Category: Workout

Free Fitness This Summer: Street Sweat {& a sweet giveaway!}

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Disclaimer: I was provided a gift card from The Street in exchange for this blog post. All thoughts and opinions are my own- I would only share events I think you’d enjoy and this is definitely something I want to spread the word about!

What’s better than outdoor workouts in the summer? FREE outdoor workouts in the summer, of course! I don’t know about you, but in the summer months, I just want to be able to workout outside. Living in New England, we are cooped up inside for so many months due to the cold and snowy weather, so once we have nice weather, I really hate being in the gym and look for ways to achieve a great workout while being outside as much as possible.

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(Photo provided by The Street)

Which, is why I’m excited to share with you some details on LOTS of free workout events located at The Street in Chestnut Hill throughout the summer. They call this fitness series “Street Sweat”, which I think is a super clever name!

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(photo from the Street Sweat page linked throughout this post)

The fitness events range from yoga to bootcamps to cardio resistance and also take place at various times throughout the day and week, which means you’re sure to find a “Street Sweat” workout that fits your schedule and workout preference. In case you don’t believe me, just check out this schedule… pretty impressive, right?! Here’s a sample:
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Wednesday Workout: Quickie 20 minute body weight AMRAP

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Hi! I’m popping in this morning to share a quickie workout I did while I was in Maine a few weekends ago. When I got up, I got changed right into my workout clothes but just wasn’t sure I was really feeling a workout. This rarely happens to me, so I decided to just go with it and if I decided to workout later, great. If not, great. I ended up offering to vacuum and mop for my parents, which, in a 3,000 sq. foot house is quite a workout in and of itself! I loveeee those types of active chores so even though I was helping my parents, I was really helping myself get more movement in 😉

However, after I finished cleaning I found myself feeling more motivated to get a little workout in. The sun was shining and I had the privilege of working out outside in private, so I came up with a quickie 20 minute body weight AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) workout that left me sweaty, newly tanned and sore the next day. Win, win, win in my book!

20 minute AMRAP body weight workout
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Wednesday Workout: Men’s Health Inspired Circuit & Cardio Blast Workout

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Good morning! Hope your Wednesday is off to a great start! I’m here to share a workout that I did at home a few weeks ago. It was a rainy Monday, which meant no running outside for me- I’m not ashamed to admit that I am a fair-weather runner 🙂 I put this workout together by combining a workout I found in RM’s Men’s Health magazine with some other exercises I wanted to do on that particular day… plus a little cardio blast… #becausecardio.

The way you complete the workout is by (after a warm up, of course) completing each exercise in the strength circuit for 60 seconds, moving from one to the next with little or no rest. For exercises where it says (30R/L), it means to perform the exercise on each side for 30 seconds. In between the strength rounds/circuits, perform the cardio blast.

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Wednesday Workout: Lululemon Window Performance

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Hey guys! Happy Wednesday. I feel like it’s been ages since I’ve done a Wednesday Workout post for you, right?! Today’s is fun because it’s a shortened version of the workout I did in the window at Lululemon over the weekend. Although it was a little awkward doing my workout thang in the window of Lulu on a busy Saturday, the awkwardness went away fairly quickly and I got in my groove- in my happy place.

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When coming up with the workout, I knew I didn’t want to include cardio because I A. didn’t want to sweat too much and B. didn’t know how much space I’d have. I ended up sweating a lot because of the lights and exercises, but oh well. that’s just what happens when you work out!

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The workout for you today is 20 minutes of the workout I did while I was at Lulu. I was there for an hour and did about 50 minutes of a weight and resistance band focused workout (including warm up), then spent some time playing around with yoga poses. These are what got people to stop and watch me- it was funny!

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You CAN Workout While On Vacation!

