I discovered ThinQ Fitness several years ago now when I was at uni and looking to get fitter – and I loved it; Lucy Cases’ beginner series was exactly my fitness level, and I loved how quickly I felt like I was progressing – the idea is you do each workout 5 time across a week before moving onto the next session, and I was doing them twice a day for maybe 4 days before moving onto the next one, I enjoyed them that much. They’re also what got me into choreographed step, and if there’s one thing that will give you a toned bottom it’s step workouts! It was also only £5/month for unlimited access to the full video catalogue – a bargain for a student when it’s £3/session to go to the gym – that can stack up over a month!
When I started work, I also moved to a completely new area – and unlike at uni where my bedroom was huge and I had a big floor space and my computer in the room, my flat had the computer in a single bedroom full of bookcases – no floor space, and trying to plug the PC into the TV on the other side of the building was a complete pain. I’d be in the mood for a workout, and the faffing around with the cables and going backwards and forwards would get me really frustrated until I just went ‘stuff it, I don’t want to do this any more’. I even tried with a Rasperry Pi plugged straight into the TV so I wouldn’t have to fuss with cables all over the house, but it wasn’t powerful enough to load the videos clearly.
I’ve mentioned before, I put quite a lot of weight on between finishing uni and the start of last year…and when I realised after a work medical how much I’d gained, I went back to Thinq Fitness (this was about 2 years on) and found that they were closing the website down in 3 weeks. I was frantic – this was the only workout series I’d ever found that I’d enjoyed and had helped whip me into shape – it had done it before, I’d not tried anything else for long enough. I tried some different things – I did zumba for a while, and went on a grain & sugar free diet which helped shift a lot of the extra weight before I dived back into the pudding bowl (I’ve managed to keep what I lost approximately off for the last year, but I need to lose another few lb’s to scrape back into the top of the ‘ok’ BMI band, and nearly a stone to be sitting in the middle of it. I’m more bothered about getting back into my jeans without a muffin-top than what my BMI is, but it’s as good an indication as any for the moment). Should really try and get back onto that eating plan for a couple of months but that’s a seperate issue…
Not long before we moved, on a whim I decided to check the website again – and it was up as if it had never been away! I have no idea why it went down, or for how long, but it was back and I embraced it like an old friend, relieved to know it was back again, and so too was my potential to get fit – this was before I started running. I still had all the faffing with the cables – I did a few workouts with the netbook I’d bought by this point, and then we moved house – loads of space for working out now right?! YES! Except we moved into the country…and stayed with our existing internet supplier, who roped us into a 12 month contract again when we changed the address. The internet with them is SLOW here compared to where we were – which was about 300m from the exchange, and the videos do not load well 😦 they don’t seem to buffer and the audio and visual lagged badly last time I tried it. Annoyingly, BT have just installed fibre-optic in our area, so I could be surfing at the speed of light (in theory anyway) but we’re stuck on the slow one until October…when we’ve got a bit more of a buffer between us and bankruptcy after taking on a mortgage I may see what it would cost to get out the contract, until then I shall make do with what I have!
ANYWAY, now that you’ve had the ENTIRE ThinQ Fitness and I backstory, I can skip forward to tonight! I was doing my dance-around wave-arms-about normal warm-up intending to do a weights session, and the song that was on my ipod was Rock & Roll Mercenaries by Meat Loaf, and I noticed some of the bopping around I was doing was very reminiscent of one of the ThinQ sessions I used to enjoy, so I thought I’d give it another go. We had one incident where the visuals completely froze, but the audio was smooth (I hate jumpy music) and as it was a session I was familiar with I was able to get through this bit unaided anyway until it behaved itself.
The workout session I did tonight was a beginner combat conditioning one – starts with a warm-up, then does a section with some basic punches, kicks and jabs before going into a more general conditioning session with squats, leg lifts and ab work, and then some cool-down stretches at the end. I could feel the different compared to how it used to feel when I was slim and fit (I thought so at the time anyway, I suspect my running stamina would still have been awful!) from doing the weights work over the last month or so – I was able to use more power for the whole combat section and my balance was the best it’s been, but I was flagging a bit nearer the end. The squats were fine but some of the leg lifts worked more on the ones down the outer sides of the thighs than the ones on the front and back – and they have not had a dedicated ‘work’ request made in a looooong time! Tired but satisfied by the end of the 40 minutes, and looking forward to getting my old step videos out for a dusting – I may try that tomorrow morning if I’m up early enough before I head out visiting a friend.
Blue Runnings 
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