Leg-go of my jello: Adventures in leg fitness

April 30, 2012 — by Michelle Shu

I’ve never been a person too inclined to work out voluntarily. Just the concept of running over a mile makes me cringe. However, I still need to build muscle, whether it be for dancing or color guard, and I, sadly, severely lack leg muscle.

I’ve never been a person too inclined to work out voluntarily. Just the concept of running over a mile makes me cringe. However, I still need to build muscle, whether it be for dancing or color guard, and I, sadly, severely lack leg muscle.

For this fitness plan, which I did every day for a week and a half, I decided that I would run for 15 minutes, wall sit for 3 minutes, and do 6 rounds of Tabata squats.

The wall sit is basically what it sounds like: sitting against a wall. The squats I did involved doing squats for 20 seconds and then resting at the bottom for 10. I was already decently tired after running and doing the wall sit, but I wasn’t finished; I had to do Tabata squats.

Before this workout, I was not aware of what Tabata squats were. I originally planned to do regular squats, but my friends coaxed me into doing Tabata squats, something they had to do in PE. It sounded simple and easy to do, but I found it to be much more challenging than I had anticipated. I’m not sure if it was so tiring because I did them after running and wall sits, but I was about done after this combination.

The first day of this workout was bearable. I was tired afterwards, but I recovered in a short amount of time. That, however, was just the beginning.

The second day was probably the most difficult. I was sore and tired from the day before and it was painful just to do a single squat. As the days went by, the workout became more integrated into my lifestyle and it became easier to accomplish.

I will probably continue this regime since I need muscle and endurance. On the other hand, I’ve never been too consistent with working out. I tend to allow myself to skip days, which leads to long hiatuses. Although they don’t take very long, workouts just aren’t appealing to me and never seem to last long.

I hope I can bring myself to continue this workout schedule consistently. The experience was better than I had anticipated and it would be more effective if I maintained working out for over a week and a half.

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