Category: Burpees

Wednesday Workout: Strength to Core & Cardio Blast Workout

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Hey there! Happy hump day:) The first few days after a long weekend/mini vacation are always the hardest, right? The one thing I do like about the week back after some time off from my regular schedule, is my motivation to get back on track with workouts… anyone else feel this way? I taught this one 2 weeks ago in my UXF Burn class and everyone seemed to like it. Some of the moves may seem funny or confusing, but that’s just because you haven’t seen them on here! I try to keep things fun in class and one way I do that is bringing in “new” moves that hopefully most people haven’t done before!

Strength to core & cardio blast

Here are some notes on some of the “new” or “different moves:

1.A- Squat with heels on weights & holding a weight overhead: take 2 dumbbells and place them end to end on the ground. Place your heels on the hand grip area of the weights and point your toes together. Your knees will naturally also touch (or come close to touching) since they like to be in line with your toes! Squeeze your knees together as you squat low (you can also squeeze a small ball between your knees if you have one! Extra inner thigh work is never a bad thing.). While you’re doing this, hold 1 weight over your head for a nice, little shoulder burn! Here’s a picture of me doing this a while ago in a class I took:

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2.A- Push-ups with opposite arm and leg raise: Perform a regular push-up and when you come back up into your high plank starting position, find your core balance and extend your right arm and left leg out. Repeat on the other side. If you’re not comfortable with doing push-ups on your feet, you can do this on your knees and still get the full effect!

2.B- Plank with leg pulses: Start in a high plank, squeeze your right glute and lift up your right leg. Keep the tension and pulse that straight leg. Repeat on the other side.

3.B- In and out and up: We’ve done these a bunch of times in my classes. While seated, lean back a little and bring your knees into your chest, push them out to straight (about 6 inches from the ground), and then lift them up (coming almost into high boat position). Repeat!

4.B- Weighted V-Sits: One of my most favorite core moves at the moment! I love v-sits, but adding a weight to them is a nice change. Grab 1 weight and hold it with 2 hands over your head when your come up into your V.

Let me know if you have any other questions or if you give it a try; I like to know if you guys think it’s worth me posting these weekly workouts and if anyone actually does them!

Questions for you: Have you learned any new takes on old/standard moves? What are you currently loving for an exercise or cardio burst?

Wednesday Workout: 6 Moves Circuit + 2 Focus Moves

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Hey everyone! I am trying to get you a workout and a recipe every Wednesday… let’s see how long I can keep it up! As I’ve mentioned, last week I went to one of my favorite instructor’s boot camp class at the Wellington BSC. I love her because she is a super tough instructor, but not tough just because we do the same move for a million reps, but rather, because she is always bringing in fun, new moves and is always changing it up!

Since I loved the class so much (and it totally kicked my butt!!), I decided to take the general format and bring it to my UXF Burn class at the Central Square BSC. I changed up some of the moves, but otherwise, it was pretty much the same!

6 moves circuit + 2 focus moves

The idea was that you keep the 2 focus moves (focus/core moves because they are full body exercises that get your heart rate up without having to do cardio) at 60 seconds each as your starting point. The whole class stays together for these. For the circuit moves, people were able to go more at their own pace. I did make 2 of the rounds be 30 second intervals for the 6 moves instead of 15 reps to keep everyone together, but for the last round, I timed them to see how quickly people could finish. Congrats to Graciella for finishing first!! 🙂

Here are some notes on the moves:

  • Heavy weighted squats- we used a barbell here (like in BodyPump) and I encouraged people to go much heavier than normal!
  • Deadlifts- we used the same barbell for these as we did for squats
  • Squats w/weighted chest push: hold 1 weight (or a medicine ball!) with both hands at chest height. As you squat down, push your arms out to a full extended position. As you rise up from your squat, pull your arms back in. This is great for your shoulders and chest!
  • Frogger Burpees: take 1 big jump forward, and then bring yourself down into a REAL burpee, meaning your whole body is on the ground. Push yourself up, jump to turn around, and do a big frogger jump back to your spot (and then go right into the burpee). Holy sky-rocketed heart rate from these!

To finish off class, we did an Ab Tabata consisting of the following 2 moves: Mountain Climbers and Plank Jacks. I also threw in some more of my favorite ab moves (leg lefts, in and outs, swimmers, etc.). And then, because I wasn’t ready to quit just yet, I made them do a “Power Blast”, to leave class energized and awake! Our Power Blast was a sumo squat straddling the bench, and then jumping both feet up onto the bench- 20 reps. I wanted to do Donkey Kicks over the bench, but we ran out of time:(

I hope you like this workout! Let me know if you need clarification on any of the moves! I am totally loving REAL burpees lately, so class members, take that as a warning 😉

Questions for you! What moves are you loving right now? What is your “go-to” hard class to attend? Ever done a frogger burpee?

Wednesday Workout Time! Full Body Circuit Workout

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Hi! Wednesday’s are wonderful because once they are over, you know you are so much closer to the weekend!

Remember how I said how I taught some pretty tough workouts last week? I thought it would only be fair for me to share one with you, right?!

I taught this in my UXF class on Wednesday and it.was.awesome!

Full Body Circuit Workout

I liked this workout because it never got boring and even though there were some things I really dreaded (weighted burpees and weighted jump squats), there were lots of things I really liked (Lunge w/oblique twist and monkey sit with biceps curls), which made it go by really quickly! We got through 3 rounds, including a warm up and a few extra abs at the end. For the 3rd round, I did drop it down to 45 seconds instead of 60 to save some time.

