Category: Wednesday Workout

Wednesday Workout: 5 Ways to Spruce Up Your Workouts This Spring

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Ahh, dare I say that spring might have FINALLY decided to show up?! With all of the cold, rainy, gloomy weather we’ve been having in New England, it feels pretty good to have some nicer weather gracing us with its presence! Along with nicer weather comes the option of getting to get outside for your workout instead of being stuck in the gym (unless you’re coming to a class, of course, because you shouldn’t feel stuck about that 😉 ), which is one of my favorite parts about the weather warming up. Although I was able to run outside pretty consistently this past winter, it feels so much better to get to run outside with minimal layers on.

But, if you still feel like you need a little something extra to put some pep in your step and pump you up for you workouts this spring, I’ve got 5 ways that might be just what you need to get excited about working out… and also allow you to get outside for your workout- enjoy!

  1. Get Outside! You knew this was coming, right?! Whether it’s for a run, walk, run/walk combo, bootcamp, or even just your normal workout, but taken outside, getting to breathe in fresh air while you workout can be exactly what you need to push through and not dread your workout. Lately, I’ve been trying to run once or twice a week outside, but the other week I took advantage of our back patio and did this workout– all I needed was a mat, set of dumbbells and a jump rope! Or, maybe you grab a friend and head to Harvard Stadium to run stairs. I plan on doing a whole post soon with a list of organized bootcamps/workouts in & around the Boston area so if that’s your type of desired workout- sit tight!
  2. Buy Something New- There’s something about new workout clothes, shoes or equipment that makes me SO EXCITED to workout. Whether it’s a tank top, new socks or a new resistance band, just knowing I get to wear/use something new will help me get out the door to workout outside or in a class. TJ Maxx/Marshalls and Old Navy are great places to get some cute, but inexpensive items- both clothes and equipment! If you’re looking to spend a little more, Lululemon and Athleta have SUPER cute items in their spring collections (and fitness instructors- you get 15% off at Lulu and 30% off at Athleta!)
  3. Try A New Class/Gym- It seems as though every week there’s a new studio opening up or a new class being introduced, right? Is there a class you’ve been interested in checking out, but for one reason or another haven’t done so? Maybe it’s a barre class or pilates or boxing or rowing- whatever it is, maybe now is the time to finally check it out! I suggest checking with the studio prior to going because they often have new student/member discounts which is always nice.
  4. Try A Morning Class- With spring/summer comes an earlier sunrise meaning it’s a little easier to get up (is there anyone else who doesn’t sleep as well once the sun is up?), so why not try getting to the gym BEFORE work? Or maybe checking out November Project and joining them for an outdoor morning workout? Or even going for a walk or run outside. I love morning workouts, especially in the spring/summer because it leaves time after work for fun things like meeting up for drinks or going shopping or for a stroll to enjoy the weather. Check out this post for tips on how to make getting up early to workout a little easier. My friend Athena also wrote a post recently that might be of interest: My #1 Tip for Becoming A Morning Workout Person
  5. Sign Up For A Race– I haven’t run a race since October, so I was so excited when I was able to sign up for the JPMorgan Corporate Challenge race coming up in June. If running isn’t your thing, maybe you sign up for an obstacle race if there’s one coming to your town. Sometimes having an event or challenge on your calendar to look forward to or train for is just what you need to get motivated to crush your workouts and keep consistent with them.

What do you think? Do any of these things seem like something that would help you spruce up your workouts this spring? If you’re looking for ways to get outside for your workout or to spruce up your runs, I’ve got a whole bunch of outdoor workouts here.

B2B(85of143) B2B(100of143)

Photo Credit: Janelle Carmela Photography

Questions for you: What’s your favorite outdoor workout? Have you spruced up your workouts this spring? Have you tried any new classes or studios? Do you have any races or events coming up?

