Category: Burpees

This Week: Workouts, What I’m Looking Forward To & January Challenge {Week 2} Check-In

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Hi there! Happy Monday 🙂 Anyone have today off? I wish I did, but, alas, I am working and teaching. I hope your weekend was a good mix of everything you needed/wanted. Mine certainly was! I don’t know what I did differently with my workouts last week, but holy moly did they leave me sore! I ended up resting on Tuesday and Friday, yet I felt more sore than I did on weeks where I would have maybe worked out 6 or 7 days. I guess that just goes to show you that quality generally trumps quantity. While I like to sweat or do something active most days (mentally, I really need/like it… it’s my “me” time), I would take quality workouts on fewer days during the week than a week full of “meh” workouts every day. Anyone else feel this way?

Last Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I went to the East Boston YMCA for spin. It was a sub, but it was a nice change and I liked the different things we did. I had time before the class so I did some biceps, shoulder and back strength training and did some core after class. I had decided I was going to rest on Tuesday, so I wanted to get a good workout in on Monday.
  • Tuesday- Rest day. I was still feeling sick on Monday and knew that if I wanted to workout on Tuesday, it would have to be in the morning, so I decided that sleep was more important than a workout. Guess what? I woke up feeling much, much better. Funny thing about that….
  • Wednesday- Because of my rest day on Tuesday, I was AMPED to workout and to teach. Seriously. I was looking forward to it all day. I ran a 5K and then taught UXF Burn. I joked that I hadn’t done squats in so long… and by the way my glutes and legs felt on Thursday, I wasn’t joking!

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  • Thursday- I taught a really fun SHRED class where we did all sorts of exercises across the floor. It was so fun and left my legs and upper body feeling like jello after class and incredibly sore on Friday. I also taught kickboxing, which was a good challenge for me because out of a class of 16, 12 of them had never done kickboxing or really worked out before. This was a great practice for my patience and my teaching/instructing skills. Since my “regulars” are so used to my teaching, I feel like I get off pretty easy because I don’t have to verbally instruct/coach/cue as much, so it was good for me to be taken out of my comfort/”cruise control” teaching zone and bring it back to the basics.
  • Friday- Rest! To try and loosen up my muscles I did about 25 minutes of yoga in my apartment, which ended up leaving my shoulders and triceps sore on Saturday… haha whoops!
  • Saturday- Taught another sweaty class at the Oak Square YMCA! There were almost 50 people in there again and we worked hard… I was so sore on Sunday!
  • Sunday- I went to a Power Yoga class at Exhale Spa. I got a Guilt deal so I was excited to go to yoga to stretch after a week of intense workouts. The class made me, again, realize how badly I need more yoga in my life. My hamstrings and hips are so tight!

This Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- Subbing the 6:30 kickboxing class at the Watertown BSC! If you’re around, come sweat with me!
  • Tuesday- I am not sure… I usually seem to have after work plans on Tuesdays, but I don’t have anything planned as of yet so I may head to the gym for a weight session after work.
  • Wednesday- Probably running and then teaching UXF Burn.
  • Thursday- SHRED and then kickboxing. Any suggestions for formats/exercises you’d like to do??
  • Friday- Rest day! Maybe some at-home yoga since I think that’s a nice way to stretch on an off day.
  • Saturday- I’m taking a class at Recycle Studio with my friend, Lindsay, who is a new instructor there. I am SO excited, but kind of nervous to take a class at a “fancy” type of spin studio.
  • Sunday- Maybe yoga again? I liked that last week!

Things I’m Looking Forward To

I think one of the things I’m most looking forward to is going to Lindsay’s class. I feel like it’s going to make me finally cross over into the “I love spinning/cycling” world. I might be getting dinner with my friend Meaghan, which would be great since we haven’t seen each other in so long. Lastly, I’m excited to see my sister this weekend. She was in NYC last weekend and it was weird to not hang out!

