Category: Wednesday Workout

Wednesday Workout: 3 Circuit Full Body Workout

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Oh, hello there! Remember me? While I haven’t blogged in what feels like forever, I have to say it’s not because I haven’t wanted to, but it’s more due to the fact that I’ve been limited on free time these days and have opted to spend that small amount of free time on other things- generally snuggling with RM and Francesca on the couch watching a little bit of TV before calling it a night. During busy times in particular, it’s all about choosing what is more important for YOU to do and I know that choosing relaxing on the couch or getting dinner out or making dinner is going to make me feel better than sitting down to blog. #sorrynotsorry 😉

With that said, I do have plenty of workouts in the backlog and figured I’d get one up for you today! This one does require the gym as I used some machines, but if you don’t have access to a gym you could easily swap those exercises out for something else that has a similar effect but can be done with dumbbells instead.

 

3-circuit-total-body-workout

If you’re looking for more, you can finish with this 5 minute finisher: AMRAP 5 Minutes- 10 lateral ball slams (total), 10 toe touches, 10s. plank hold

The way the workout works (that always sounds weird), is you’ll start with the 3 exercises in circuit 1 and do 10 of each and do 3 rounds. Then you’ll move on to circuit 2 and then circuit 3. Depending on how much time you have, feel free to try out the 5 minute finisher at the end! For the exercises requiring 2 sides (right and left), complete the 10 reps on each side (ie: 10 lunges on the right and left, each knee comes in 10 times for the mountain climbers, etc.). The moves are not anything too complicated so I challenge you to choose a heavier weight.

Please let me know if you try this 🙂 Happy Wednesday!!

Questions for you: How do you prioritize your free time when you have a busy schedule? 

Wednesday Workout: Total Body DB 20 Minute AMRAP

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Good morning! Did you guys see my post from yesterday? Two workouts in one week- lucky you 😉 Today’s workout doesn’t require being outside AND it’s a much shorter time commitment, so if yesterday’s workout wasn’t for you, maybe today’s will be.

With all the teaching I’ve been doing lately, I’ve noticed that my own workouts have fallen a bit by the wayside. Granted, I’m still active and moving pretty much every day, but the consistency and intensity in my own training is just not there right now. Which is OK- I’ll get it back once my schedule slows down a bit.

Since my schedule is so crazy, I find myself having to squeeze my own workouts in, which just means they generally can’t be long. It’s all good, though- once I changed up my training to shorter, more intense HIIT style workouts I noticed my body changed and adapted really well to that style of training.

Today’s workout only takes 20 minutes (25 including a warm up/cool down), so it’s perfect if you’re short on time… something we can probably all relate to as we get into the holiday months, right?! All you need is a set of dumbbells or you can use a kettlebell and you’ll work through the exercises as quickly as possible while still maintaining good form. Rest as needed, but try to rest at the end of each round rather than between exercises.

total-body-db-20-min-amrap

Quick note on the exercises: For the squat-> lunge combo, you’ll do a lunge on each leg and then 1 squat- that’s 1 rep. Push-ups can be done on your knees, toes or elevated surface. If jumping isn’t good- just do regular squats. If you don’t have weights, simply change the bent over rows to a prone pull or superman pull.

I hope you’ll try this!

Questions for you: Do you have a busy holiday season coming up? How do you prioritize movement when you’re busy?

Wednesday Workout: Jumping Jack & Total Body Blast

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Happy Wednesday, friends! How about the nasty weather yesterday? On the one hand it was nice to be WFH, but on the other hand it made it hard to want to work; nasty weather like that just makes me want to curl up and watch movies all day (even though I don’t know the last time I’ve ever done that!).

Today’s workout is great for a rainy day when you don’t want to go to the gym/leave the house. I did this a few weeks ago with a pair of dumbbells- easy enough! The way the workout works is that each circuit will have jumping jacks, a lower body exercise, an upper body exercise and a core exercise- a classic full body workout. You’ll complete each circuit 3 times and it took me just about 30-35 minutes which was perfect for an early morning workout.

jumping-jack-total-body-blast

I think everything should be fairly standard, but the one thing you might not recognize is the table top crunch, which I got from Lauren. To do this you start on your back with your feet in the table top position and a weight in your hands. You want to make sure you keep your core tight and your lower back pressed to the ground as you crunch up & pretend to place the weight on your shins. SLDL= single leg deadlift. If you need explanation on anything else, just let me know in the comments!