Wednesday Workout: 2 Upper Body Circuits & Cardio Blasts

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Good morning! I don’t know about you, but I am ready to have mornings where the weather is warmer than 35-40* when I wake up. While I appreciate that it’s lighter out, warmer temps would be more encouraging for early morning runs 😉 Since the weather was chillier than I’d like to run in first thing in the morning this past Saturday morning, I opted to keep my workout inside. It actually worked out well since my legs were still sore from a lower body focused workout I had done on Thursday- it was pretty killer, if I do say so myself!

Anyway, I woke up Saturday not really knowing what I wanted to do for a workout, but I knew it couldn’t be long which is why I worked out at the house instead of going to the gym. I was on a tight schedule since I had to leave by 9:45 for my bridal shower and knew I would need extra time than normal to get ready so I decided to forego the gym. I don’t know about you, but between the time it takes to get to the gym, get started on a workout, pack up after and get home my whole workout experience takes longer than I’d like it to.

All you need for this workout is a set (or two) of dumbbells and a stability ball- easy enough, right?

Upper Body Circuits & Cardio Blast

Please make sure you do a good, dynamic warm up before jumping into this! Once you’re warmed up, grab your dumbbells & stability ball and get going 🙂 You’ll do 4 rounds of circuit 1 and then 50 reps of each cardio exercises. Then, you’ll move to circuit 2 and then finish with 25 reps of each cardio exercise. I was done in about 45 minutes!

Here are some explanations or links to videos for some exercises that aren’t very common on B2B:

  • Clean & Press– This video will give you the general visual of a clean. Think about sinking low in the legs, hinging through the hips with your back flat and arm extended straight towards the ground. Focus on using power from the legs to bring the weight up- it should come up weightlessly rather than you curling it to bring it to the racked position. Once you get it in the racked position, press it up to the ceiling, bring it down to the racked position and then shoot your hips back & let the weight pull you back down to the starting position. Try not to put the breaks on to stop the momentum.
  • Stability ball chest fly
  • DB Pullover
  • Front raise & upright row- With a light set of weights, perform a front raise, making sure to not bring the arms higher than shoulder height. Bring the weights back down and then perform an upright row by leading with the elbows (think about someone pulling your elbows up to the ceiling by strings) and stopping the weights at chest height. It’s almost like you’re zipping up your coat, but with 2 hands.

Hope you give this a try!

Questions for you: Do you prefer to take the time to get to the gym for your workout or do you prefer saving time and working out at home?

Wednesday Workout: Jump Rope Tabata & Full Body Circuits

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As part of the BoxFIIT Certification I’m doing, I have to film myself doing all sorts of exercises to validate that I can, in fact, do them (and teach them). Most of the exercises- a combination of boxing moves and strength exercises- pose me little to no trouble because I do them all the time. Goblet squats? Easy. Lunges? Piece of cake. Jabs? Got it. However, over the weekend I had to film myself jumping rope, which is a little more outside of my comfort zone. I don’t feel good at jumping rope and get frustrated because I end up whipping myself with the rope so much.

After filming myself, though, I realized my issue: I don’t practice this enough so it’s no wonder why I struggle with it. We tend to skip things we aren’t good at, right? Which is exactly what I do when it comes to jump roping. But! I’m changing that. I vowed to practice jump roping more frequently to help me get more comfortable with the action of jumping over the rope. Which is precisely where this workout came from! And, I have to say that later in the day RM commented on how I looked like a good jump roper- I smiled and said “thanks! It’s something I’m working on” 😉

Jump Rope Tabata & Full Body Circuits

You’ll want to perform the reps on each leg or arm. If you have any questions on the moves, let me know. A great resource for the Pallof Press and the Waiter/Overhead Carry is my girl Stephanie’s post, which you can check out here: Train Your Core.

I hope you check this out and enjoy it. I loved it, but it could’ve been because I was outside on my patio in the beautiful, warm sunshine-y weather AND I was rocking out to Spotify, which I just recently downloaded. So far, I’m obsessed 🙂

Questions for you: What exercises do you avoid because they’re hard or you don’t feel good at them? 

 

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!