So, Sunday night, I was watching this "Blimp Brides" show, where they get these women who buy their wedding dresses two sizes too small, and six weeks before the wedding, they get in a panic and have a trainer beat the crap out of them and a nutritionist making them eat grass and drink grass tea or something, to hurry up and get weight off and inches lost so they're not bursting their seams on their wedding days.

This particular blimp -- who cheated horribly on the diet part, and CONSTANTLY said "I can't do this" during the exercise parts -- wasn't even that big, I think 5'7 and 138 pounds to start, but anyway... The trainer put her through all kinds of wicked things, like, he sorta put her in a harness and had her dragging him behind on runs. But a cool thing he had her doing was to do a plank pose on a balance ball. "Toes" on the floor, hands on the ball, and keep your body straight. (plank, not warped board!)

HOLY COW this is one HECK of a good work out! Pretty much my entire core "aches" from doing this thing a few times to try it out while watching the Blimpy Brides, and then to really do it last night for a while. I held that blasted pose as long as I could, as many times as I could -- more than I expected! I also did some push up ones, figuring arm strength can't hurt either...

Something I was glad of: I can move my hands around on the ball, to optimise their position so I'm not bending the wrists uncomfortably. And collapse is onto something relatively squishy, rather than the hard floor!

(took a while to realize WHY muscles ache today, and then I was delighted that they do!)-

Karen in Boise