exercises, so it’s right for me now)
2. First Class (intermediate)
3. Master (advanced)
4. Chief (only for elite)

As always, nobody as yet has given me a damned thing for free for doing my reviews 🙂 …I’d gladly accept it but nobody has. That’s the problem with running a non-business site, I suppose.

Where was I?

We were talking about how you’re not interested in 4 levels of guided (4 days a week for 10 weeks each) programs.

I’m doing Ladders. That means they show you (video) what to do, tell you to get ready, you do reps (the amount they told you to do), click “done.” Next, they give a rest countdown. I run in place during rests cos I’m ADHD. Repeat til the workout is done.

This is FANTASTIC because a) I forget where I am otherwise b) it’s easy to lose track of time between work/ rest sections. Ain’t gonna happen with YAYOG. It’s like having a coach doing any of the brain stuff, so you can focus on form.

But you weren’t interesting in that for $2.

Okay, they have custom workout timers. I’ve had a Tabata timer for ages (in iPhone years, that means 4 or 5). I guess I can delete that one…

1. Interval Sets (traditional)
2. Super Sets (power)
3. 4 Step Ladders (endurance — this is what my basic wos consist of)
4. Stappers (timed circuit training)
5. Tabatas (HIIT, high intensity interval training that lasts 8 minutes with specified work times and rest times)

And ya know, if you’re just looking for something to do, there are over 200 exercises detailed and shown as videos for form/ instruction.

For $2. Sold! I’m all over this.

I’ve done 2 workouts:

My screen shot on phone chops off part of the detail since upgraded to iOS6–apologies. I don’t want to buy a phone so I can see all of something. The top that’s cut-off is chair pushups. You can see it says 1. I did 24. Learning curve.

Figured it out for the others! Those let me ups KICKED MY ARSE. Good grief! You can see I did more than they asked on the middle two. Again, I’m stronger in some things and not as strong in others. I’ll get stronger!

To mix things up, I chopped off the bottom of this one ::rolls eyes:: It was swimmers, a core exercise where you’re lying on your belly and lift your right arm and left leg, hold, then opposite for one rep. I did 33/ 36. It’s not that I’d reached failure but that’s a really uncomfortable position for me (I was on a thick yoga mat on carpeting) and it said in details to hold at top to make it harder–so I held them longer.
After this workout, I went directly outside and ran 1 mile as fast as I could. It’s considered steep hills/ trail running. It took 12:59. The voice on my Nike+ said 12:58 but the activity section added a minute. I try to give myself the least credit. 🙂

That was this weekend’s LiveFit Revolution Cardio Challenge: how fast can you cover a mile. I’m not very fast but that’s okay. I’ll say this: starting right after working the lower body was, WOT?!