I’ve been doing a lot of strength training since the year started. Part of that is trying to get stronger, and the other part is trying to still get this weight off from having Derby. I don’t have a ton to lose at this point, which makes it even more important to keep kicking on with the work outs. When the weight loss slows down, the strength training needs to kick up (or at least mix it up). The hardest thing about working out for me is keeping it varied.
For flexibility, I’ve been doing yoga 2 days a week. That’s easy enough to do with a gazillion videos on Youtube to watch and follow along for free (and a personal trainer friend of mine offering a free zoom class once a week for her friends/clients).
The strength training…well…as I said, it’s hard to keep it varied. The thing about strength training is, if you do 20 squats today, next time you do them you can do 30. The next time…40…the next time 50…and you’re not really getting that much fitter as your body adapts to doing that exercise efficiently. You need to keep doing different moves regularly to ensure that you don’t adapt too much. That’s how you get strong. Well…despite having done this strength training thing for over half of my life…I still run into a wall sometimes with creativity.
So for motivation I bought the resistance bands set from The Fit Equestrian. Not only are they cute…they’re useful! And not expensive. Awesome. (Note…I already have resistance bands…I just needed these cute equestrian branded ones…because…I did).
Since I bought the bands…I also went ahead and purchased the Resistance Band Program as well. A lot cheaper than buying a PT session. This program contains two workouts (with two alternate variations) with twelve total moves.
I did these workouts alone for two weeks. The first week I was sore after both work outs. The second week I wasn’t sore at all (and kicked up to the highest resistance bands on all but maybe two moves and did the rearranged workouts). There goes that darned body adaptation again! Ugh.
I really like the resistance bands. They are cute – pretty colors, motivating “mantra,” and a great carrying bag. I would 100% purchase them again. Sure you can get cheaper bands, but the branding and the pretty colors are enough for me to love these over others I have.
The Resistance Band Program is good, but if you have a solid fitness routine already and experience with bands you probably have most of these moves already. For someone newer to bands, this is an excellent purchase. The value for me personally was limited (but still for sure $15 worth for something to do for a week or two), but for a lot of people the value will be excellent. Especially these days with not a lot of gym going or personal trainer access. There are a number of other programs offered too that might be more tailor fit to what you need as well.
For the price, the workout programs offered here are great. There’s not a lot of places you can get a workout (or two for that matter) for the price of a coffee and snack from Starbucks (and they’re better for you too). So the value is high. There’s also a monthly fee video workout website, so if you like video…that’s the way to go. I may try that one out next.
My only issue with what I bought is kinda nit picky, but it was annoying for me. The design of the PDFs could use some re-work as printing them takes a LOT of ink due to lots of blocks of color. I would prefer a more minimalist design myself with black and white text and the photos as necessary. As it was, I just did my best with having the PDF on my phone and looking that way. So if you’re a paper person (I am), this may bother you just a little bit.
All in all I really like the products I’ve tried so far from The Fit Equestrian and I’m curious to check out some others. I think they’re a great value and the quality of the work outs are good.