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For the weighted burpees, refer to the top two pictures above. Crab walk is bottom left and monkey sit with biceps curls is bottom right.

Couple of notes:

  • Weighted jump squats- you can either hold the weights by your sides and do small jumps, or you can just hold one weight with both hands and squat, touch it to the ground and when you jump up, push the weight up over your head to get that extra big reach.  If jumping is too much, just squat with the weights!
  • Double Knee Strikes- this is a Dynamax move:) This YouTube video shows the first part, but instead of throwing the ball after the 2 single knee strikes, bring both knees into your chest, then start over!
  • Wide leg lifts- instead of holding your legs/feet/heels together when you lift and lower your legs, bring them into a wide V. This works your obliques more!

I think that about covers it! As always, let me know if you have more questions:)

Questions for you: Ever done any of these moves before? Do you prefer to lift heavier weights for a small amount of reps? Or light weights for lots of reps?

I Went To A Class! That I Wasn’t Teaching! (And, a UXF Inspired Workout)

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Happy Wednesday! Two posts in one day… how do you feel about that?!

So, last night, I did something I haven’t done in a long, long, LONG time. I went to the gym. For a class. That I wasn’t teaching! Can you believe it? Back before I started teaching, I would go to the Wellington BSC 6 or 7 times a week for classes and for my own workouts. On Tuesday’s, I would go to Mary Beth’s Kickboxing IT class at 6:30. For those of you who have been reading for a while, you know that Tuesdays used to be my go-to rest days since I was teaching Mondays and then Wednesday-Saturday. Now that I don’t teach on Friday’s anymore and am only teaching every other Saturday, it gives me the option to workout on Tuesdays if I want, which is kind of fun… and also why I went to the gym last night. It was SO good to see all of my instructor friends at that gym… boy have I missed it!

006Although Mary Beth’s class is quite different than how I teach, it was really nice being able to workout for ME. I didn’t have to worry about sounding like I was sucking air as I was giving cues and pointers in my mic, I didn’t have to worry about watching everyone and checking form, I didn’t have to worry about remembering the next move. As much as I LOVE teaching, last night was a reminder that I need to get back into the gym to TAKE classes, because I really love that, too.

Post workout, I went home, watered my flowers and made a quick and easy dinner, using leftovers from Sunday’s Cinco de Mayo meal.

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(from Instagram. Are you following me yet?)

All I did was take the leftover “chili” mixture (it thickened up in the fridge) and put it in a honey wheat tortilla (Fiber One- love them!), added some cheese and grilled it up. Quick, easy, delicious.

Workout

Ok, let’s get to that workout that I promised you, ok? As most of you probably know, I teach a UXF Burn class for the Boston Sports Club once a week. As much as I love the workouts, I get bored quickly and need to change-up the format sometimes. While the basis of the workout is consistent with the “Keep It Moving” format, I changed it up in that we kept the 60 second time intervals for the strength portions throughout the whole workout (instead of dropping them down to 45 seconds, 30 seconds, and then 2 tabata rounds).

In the Keep It Moving, the workout is set up in the following format:

1. Lower body

2. Upper body- pull

3. Core

4. Compound Movement- RIGHT

5. Compound Movement- LEFT

6. Upper- push

7. Compound Movement- both right and left together

8. Core

90 Seconds of Cardio

Although, I kept the moves somewhat consistent with how the format is laid out above, I did change it a bit in that I used moves that were not on “the list”… tisk, tisk, I know!

UXF Inspired workout

I had a really hard time trying to explain moves for #’s 3 and 4, so refer to THIS post for a better description, but it sort of looks like this:

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If you have any other questions, please let me know! A couple of members told me that they really liked the exercises I chose for this workout, so try it out and let me know what you think!

Questions for you: Instructor friends- think it’s easier or harder to take a class vs. teach it? Do you like leftovers? Ever taken a UXF Burn class?

Also! Check in tomorrow for a special recap of the April Arms Challenge I participated in last month:)

Cardio, Strength & Core Circuits… Wednesday Workout Time!

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Happy hump day, Burpees to Bubbly readers! How is your week going so far? Mine started off a bit rocky, and for no real reason, either. Monday just kind of sucked! Traffic, bad drivers, low class numbers, post-weekend depression. Anyone else ever feel like that on a Monday?

Anyway, I thought you might be in the need for a new workout today to spice up your weekely workouts. Yes? No? Maybe you can at least take a couple of moves or the general theme of the workout and put your own moves in to make the workout more fit for your level. Regardless, I’m going to share it with you:)

Cardio, strength & core circuitsI did this workout in a couple of different classes over the past couple of weeks and it was killer! In class, for circuit 2, we used the bench for cardio, so I changed up the moves in the above workout to be doable without a bench.

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Squat & OH Press

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Dokey Kicks- they love to hate me when I make them do these:)

As the notes say, you can do just circuit 1, just circuit 2, circuit 1 followed by circuit 2, OR do 2 rounds of each. Whatever you do, make sure you don’t forget the “meat” part of the circuit sandwich: burpees and push-ups!! My favorite;)

If you have any other questions on the moves/exercises and how to modify (whether that would be making it more challenging or less challenging), please let me know… I am more than happy to help!

Questions for you: What is the move you love to hate the most?! (burpees, for me… but I really don’t hate them at all!) What is your all time favorite exercise? All time LEAST favorite exercise?

Hope you have a wonderful day!