Category: Workout

All the feels {why i fight}

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I am still feeling all the feels after the event/class I lead at the New Balance Global Flagship store in Brighton through my connection with MoveWith. If you remember, I wrote all about my first MoveWith experience here. Since then, I’ve taught two more, including the one last week.

Going into this event, I knew I wanted it to be just that: an event. Not just a workout, but rather an event where I could offer more than just a sweaty 45 minute session. When I spoke with the manager at the beautiful new New Balance Global Flagship store in Brighton, I knew that I would be able to achieve my “event” idea if I hosted the class there. It’s a big store so there would plenty of room for a big crowd, a DJ and product samples. I was hoping for 25-30 people, so I was totally blown away with the fact that 39 (!!!) signed up.

As the day got closer, I had a mix of of nerves and excitement because everything was really coming together. But, as soon as people started showing up, my nerves went away and all I felt was excitement. The fact that so many people showed up was so amazing. Some people I knew, but many I didn’t. Some people were friends from college, friends of friends, friends from the gym, friends from my office and friends/contacts I’ve made through blogging, and many from New Balance. But, what was so amazing was that everyone showed up smiling and ready to work.  I couldn’t help but smile because of this- heck, even as we were halfway through the kickboxing aspect, people were STILL smiling!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- the fitness community in and around Boston is really wonderful. So many people make fitness a priority in their day to day and this shows by how many people an event like what I did last week can bring to it. These people- ranging in age, fitness levels, gender, likes and dislikes- all came together for a 45 minute fitness class, many of them likely not really knowing what to expect besides my short write-up in the event page on MoveWith.

And, while this can be a bit intimidating for instructors because we, also, have no idea what to expect in terms of what levels people will be at, it’s also something that gives me so much drive, energy and passion. It puts my teaching abilities to the test, gets me out of my comfort zone and really reminds me why I love to teach. As for many of us fitness instructors, we teach the same classes week to week and similarly, the same base group of members come to our classes week after week, so it gets to be familiar. It gets to be comfortable. Which is great, but it also doesn’t challenge us the way new classes and new groups of class participants do. I always feel like I leave these types of classes with a new perspective on teaching, and a new pep in my step.

So, I thank MoveWith, New Balance and everyone who came out last week for giving me so much happiness from the 45 minutes we were sweating together. Also, a huge thank you to DJ Sprino, who is THE BEST DJ in Boston, especially for fitness events, Purity Organics, DRINKmaple and Larabar. I’m already working on my next event there, and rumor has it, we’ll take Burpees to Bubbly quite literally 😉 Save the date for May 10th- more information, including a signup page, will be blasted soon!

 

Wednesday Workout: 3 Circuit Lower, Upper & Cardio Step360 Workout

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Hey there! Before I get into sharing the workout for today, I wanted to remind you of the fitness event/class that I am hosting at the New Balance Flagship store in Brighton tonight. It starts at 6:30pm and I’ll be leading a 45 minute Cardio Kickboxing Bootcamp class while the amazing DJ Sprino live DJ’s for us. After class, you’ll get a 20% shopping discount and will get to enjoy bars from Larabar, juices from Purity Organics and more. There are already over 30 people who have signed up, so if you want to be part of the crew, make sure you sign up here– you don’t want to miss this event!

And now, onto the workout. A few weeks ago I shared a Step360 workout with you. I enjoyed that workout so much that when I was thinking of what I wanted to do for a workout on Sunday, I knew I wanted to include it. If you don’t have a Step360, any type of step would work for it and if you don’t have a step of any sort, you can totally do the workout without.

The way the sets/circuits are set up is that each one has a lower body move, upper body move and cardio move. Each exercise is performed for 10 reps and you move from one to the next with only as much rest as needed. Try to rest between rounds rather than exercises in order to keep the heart rate up and get the biggest bang for your buck. You’ll complete 3 rounds of each circuit before moving on to the next.

As far as weights, I used 2 different sets of dumbbells: 10’s and 20’s. I haven’t been doing many leg-focused exercises lately so I kept the lunges light- with the 10 pounders- and was soreeee on Monday (but lunges and especially jumping lunges always make me sore!), but used a 20 pounder for Goblet squats and 2 20’s for the deadlifts. The biceps curl to press with 20’s was hard, but it felt good to really work for the reps! these are just examples of what I used- of course when you’re doing this, do what works for you and your body!

I posted most of the exercises on my Instagram story, but if you missed them, I’ve uploaded them to YouTube:

I hope you try this because I think you’ll like it!

Questions for you: What piece of equipment have you been loving lately?

