Category: At-home workout

Wednesday Workout: Cardio EMOM & Upper Body AMRAP (35 min workout)

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Good morning! I wasn’t sure if I’d have a post for you today, but considering I enjoyed the workout I planned and did yesterday morning before work, I thought it was only fair to share with you 😉

If you’ve been following B2B for a while, you’ll probably agree that I don’t really workout in the morning very often. It’s not that I don’t like to workout in the morning, because even though my energy level isn’t nearly as high as it is after work, I absolutely love starting the day with a workout and I also love not having a workout looming over my head throughout the work day. But, seeings how I have to leave for work by 6:45am, it just makes getting up and working out at an hour of the day where I’d much rather be sleeping. That, and I tend to have teaching or workout plans after work so it’s not really necessary.  It’s all good, though- I do them when I can and on the days where I can’t workout after work I go during lunch, NBD.

Since I knew I had meetings all day on Tuesday and I had something after work, I knew my only option for getting a workout in was to do it before work. I decided to go in just a little late, which made my morning wake-up call not quite so early. To help speed things along in the morning, I created my workout the night before. On top of saving time, this also gets me excited and mentally prepared to get up early to workout. Laying my workout clothes and shoes also helps! I was up at 5:45am and dressed and working out by 5:59am and done by 6:35- not too bad!

Here is the outline of the workout- I will list out the details below:

Cardio EMOM & Upper Body AMRAP

What I liked about this workout was the format. I started off with a quickie warm up (4 mins, to be exact) and then jumped right in to the cardio EMOM (Every Minute On the Minute) portion, which was burpees and mountain climbers. What this means is that I gave myself 1 minute to complete 15 burpees. However much time was left in the minute after I completed the 15 burpees was used for active rest- side bends/dips, in my case. Once that minute was up, I performed 30 mountain climbers (each leg) and again, the remaining time in the minute was spent doing side bends/dips before jumping back into burpees. This 8 minute EMOM set had me doing 4 rounds of 15 burpees and 4 rounds of 30 mountain climbers. I was successfully sweaty by the end of this.

My next set was an 8 minute AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) upper body workout. My workout the night before had been legs so I knew I didn’t want to do much with them the following morning. I ended up completing 5 rounds of the upper body circuit and was really proud of myself for completing the push-ups on my toes for all of the rounds! Also, as a heads up I used a band for the seated rows and dumbbells for the other exercises.

Once that was done, I did a 4 minute EMOM of burpees and mountain climbers and then a 4 minute EMOM of 15 banded leg-lowers (do a regular leg lower, just add in the band around your feet as you would for the seated row. Extend the feet over your hips and hold the handles with your hands and keep tension on the band as you lower and lift the legs) and 8 get up, sit ups.  For my fellow BoxFIIT certification people, you know what this is. For the purposes of creating an easier to understand workout, I put regular sit-ups in the graphic.

Quick stretch and I was done-zo. It wasn’t the HARDEST workout I’ve done, but it kept my heart rate up and was exactly what I wanted/needed yesterday. As long as you have a pair of dumbbells and a band, this workout can easily be done at home! let me know if you try it 🙂

Questions for you: Do you prefer to workout in the morning, during your lunch break or after work?

Wednesday Workout: Cardio Sandwich Circuits

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I hope that title didn’t make you hungry 😉 This workout was created as a way to keep me inside the house during the snowstorm on Monday. Literally, the only time I stepped out of the house was to bring the trash out… and I’m not even mad about it. Soon enough we’ll have beautiful weather so I took advantage of a nasty, wintery (yet spring) day and virtually didn’t leave the house. It was actually very nice, especially since this workout ended up being kind of a butt-kicker 😉

Going into the workout, I knew I wanted a mix of cardio and strength training. My weights at home aren’t big enough to really give me the kind of challenging workout I want for a lifting session, so I generally incorporate cardio and weights for any at-home workout. With that said, between the cardio sandwich and strength exercises in this workout, I was huffing and puffing throughout the whole thing… especially when I had to do 12 burpees followed by 12 burpees… that was killer 😉

Cardio Sandwich Circuits

I think the directions are pretty clear- all you have to do is complete each round 3 times before moving on to the next. Your reps will decrease from 12 to 10 to 8 as you complete rounds 1-3. If you’re running short on time, feel free to pick just 1 or 2 of these and put all your energy into that.

Here are some notes/explanations for the exercises- I wanted to do short video’s for some of them, but I’ve been filming so many videos for my BoxFIIT certification that I just couldn’t do any more!

  • Squats & squat hold w/side taps- perform the designated # of straight squats first and then come down into a squat hold and tap each leg out to the side for that number of reps as well. Hopefully you’ll feel that extra burn!
  • Shoulder press-> chest squeeze- for this one, you’ll hold a weight in each hand and perform a shoulder press. When your elbows come back to shoulder height, pull your weights together so that they end up in front of your face with your palms facing you. Engage all of those chest muscles as you’re pulling your elbows and weights to touch in front of your face.
  • Lunge & tap- Lunge back on one leg and then push off the foot that stepped back to bring that foot to tap right next to the stationary leg. I did an isometric bicep curl hold while lunging.

I think everything else is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask me!

My legs felt pretty beat after this- I hope you give it a try!

Wednesday Workout: 20 Minute Bodyweight Tabata Workout

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Happy hump day, friends! As I mentioned on Monday, I did a quickie bodyweight tabata workout on Sunday morning that I wanted to share with you. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time- and didn’t want to wake up extra early to give me extra time- so I opted for a tabata workout since those tend to give me the biggest bang for my buck. No matter what I choose for exercises, I tend to be sore following a tabata workout, which was definitely the case when I woke up on Monday morning!