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Good morning! I hope you all had an awesome weekend 🙂 It felt good to be home and able to do things that helped me feel back to normal after getting home from Italy. Speaking of Italy, today’s post is going to talk about my workouts while I was gone, as well as my mentality behind them and tips to getting them in. I want to preface this post that as I mentioned in my “Ciao America” post, I went into this vacation with a different mentality towards working out than I normally do. I only packed a few outfits and mentally was really OK with not working out at all if that’s how it panned out. And, just because I ended up working out more than I anticipated, it really was just the way it ended up panning out like that. When you’re traveling for 10+ days abroad with a big group of people, it’s also nice to get in some “me” time before joining the gang for breakfast. Ya hear me on that?! 😉

So, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the workouts! First off, we WALKED a LOT. Seriously, when we were in Rome, we were logging anywhere from 8-11 miles, which is no joke! With that said, during those days I definitely wasn’t focusing on running much, but instead would do push-ups, squats, lunges, planks, etc. Here’s the roundup:

  • Friday & Saturday (5/22 & 5/23)- No workouts these days as we arrived in Rome at noon on Friday and Saturday we took our time getting up and getting going. However, we still walked over 9 miles on Friday and 10 miles on Saturday! I love being active and moving a lot, so this made me happy 🙂

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  • Sunday (5/24)- I woke up Sunday feeling the itch to move and sweat, so I laced up and gave myself 20 minutes to do that. Our apartment was across the street from a river and I had seen people running along it the day before so figured that would be a good idea (I was nervous about the workout scene as I didn’t want to look like “that American” who NEEDED to workout and run, but it was a very common thing to see in the city!). I even found some steps to run up and down and an area to do some walking lunges, squats, push-ups, etc. It was a great start to the day.

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  • Monday (5/24 & 5/25)- I FINALLY got RM to go for a run with me 🙂 I knew we’d be in the car for 2+ hours on our way to Pienza, so I wanted to get some movement in before that- and good endorphins going to help get me through the car ride 😉 We did a 20 minute run throughout some super cute streets- it was fun to run together!
  • Tuesday (5/26)- We were going to a winery so I didn’t have much time, but squeezed in 15 minutes of squats, lunges, push-ups, planks, tricep dips, leg lifts, etc. before we met for breakfast.
  • Wednesday (5/27)- I went out by the pool at our B&B and did this 20 minute workout.

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  • Thursday (5/28)- I went out by the pool again and was able to do 25 minutes of various exercises. This view was so awesome!

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  • Friday (5/29)- Even though I knew I’d be in the car for 2+ hours, I decided it was a good rest day for me since we had to be up early and since I hadn’t rested in a bit.
  • Saturday (5/30)- I went for a 25 minute run since our final destination was on much flatter ground than Pienza 😉 We also walked a lot!
  • Sunday (5/31)- Rest day. We were out late the night before and RM said that biking to the city center would be our exercise for the day.

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  • Monday (6/1)- This was our departure day and I knew it was going to be a LONG day of travel between the 2+ hour ride to the airport and the 8+ hour flight home, so I knew a run first thing was going to make me feel so much better. I ran for 28 minutes.

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And, that’s it! As you can see, I stayed really active, but I never once felt like it was impending on my vacation or my time with others, which is good because that was not something I wanted. I didn’t want my workouts to run my day, and my 20ish minute quickie workouts certainly didn’t do that. But, since I love moving and sweating and the feeling during and after a workout, I’m glad that I was able to squeeze stuff in. Not to mention it made getting back into the swing of things muchhh easier upon my return to the gym! But let me tell you- I was SO SORE last week after a few strength training sessions- I guess not lifting a weight for 12 days will do that to you 😉

I’ll end this post with 3 tips to get in your workouts when traveling:

  1. Do it first thing in the morning, this way, you won’t risk the chance of having cocktails or a nap replace your workout. Plus, who wants an afternoon workout looming over their heads all day?!
  2. Make them short- as I mentioned, I kept mine right around the 20 minute mark which was more than enough time. Let’s face it, your workouts probably aren’t going to be the same as they would be back home, especially if you’re traveling abroad, so figure out what you can do with what you have and bust it out. There’s no need to be spending 45-60 minutes working out when you’re on vacation (in my opinion).
  3. Make it fun! I didn’t even think about inquiring where the closest gym was while I was in Italy. Rather, I made due with what I had- either running or bodyweight HIIT workouts was what worked for me. It was fun to get creative and do things I might not normally do if I had access to a full gym.

If you’re looking for more tips for staying active while on the road, check out these posts:

NBGNO: How to stay fit while on the road
Tips to stay healthy while on the road
Tips for morning workouts

Questions for you: How do you stay active on the road? Do you like to workout when you’re on vacation? What’s your “go-to” travel workout if you don’t have a gym?