January Burpee & Push-Up Challenge: Week 2 Recap

Time for week 2 check in!! How did everyone do this week? I know that Jen Ryder absolutely rocked and beat her time from week 1 by over 4 minutes!! I am so impressed! Dana also sent her time to me (I love seeing all of your posts on Facebook– it’s a great motivator!), which is so impressive because she can do push-ups like a champ. Seriously. I wish I had that type of upper body strength!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to get mine in, to be honest. I planned for it on Friday, but I was so sore from Thursday’s classes, that I skipped it. Then, I was going to do it on Saturday after teaching kickboxing, but clearly that was a silly idea since I’m always beat after that class. That left Sunday… but after yoga and showering and puttering, it’s the last thing I wanted to do. But… I did it! And, somehow, I beat my time by 30 seconds. The secret? I think it’s because I opted to do more reps in each set: 40, 40, 20. By doing this, it eliminated the transition time from 4 transitions to 3, so that has to have been it? I don’t know, but I’ll take it. Maybe next week I’ll shoot for 50 and 50! The push-ups still sucked more than the burpees, oddly enough. IMG_6467

I want to hear from you! Did you do week 2 of the challenge? How did your time compare this week to last week? What’s the last exercise/workout that left you really sore? What are you looking forward to this week?

This Week: Workouts, Things I’m Looking Forward To & January Challenge Check-In

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Happy Monday! How was your weekend? I hope you were able to get out of the house and do something fun!

Last week, I started to come down with a  cold. It started with an itchy/scratchy throat and then moved to sinus pressure/congestion, etc. I’ve been loading up on Emergen-C, Mucinex and Sudafed and while they are working, it’s getting old taking so many meds! I blame the wacky weather for my cold. I tried to take it easy with my workouts once I started feeling sick, but I’ll be honest, unless I’m SUPER sick and physically cannot move, it’s really hard for me to tone it down. Which, is ultimately why I get super sick- I don’t rest when I should and end up getting more worn out and sick. You’d think since I understand this I’d be better at doing the right thing (resting) to make sure I don’t get full blown sick, but, I’m not. Oh well. With a that said, let’s look at my workouts last week!

Last Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I was really in the mood to get to a spin class and was stressed when I called the gym and they said you can’t pre-register. There’s nothing worse than getting to the gym for a class and then not getting to take it because it’s full, right? Luckily, I got the golden ticket and was able to take the class! I’m still not crazy about the instructor, but at this point, it’s just good for me to keep getting more experience.

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  • Tuesday- I had dinner/drink plans after work so I got up in the morning and did the strength part of a workout I taught in SHRED a few weeks ago. It was based off of a workout in Men’s Health and it was great!
  • Wednesday- I started to feel sick on Tuesday so Wednesday it was my goal to take it easy at the gym. Instead of running, I did 15 minutes on the elliptical and then taught my first UXF Burn class of the year. There were some new faces in the class which is always fun. I did about 75% of the workout (I just can’t not do any of the workout when I teach- I love it too much!).
  • Thursday- I still wasn’t feeling great, but I was able to get through my SHRED and Kickboxing classes. The numbers are up, but they aren’t up so much that it makes being in class miserable. It’s a good balance! I taught a new format in SHRED and since everyone seemed to like it, I’ll post it for you on Wednesday 🙂
  • Friday- Rest!
  • Saturday- I did my January Burpee & Push-Up Challenge before going to a class at Pure Barre with my sister.

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  • Sunday- I woke up pretty darn sore from the Pure Barre class on Saturday, so I took my time in the morning around my apartment before deciding what I wanted to do for a workout. Since it was nice out, I decided to go for a run to loosen up my tight legs. Little did I know I’d be running into an incredibly strong head wind the entire first half of my run. Woof. I stopped at the “gym” in the park to do some ab work before heading back. Solid workout!

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This Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I’ll head to a spin class at the East Boston YMCA again.
  • Tuesday- I’m getting together with some other tenants in my building for some wine after work, so I’ll get up and do my usual Tuesday morning strength session (which I’ve been loving lately!).
  • Wednesday- Cardio and then teaching UXF Burn
  • Thursday- SHRED and then Kickboxing
  • Friday- Probably a rest day. I’d like to maybe do 30 minutes of at-home yoga since I haven’t done as much of that in 2014 as I’ve wanted to, but we will see.
  • Saturday- It’s my turn to teach kickboxing at the Oak Square YMCA- yay! Hope to see all my favorite familiar faces in the crowd!
  • Sunday- Not sure. I might try to get some strength training in (maybe BodyPump?), maybe something else, maybe a real yoga class? I’ll see how I feel!

Things I’m Looking Forward To

Well, I’m looking forward to feeling better. Even though I never got really sick, it’s not fun feeling off and “kinda” sick. It’s actually just annoying. Other than that, I’m looking forward to having wine with some of the other girls in my building and hopefully getting together with some of my college girlfriends this weekend.

