Pop Pilates!

I've always been a believer of keeping fit. Not so much to the extent of being a fitness nut/guru like the ones you see on Instagram, but it is always a good feeling to start/end the day with a nice and refreshing work out. Contrary to how we think exercise tires one out, when done at the right intensity and frequency, it is extremely refreshing and gives me energy for the day.

Over the last 11 years, I've managed to routinely intersperse running, swimming and badminton as part of a weekly/bi-weekly regime. Things were so easy in school where there was a gym and pool. But as I started work, it was extremely hard to drag my tired body at the end of the day for a full-on cardio workout. For a while, I was extremely unfit and constantly prey to the flu bug and cough monster. After quitting my previous job, I decided that I wanted to feel healthy again, and following the advice of my sister who stretches every day, I chanced upon pilates! 

I initially thought it was an extremely pointless form of exercise. No sweating during exercise = time wasted. The first encounter I had with pilates was at the start of my internship in India where Joyce introduced me to an extremely boring series of pilates videos when we were trying to figure out how best to keep fit in a place where curry and biyani more or less made up our daily meals. I eventually did not buy into it and ended up running every morning on our roof top.

Fast forward to these past couple of working years, I was getting constant back aches from being at the desk most of the time and remembered that my spine doctor had advised me to swim and do stretching. So I decided to find an exercise that I could do in the comfort and convenience of my own home. I did some research, chanced upon Cassey Ho's videos and loved them! She's humorous, entertaining, encouraging, relatable, has extremely pretty backdrops and does these less than 10 minute clips for target spots, so it's perfect for people like me who needs things straight to the point. I've been doing it for some time now and have more or less settled on a fixed routine. I especially like the stretches to relieve lower back pain at the end of the set!

I find pilates really helps me to train my core muscles and tone up the different areas, which is great cos running just burns fats and doesnt do much toning. Toning makes you look fit and good, and overall, less effort exerted for physical stuff.

I've also been trying to train myself to do splits and other more fancy stuff. Heh, maybe check back here in a few months for some progress update?