If you’re not familiar, tabata workouts are 8 rounds of 20 seconds on (working super hard!) followed by 10 seconds of rest, totaling 4 minutes all together. Traditional tabata workouts are generally just ONE exercise to be repeated for all 8 rounds, but I opted to do 2 exercises per tabata, so that each was done 4 times.  So, rather than a traditional tabata workout, it was more of a tabata theme workout.

You’ll notice that each tabata set has 1 bodyweight exercise followed by a complementary cardio exercise- gotta love that extra burn 😉

20 Minute Bodyweight Tabata Workout

I think everything here is fairly straight forward- sometimes going back to the basics can be the best workouts. While I love spicing things up with “fancy” moves, it can also be nice to stick with tried and true exercises that don’t require as much brain work, haha. If you’re feeling good and want to use weights when you perform the exercises- feel free! Likewise, if you’re not feeling up to the cardio, you can modify or continue with the bodyweight exercise for all 8 rounds. Per usual, the workout can be adapted to fit whatever your need is on the day you decide to do it.

Questions for you: What workout format always leaves you sore? Do you like basic, tied and true exercises or do you like to get fancy and make up new combos?

Weekending: Wedding Update & Double Easter Celebrations

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Good morning! Hopefully by the time this post goes up, I will have already gotten my butt kicked by Eliza at the Watertown GymIt/EBF studio. As part of the Box FIIT certification I’m working on, I’m trying to get as much class experience as I can with other instructors to help better prepare me for when it’s time to start teaching my own classes- eek!!

This past weekend was another good one- lots of family time with both families which is always a nice treat! However, I am looking forward to this weekend since we FINALLY have a weekend with virtually no plans, which hasn’t happened in forever. I have so many general life things that I want to catch up on, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a bunch done!

After work on Friday I went to the Paper Source in Lynnfield to finalize our wedding invitations. I started them online which helped because I went into the store knowing exactly what I wanted and how it looked, but I was also able to work with a super helpful lady who helped me add more text lines and change the layout a bit. They are super simple, but classy- I love them and can’t wait until they come in! Oh, and the best part? All wedding invitations and related things were 20% off, which really helped keep them within my budget.

Once that was done, I picked up a few things at Whole Foods: pizza ingredients for dinner and quiche ingredients for Saturday brunch with my family. I made this quiche which was a big hit.

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The pizza I made for RM and me was also fantastic- the dough from Whole Foods is so good!

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Saturday started off with a sweaty kickboxing class. I don’t know if it’s because I hadn’t worked out in 2 days or if it was because I hadn’t slept well the night before but the class kicked my butt!!

After class we showered up and headed into the city to go to my sister’s apartment for part 1 of our Easter celebrations. So much food, so much wedding talk, so many laughs! I also brought out my biggest of hair for the occasion 😉

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Oh! And my mom washed her vail and brought it down to see if I wanted to use it for our wedding. I think it will be so special having my “something old” (and something borrowed) as her veil. I just need to find a nice comb to attach it to.

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(and yes, I am a giant next to her!}

We stopped at Branch Line for a few drinks on our way home. As good as the drinks are, we REALLY need to get back there for dinner because everything looked and smelled amazing!

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Sunday morning I kicked off the day with a quickie 20 minute bodyweight tabata workout (I’ll share it with you on Wednesday!) and then went to church. I haven’t been to church since we moved, so I figured Easter Sunday was as good a day as any to start. I hope to get back into a more regular church-going schedule.

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When church was over I went food shopping and got wine and flowers for the Easter dinner at RM’s mother’s house. I didn’t get any photos of the food, but it was quite a feast: homemade lasagna (homemade noodles and everything!), grilled lamb, salad, brussels sprouts, potatoes, peppers and so many desserts. My future SIL’s parents came and when her mom walked in with a bunny cake it made me so happy because my mom always made me a bunny cake for my birthday/Easter!

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As much as I didn’t want to food prep when we got home, I knew it would be better if I just got it over with!

And that about does it- the weekend came and went way too quickly, per usual! I hope you all had a great weekend and have a kick ass week!

Questions for you: How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun? What did you do for Easter? Did you get any good workouts in? Do you go to church?

Wednesday Workout: Bodyweight Ladder Workout {for time}

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Hump day! Woohoo! Hope you guys are having a good week so far. I have a fun workout for you today. Originally I planned on running on Monday, but up in Maine it never really got higher than 30* so I decided to just stay in the house for my workout instead. I came up with this and tested it out and it was a total butt-kicker! I timed myself so that I could give you guys an idea for how long it might take you. From start to finish (up the ladder and back down), it took me 14 minutes and 7 seconds, which included a few breaks when needed. Since I had extra time, I ended up going through it 2 more times, but I changed up the exercises a bit and added in some 5lb weights since I noticed my mom had them laying around.

With that said, this workout could totally be your entire workout and even with a warm up and cool down you could be done in 20 minutes!

Bodyweight Ladder Workout

For everything that requires a left and right leg or arm (lunges, mountain climbers, high knees, side dips), perform the number of reps on each side. If you have any questions on the exercises, please let me know- I think most of these are pretty common B2B workout exercises, but I’m happy to explain them if you’re confused.

Let me know if you try this- would love to know how long it took you to complete!

Questions for you: Do you push yourself harder when you’re racing the clock for a workout?