January Burpee & Push-Up Challenge Check-In

Alright, it’s time to check-in with my challenge! Who’s participating? I’ve seen a few tweets and Facebook status’ saying you’re participating, so I want to know what you thought of the first week of the challenge! What was harder than you thought it would be? What was easier? How did you break up the 100 reps of each exercise? What was your time? Before tackling the challenge, I had no idea what to even have as a goal for the completion time. 5 minutes? 10 minutes? More/less? I ended up completing it in 6 minutes and 21 seconds (took a few seconds to hit the stop button) and I still have no idea where that stands in comparison to some of your times! I feel like I can definitely do it a little faster next week, but my ultimate goal by the end of the challenge is to do it in under 6 minutes, which I think is doable. Few things to note about how I completed it (how you complete it will influence how long it will take you to complete it, so remember that!):

  • 4 sets of 25: I did 25 burpees then 25 push-ups, times 4 rounds
  • I didn’t do CrossFit burees- I just jumped back into a high plank, back in and hopped at the top
  • I did my push-ups on my knees. Over 20 reps of push-ups on my feet leads to bad form for me, so to make sure I was keeping good form throughout, I dropped to my knees.

Things I was thinking during the challenge:

  • “Ok, that first set of 25 burpees wasn’t bad. Here come the push-ups.”
  • “Breathe, Monique… the push-ups are when you get your breathing back!”
  • “Gosh, these burpees aren’t as bad as I thought they’d be.”
  • “I hate push-ups. I need a break. No, keep going.”
  • “Almost done the burpees! Just keep thinking about the Spartan race when you had to do 30 at a time!”
  • “Ok, you can have a 2 second break this push-up round. Make it count.”

As you can see, the burpees weren’t bad for me, but the push-ups sucked! I wish I had more upper body strength, and you’d think that with the amount of push-ups I do (pretty much every workout), I’d get better at them, but I’m not! All in all, though, I was happy with my first attempt. It was fun to give it my all and get me a starting point for the challenge so I can try and improve next time!

Questions for you: How were your workouts last week? Did you try anything new? What are you looking forward to this week? How about the challenge? Did you rock it? What was hardest/easiest? Please share!

Wednesday Workout: January Burpee & Push-Up Challenge!

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Hi there! I am SO excited to be hosting my first “challenge” this month. My friend Athena has hosted a number of awesome challenges, and while I am not ready to put together anything as detailed, planned out and organized as well as she has, I thought this would be fun little challenge to add to your current workout.

It’s no surprise that I LOVE burpees, right? Remember this burpee post I wrote over the summer? So fun. I also love (more so, love to hate) push-ups. No matter how many I do, they are always challenging for me. But I think that’s part of the reason why I like them. That, and because they are such a good exercise for almost your entire body: chest, triceps, lats, core, quads, etc. On top of that, there are SO MANY variations and they can be modified to any fitness level (against a wall, table top position, hands and knees, hands and feet, hands and feet but with one foot lifted, etc.).

So, with that said, I have picked these two exercises for my challenge since I think they give you the most bang for your buck.January Burpee & Push-Up Challenge

Say, what?! 100 burpees AND 100 push-ups?! Yes, you read that correctly 🙂 Don’t get overwhelmed, though, there are a few things to note that will help show you it’s totally doable:

1. Even though this is a “for time” workout, meaning your goal is to complete the exercises as quickly as possible and to beat your time from one week to the next, I want you to make sure you’re keeping good form because doing exercises super fast, but sacrificing form isn’t safe or effective.

2. Feel free to complete the 100 reps of each exercise however you’d like: all at once, breaking it down to reps of 10, 20, 25, 50, etc., finish the burpees first in smaller sets then do the push-ups or vice versa, etc. There are so many ways to break it up!

3. Choose different burpees! You don’t have to do strict CrossFit burpees if you don’t want to. My burpee post has a number of different variations to choose from! Choose different push-up variations: clock push-ups, on your knees, 1 leg lifted, tricep push-ups, diamond push-ups, staggered hands push-ups, etc. Your choice 🙂

4. You can do these on any day of the week you’d like- If you want to get them over with on Monday’s, go for it! If you’d rather wait until mid-way through the week, that’s fine, too. This is your challenge.

5. Any fitness level can participate! Just make sure you warm up with some dynamic stretching beforehand!

6. I’ll check in with you guys on Mondays, but don’t wait until then to tell me how you did! Please share your thoughts/pictures/time with me via Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I want to see who’s joining me in this challenge!

So, what do you think?! Is this something you’re interested in doing with me this month? If you are, leave me a comment saying that so we all know who’s participating. I’ll check in with you on Monday to see how you did, but feel free to comment on any post with your time!

