November 30, 2006
-
What with the winter storm warning and all, I stayed home and dipped into my DVD workout collection.
This is the one with the 50-year-old instructor. Yes, she has ropy muscles, but that just makes her more fearsome when she tells us to lift things. I quite like her, and she is an excellent antidote to excessive perkiness, if you have been doing Denise Austen or working out in aerobics class with one of those sweet little Barbie-like instructors.
The workout is 30 minutes of the Lotte Berk Method, which the dancers among us will probably remember. If you are not familiar with Lotte Berk, you will be reminded of Pilates or ballet.
The DVD claims to be for beginners, and it does have a lot of instruction about form, which is of course excellent for beginners. I would like it if there were an option for skipping the elaborate set-up of each exercise once we have learned it, but it is probably not more than 5 minutes total of the workout time. Since much of this uses weights, you can simply increase the weight for more challenge. There are two sets of ten reps each on each side for a number of different movements, so this can certainly be your strength-training DVD. There is also a good stretching section. There is no cardio here. If you get your 90-120 minutes in walking or something, then doing this workout a couple of times a week will complete your fitness routine.
Comments (1)
DVR stands for Digital Video Recorder.
It works like a VCR for recording shows, but better.
With a VCR, you tell it you want to record a particular channel at a certain time, and later sort through other recordings using fast forward and rewind to navagate, checking by looking at the tape occasionally.
With a DVR, you get all the TV listings on your screen. When you see a program you'd like to record, you push select on your remote to record it. It also asks you if you want to record just this show or all first run episodes of the show or all episodes of the show. If the show gets moved back in time because of breaking news, it records the show, not the time slot you told it to record. And you can record two things at the same time. Instead of recording onto tape, it records onto a hard drive. Then, when you go back to watch things, it brings up a list of shows that are available to watch. Just click on Gilmore Girls, and it plays the episode. Right from the beginning without having to go through everything else you recorded on the tape.
The rewind thing is that there is a button that lets you jump back five seconds instantly. Or 10 seconds if you hit it twice, etc. It's good for times when someone said something and you missed it, or were otherwise distracted, etc. You look down to see if you did that increase correctly, and somebody does something you miss. This is absolutely magical, and you start to want to apply it to real life in lots of other ways.
You can also do this to live TV when you have a DVR even if you're not recording. And if you've been watching a movie or other show and decide you want to show it to a friend, you can hit record and it will record from the beginning unless you tuned in later, in which case it will record from there.
Gillmore Girls is a show about a woman and her daughter who are best friends. You had to be there to understand.
Let's see. Did I forget anything?
Comments are closed.