Wednesday Workout: 5 Exercise Countdown Workout

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Hey there! How is your week going so far? Good, I hope! Today’s workout is another quickie workout that’s great to do if you’re short on time. I’ve shared other “Countdown” style workouts before, but if your’e not familiar with them, they work like this: you start with a certain number of reps that you complete for all of the exercises. On the second round, you drop the number of reps by 2. When you get down to the end, you add one final round with the number of reps you started with. It looks like this:

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You’ll notice that most of the exercises are combination moves (big bang for your buck!), so I’ve created some quickie Youtube videos to walk you through what the exercises look like. Do you think this is helpful? If so I’ll be sure to continue to do it!

I think that should do it- hopefully the videos helped!

As always, I like to hear from you! Did you try this? Do you want more workouts like this? Longer or shorter ones? Anything else you want to share/talk about?

Wednesday Workout: two 10-minute lower-body AMRAP workouts

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Hey there! Can you believe it’s Wednesday already?! Before I get to the workout, I want to remind you that EBF FIDI opens TOMORROW!!! The day is finally here! There are classes all day, but if you have time after work I’d LOVE for you to come to my 6:20pm BAGSXBEATS- I promise, it’ll be a blast!

And now for the workout. This was a lower-body focused workout that I did a while ago. Don’t be fooled by the 10 minute AMRAP aspect- if you load yourself up with heavy (for you) weights, you’ll feel spent by the end of the 20 minutes. Or if you are short on time, you can do just one of the 10 minute AMRAPS. Something is always better than nothing, so if you’ve only got 10 minutes, just bust it out!

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Of course, if you don’t have weights you can always do the exercises with just your bodyweight!

Let me know if you have questions otherwise, check this out and let me know what you think!

Questions for you: Do you prefer upper body or lower body workouts?

What’s been up?

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Good morning! Happy Tuesday! I don’t do many “Weekend Recaps” anymore, but considering the past weekend was a really good one filled with lots of different things, I thought I’d share with you 🙂

It had been a long week, so I was more than ready for a vino! We went to Buff’s (surprise, surprise) for dinner after and it was a great way to end the week

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Saturday I had the opportunity to sub TWO classes at EBF Seaport so I ended up getting Dana to sub my YMCA Kickboxing class (thank you!) so I could head to the Seaport. I subbed a BAGSXKICKS and BAGXBEATS and they were both SO fun! I was nervous about the Kicks class since I had never taught it, but I think between having enough BAGS experience and enough kickboxing experience I was able to teach a good class. I also finally got my haircut. My normal hairdresser was not working on Saturday so I had to go back to my old salon, but she did a good job so I was happy with it! After teachin and hair I went to lunch and got my nails done in Southie with my sister and a friend from work and then got home with enough time to relax and finished The Wonder, which was SOOO good- you need to read it if you haven’t! Saturday night, Roberto took me to SRV to celebrate my promotion and Valentine’s Day. This restaurant has been on my list for a while so I’m glad we finally got to try it. It’s a Venetian small plates type of restaurant and everything we tried was great, and I especially loved that they served Aperol Spritz- which is my favorite Italian drink!

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After church on Sunday, Roberto and I headed to the Boston Wine Expo since his friend was gracious enough to give us tickets to. He owns Tre Olive, which I’ve talked about a lot on here! We had a blast at the expo and it was so nice to catch up with the Tre Olive guys- if you are in need of a good foodie gift- check out their site. You can adopt an olive tree for them and they’ll receive tins of olive oil from that tree- it’s very cool! When we got home, I went for a quickie run because the weather was too nice to not get outside, and then I spent the rest of the night cleaning, cooking and watching Cinderella Man with RM.

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Yesterday morning, I headed to EBF #FIDI to take a class “Pre-Opening”  with George as a way to break in the new studio before opening day. It officially opens on Thursday and I couldn’t be more excited to be part of the fun! Catch me on Thursdays (starting this week!) at 6:20pm for BAGSXBEATS- sign up here!

https://www.facebook.com/EverybodyFightsFiDi/

After class, I went up to Maine after the EBF class and had a great time catching up with my parents. My mom and I went snow shoeing/X-Country skiing on the lake and then around the house before settling down in front of the fire to drink bubbly and hang out. Relaxing, again, is so under-rated 😉

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And here we are, another week! As far as teaching, I think I’m just teaching 2 BAGSXBEATS classes this week- tonight at GymIt in Watertown at 6:30pm and Thursday at FIDI at 6:20pm- come join for the fun!

Lastly, I am hosting another MoveWith class, but this time it’s going to be at the New Balance Flagship Store in Brighton, which I’m SO excited about! It’s on March 29th and DJ Sprino will be there and I’ll have after workout treats from Purity Organics and Larabar (and hopefully more) and everyone will get a 20% discount for shopping! You don’t want to miss this, so grab your friends and sign up here!