Friday Things & A 25 Days of Christmas Workout!

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Happy Friday, B2B readers! I hope you’ve had a good week. Mine has been good… let’s catch up quickly!

  • Tuesday- We got so much snow! I went to the post office at 3pm and there was no snow. When I left work at 5:45, there was probably 4 inches. I loved it!

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  • Wednesday- We had a company holiday dinner at The Palm (it’s in the same building as our new office!), but since I was going to a SMC girls Yankee Swap after, I just had wine and a few bites of the passed apps. Dinner at Jessi’s was amazing!! Honey mustard glazed chicken and cheesy mashed potatoes with a side spinach salad. So good! But even better? Getting together with some of my favorite girls. And presents. I love presents.

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I ended up with an Alex and Ani bracelet. It was my first one and I was so excited about it, not to mention the one Nikia chose was perfect for me. Very special!IMG_6131

  • Thursday- I treated myself to Cosi for lunch as I got home a little late on Wednesday night and didn’t have the energy to pack a lunch for myself.

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SO good. Do you guys like Cosi? Their signature salad is absolutely delicious. It was the perfect fuel to teach my Thursday double, which consisted of the following 25 Days of Christmas workout and then kickboxing. It was so fun!

25 Days of Christmas

This workout was awesome. It was a total body workout and I loved that once we did something (besides burpees… there can never be too many burpees 😉 ), we didn’t have to do it again. A bunch of members came up to me and said the same thing, so apparently it was a crowd pleaser! If you’re running short on time, feel free to skip the second round for the various exercises where I wrote “X2 rounds” after the exercise.

**Edited to Add: I was so tired when I was writing this last night that I forgot to say where I got this idea! I was looking through Facebook a while ago and came across this workout and just loved the idea. I took the first few exercises from Aimee’s Fitness Advent Calendar, but the rest were just random ideas I came up with. I also took the chest press & leg lift exercise from Athena, which I learned during her Fall Into Fitness challenge. It’s one of my favorite moves at the moment!

I’m hoping work flies by today because I have after-work drink plans with my sister and my old yoga instructor/friend Alyson, who I love! I think we are going to Granary Tavern, but that hasn’t been confirmed. Saturday will consist of a workout, birthday lunch for my friend Lauren and Sunday will hopefully will be ok weather for the Jingle Bell 5K!

Questions for you: What’s your “go-to” lunch place during the week (if you get lunch out)? Do you have any Alex and Ani bracelets? What are you looking forward to this weekend?

PS- We got new computers for my new company because we finally moved offices and they are tracked a lot more than before, so I haven’t read any blogs this week 😦 I will catch up over the weekend!

Wednesday Workout: Fenway Park Spartan Sprint- feeling nervous!

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It seems as though obstacle course races are all the rage these days. Whether it be Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash, Savage, Spartan Races, or something else, it seems as though everyone’s doing some type of race that involves mud, electricity, climbing or something else that isn’t something you would generally choose to do unless it was part of a race. My friend Tim has been encouraging me to do these races ever since he started doing them a year ago. One would think that I, as a fitness nut, would have one of these races on the books for a while now, but for some reason, I have yet to do one!

Well, my friends, that’s about to change. I signed up for the Fenway Park Spartan Sprint, held IN Fenway Park next weekend, and I couldn’t be more excited. But… also a little nervous! While I workout A LOT (no surprise there), I have no idea how I will perform in an obstacle race. And, although I like to think I am in pretty decent shape, I don’t do CrossFit, so I have no idea how well I can row and how well I can climb.

My goal for the race is not to finish in a certain time. It is not to beat anyone on my team (Yes, Dave, that means you). It is not to do every obstacle without needing to do a penalty round of burpees. I mean, don’t get me wrong, if those things happened, I’d be ecstatic, but my goal for this race is really quite simple (and quite the opposite of how I usually approach things like this): to have fun, to push myself and to finish the race HAPPY and wanting to do more. If I go in there with an open mind and no expectations, I’ll end the race far better than I will if I go in with expectations that go unmet. Anyone else out there like this?

With that said, I want help from you guys! Have you ever done an obstacle course race? Do you have any “tips” to share? What’s the one thing you suggest preparing for?

I just watched this video and it is awesome. It definitely made me more pumped!

http://youtu.be/hVh79ytSLbo

Thanks, in advance, for your feedback and tips! I have to say, it’s going to be pretty surreal doing this race in Fenway so soon after the Red Sox won the world series there. How cool, right?!