Strength training - the funcrunch files

So after saying for the last year or three "I really ought to (re-)start strength training", last week I finally dusted off my dumbbells and did so. And I didn't hate it!! I actually enjoyed the feeling of straddling the threshold of strain and pain as I completed the reps in each set, and of the slight (or not-so-slight) soreness in my muscles a day or two after each workout.

I'm using Bob Greene's "Get With The Program" series of eight dumbbell exercises. I also own A Woman's Book of Strength by Karen Andes, which is excellent, but geared toward gym workouts; I used it during my very brief stint at the Berkeley Y back in 2002. I was at my heaviest weight ever then, 173 pounds, and lost about ten pounds before I got utterly sick of going to the gym only 2-3 months later. I'm fifty pounds lighter now, and much prefer doing my strength workouts at home. Even though that currently means propping my piano bench up against the couch until I get around to buying a proper weight bench.

I hope I can keep the momentum on both strength and cardio going. It seems like I have too-frequent setbacks, like today when I got a foot cramp so severe I had to miss my Food Not Bombs shift as I could barely stand. No idea where that came from, but by evening I was feeling better and could still do at least the strength portion of my workout, in addition to the stretches and crunches that I'm supposed to be doing 5x/week but rarely manage to as I still really hate the crunches. (I'm not doing the crunches to try to reduce my midsection, as spot-reduction doesn't work, but to strengthen my core as Bob Greene recommends; "functional fitness".)