I really enjoyed this workout- I hope you try it!

Also ,the weather looks decent for tonight and tomorrow night so if you’re planning your workouts, consider joining me for my 5K bootcamp tonight and fighters conditioning tomorrow night. Both are in the seaport district by Gather/District hall and tonight is at 6pm and tomorrow night is at 5:30pm.

Questions for you: Do you take advantage of rainy days and curl up to the TV or with a book if your schedule allows for it? Do you still try and get a workout in? What’s a cardio move you like?

Wednesday Workout: The “4X10 Lower/Upper/Core” Workout

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Good morning! Thank you all so much for your kind words/responses to my blog post yesterday. I never know how people will react to these posts or if people will be able to relate to them, so it’s nice to not only get feedback, but get positive feedback 🙂

I have a great workout for you today, now that we are on the topic of working out 😉 I did it the other day when I didn’t want to do traditional cardio and instead wanted to focus more on strength training. These days, I’m nowhere near where I was a while ago in terms of strength, but that’s okay. I’ve been teaching a lot and haven’t had consistent days for training which makes it hard for me to stay consistent with strength training enough to see gains. Instead, I’ve been lifting a little lighter, but incorporating more exercises into my workouts and moving through them with less rest which keeps the heart rate up.

For this workout, you can use dumbbells or kettlebells- I used kettlebells if you’re wondering. You’ll complete 10 reps of each exercise and move to the next with little to no rest, trying to save your rests for the break between rounds. You’ll do 4 rounds total. To finish, I threw in a quickie metabolic finisher for ya 😉

4x10-lower-upper-core-workout

The finisher consisted of 3 rounds of 20 seconds of rope slams and waiter carries there & back. Rope slams get me every.single.time!

I hope you have a great rest of your day- and maybe you’ll give this a try!

Questions for you: Do you go through phases with what types of workouts you do? Do you prefer heavier lifting or workouts like this that are done with lighter weights?

 

 

Wednesday Workout: Italy Workout Series {Part 3: 5 Round Bodyweight Tabata}

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Good morning! It’s hard to believe there was a period of time where I had no workouts to share with you because these days I feel like I have quite a backlog of saved workouts to share with you. Today’s workout is part 3 of my Italy Workout Series, which includes- you guessed it- another 20 minute bodyweight workout. This time I used the Tabata format, which is 20 seconds “on” (this is when you do the exercise move) and 10 seconds “off” (this is when you rest), repeating 8 times for a total of 4 minutes. In a traditional tabata workout you would do the same exercise for all 8 rounds, but I tend to change it up a bit and do 2 or 4 difference exercises for each round, generally complimenting each other. Today’s workout used 2 different exercises per tabata so you’ll do each four times.

I don’t know about you guys, but for me, in a tabata workout, rounds 1-3 or 4 leave me feeling like “I got this, no problem!”, rounds 5 & 6 tend to be “Alright, this is feeling definitely more challenging… and that 10s seems to be going by awfully quickly” and then by rounds 7 & 8 I’m struggling to keep up with the number of reps I could complete in the earlier rounds and barely feel slightly recovered by the end of the 10s rest period…. which is probably why tabatas are such an effective type of training format to throw into the mix!

 

5-round-bodyweight-tabata

Quick note: for the “walk out-> pushup-> walk in-> squat, you’ll walk your hands out into a high plank position, do a pushup, then walk them back in and then you’ll do a squat. If you want to intensity this move, you can do a 1 legged walk out and switch sides after each squat.

I set round 1 up to also be the warm up, so you can choose whatever moves you like to do to warm up for this round. Otherwise the moves are a bit lower intensity than I normally do, but again I was on vacation, which means my workouts are less intense by nature, and I was working out on our terrace and didn’t want to disturb neighbors. Regardless, it was a great way to get in a little sweat sesh and perk me up for the day ahead.

In case you missed the other two workouts in this series, here they are:

Italy Workout Series Part 1: Countdown Bodyweight
Italy Workout Series Part 2: 20 Min. Bodyweight AMRAP

Questions for you: What’s the hardest workout format for you? What’s your favorite workout format?