Quote:
Originally Posted by CherryPie99
Personally, I find the 30 Day Shred, really, really hard. I hate any exercise that uses my own body resistance and things like squats, lunges and push ups KILL me. Plus, I don't give a crap what Jillian says, when you have a big belly, jumping jacks HURT. And, since I'm going to have enough extra skin anyway the pounding of my belly up and down can't be good for that cause.
And, despite my weight, I'm in pretty good shape now. I exercise pretty much daily and can run 3 miles straight.
If you are truly out of shape, it is my opinion you should start with something a little more low impact. DVD's like Zumba or other dance ones that work more on the cardio would be good. I would also suggest WALK, WALK, WALK. Walk some stairs, walk outside - that is a great place to begin!! You can also get some light weights or use cans of food to start building some muscle.
I'm not familiar with 30-day shred, but I respectfully disagree with you about bodyweight exercises ... they are a GREAT way to start, and if you find they kill you, you are probably not in as good shape as you think you are.
That was my experience - I was lifting on machines and thought I was lifting pretty heavy until I tried a simple bodyweight routine and found I could not handle it - I lacked the core strength and the balance and the coordination to do it. I stopped lifting iron until I mastered the bodyweight exercises, and the result was rapid changes in my body composition (read: loss of a couple of sizes over several months) as well as tremendous increases in real, functional strength that I could actually use for things like hauling around sacks of cat litter.
Curling a 2-pound can of soup is a pretty useless exercise, in my opinion. If you really want to get stronger, do some angled push-ups or push-ups off your knees. That will exercise your entire upper body and your core. If doing squats kills you, then your core and legs are weak - barring some injury, you should be squatting and strengthening those muscles, not avoiding squats. And this is true even if you are terribly out of shape. You may not be able to drop and give me 20 on your first day, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be starting with body weight exercises.