Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Crunches

(Not my gut over there. Mine is not nearly so hairy and has far more stretch marks.) As the caption says, crunches are not enough. But they are better than nothing, no? I have started doing crunches in the morning. First regular crunches, then bicycle crunches, and then something that we used to call V-snaps for swimming dryland training. I never thought I was in decent shape when I started dryland every year but let me tell you, out of shape in my late teens early twenties with a pre-kid body is a whole different ballgame to out of shape in your forties after decades of packing on the pounds and eating badly. My abdominal muscles (and I only know I still have them because they are in a world of screaming hurt after several days of crunches) hate me with a white hot fiery hate. They strain more now than they did when they were having to support the awkwardly large babies I hosted repeatedly. And this crunch thing might kill them. (Don't tell them, but once I get more comfortable with the crunches, I intend to add in the dreaded plank thing too which is likely to have them screaming for mercy--or at least chocolate chips cookies.) And while I know there's a lot more to decent looking abs (note I didn't ask for flat abs--I don't expect miracles) than crunches, surely strengthening the muscles under all the flab will help minimize the pooch, right?

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