Guest Post: Marblehead Marathoner’s Weekly Workouts

July 28, 2014July 23, 20146 Comments

Good morning, friends! Since I’m still in Chicago, I decided to reach out to a friend for a guest post. Her name is Cara and she blogs over at Marblehead Marathoner. Funny little background story- Cara and I went to college together and met during orientation! We didn’t end up in the same group of friends at St. Mike’s, but we’ve recently reconnected… over fitness, of course! If you think my weekly workouts are crazy, just wait until you read through Cara’s workouts last week- she brings crazy athlete to another level! It’s inspiring to see how often she changes up her workouts. We’ve got some fun things planned in the next month or so (once life slows down a bit!), so be on the lookout 🙂

Here’s an example of a week of Marblehead Marathoner’s workouts- enjoy!

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Thanks for having me over today! I’m Cara from Marblehead Marathoner and I’m really excited to share my weekly workouts with Burpees to Bubbly fans! I love working out, being active, and motivating others. I work out with Beantown Bootcamp and love trying new fitness class throughout our awesome city. Every Friday morning this summer I help lead a free bootcamp at 6:30am at Christopher Columbus Park, so if you like the work outs below please join me!

I believe in a full body approach to training and fitness happiness. I think anytime you can mix up what you are doing and work different muscle groups you will start seeing results. So the next time a friend mentions a new class they love, go check it out with them!

Monday

Upper Body Strength Training & Speed Training on the Treadmill 8 800s in 3:13 with 400 recovery

Tuesday

Morning: Legs day! Stair repeats, lunges (1/4 mile weighted with 20 lbs dumbbells each hand), 100 squats, 4 hill repeats ( 2 backwards, 2 forward).

Evening: Cycling Class at B/Spoke. Mostly hill simulation with a few weighted arm exercises.

Wednesday:

Tababta Style! Each exercise is 25 seconds on 5 seconds off. 4 cycles for each drill.

Wall climb, hands on ground, legs running up wall.
Lung Backs Prison Style- hands behind head ( 2 cycles each leg).
Squat Jumps with Donkey Kicks.
Wall sits.
Planks with leg raises.
Box Jumps.
Step Ups ( rapid fire! 2 cycles each side).
Single leg squats with bench. Fully sit between squats.
Push Ups ( modify on knees).
Crunches on stability ball.
2 mins on the bike with resistance high and aim to burn 20 calories in the 2 mins.

Repeat entire cycle for full one hour workout.

Thursday:

Hills and Drills! I headed to Beacon Hill and ran 10 hills with 5 squat thrusts at the top of each hill. Finished with 10 hills and 50 squat thrusts and some burning legs.

Friday:

Free Friday Bootcamps at Christopher Columbus Park 6:30am with Beantown Bootcamp. A mix of cardio/ strength/ agility always changing and motivating!

Saturday: (typically my long run day but this weekend moved to Monday)

4 rounds in a tennis tournament aka 6 hours of tennis. A full body work out if ever there was one!

Sunday:

30 min yoga for runners DVD

75 mins elliptical cross training

Here is a total body do anywhere workout for your to try this week on your own. You can watch the video here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwtu6bYowRU

Do Anywhere Work Out:

25 Jumping Jacks ( straight arms and legs, clap those hands together at the top!)
25 Push Ups ( modify on knees or challenge yourself and use a desk/ chair elevate your shoulders higher then your feet).
25 Jump Lunges ( Total, make that knee touch the ground! Stand tall! Belly button pointing straight ahead)
25 Dips ( move the legs further out to make it harder, remember to drop down straight and aim for getting that bum close to the ground!
25 Sit Ups ( come all the way up- touch those toes!)
25 Burpees ( challenge yourself with a hand release at the bottom, stand up straight at the top of each one).
25 Squats ( get low! Drop that bum below those knees, chin up, belly button facing straight out, not down!)

Repeat 4 times.

Nice work! You just completed 100 Jumping Jacks, 100 Push Ups, 100 Jump Lunges, 100 Dips, 100 Sit Ups, 100 Burpees, 100 Squats

You can follow me to find some fun fitness ideas and motivation!

https://www.facebook.com/cara.elisa.5

https://twitter.com/carabednar

http://instagram.com/marbleheadmarathoner

https://www.youtube.com/user/carabednar/videos

http://www.corepower.com/cara-bednar-pages-81.php

Thanks again for having me!

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How about those workouts, right?! I love how Cara varies her workouts from day to day- it really is the ultimate way to see changes and keep your body guessing and growing stronger. Big thanks, again, to Cara for sharing a week of her workouts with us!

Questions for you: Have you been to Beantown Bootcamp? What’s your favorite sport to play (that ultimately replaces a workout)?

Let me know if you try any of the workouts that Cara shared with us- I know I will be trying them!

Guest Post: How To Prepare For A Triathlon

June 6, 2014June 4, 20147 Comments

Good morning, friends! While I’m en route for my weekend get away to Miami, I thought it would be fun to have a guest post for you. Have you ever done an endurance race or triathlon/Ironman? I’ve contemplated doing a sprint triathlon, but since biking isn’t something I enjoy or something that I’m good at, I’ve always found a reason to not sign up. Since I am no expert in this area of fitness, I reached out to my friend and YMCA instructor, Tony, to share his story of how he got into endurance racing and ways for you to start getting into it if it’s something you’re interested in. I hope you enjoy Tony’s post on this topic- he’s a huge inspiration to push past unnecessary boundaries and to prove the “I can’t” in me wrong.

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Hello vino and fitness fans. I’m Tony, a guest blogger for Burpees to Bubbly. My friend and fellow Oak Square Y group instructor, Monique, asked me to guest blog, and how could I pass up writing a spot for my favorite blog! Ah yes, fitness and wine, two things I never, ever go without.

I’m a marathoner, Masters swim coach, swim instructor, triathlete and triathlon coach. That’s right, I’m that breed of fitness enthusiasts that swims, bikes and runs… typically across distances that people wouldn’t even want to drive. More broadly I like the term endurance enthusiast, but most of the time people just call me crazy!

I started a little over 11 years ago. After running my first marathon I decided to set my sights on a little something called the Ironman, a triathlon requiring you to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and then run a marathon (26.2 miles). You’re probably saying to yourself why would anyone want to sign up for that torture? (And pay lots of money to do it I might add.) Triathlon is a great sport and it’s actually the fastest growing sport in the nation, causing people to increasingly used it as their means of staying in shape. I like “long course” events (Ironman and half Ironman). But it’s not universally super human type A personalities that complete these races; most triathlons are actually completed by everyday people doing what they call Sprints (½ mile swim, 10 mile bike, and 5k run). There’s also the Olympic distance (0.93 mile, 25 mile bike, 10k run) and of course relays (3 people do a different leg). These are much more manageable to the average human, and your social and wallet/purse will thank you. I teach Indoor Triathlon at the Oak Square Y. It’s 30 minutes swimming, 30 minutes in the cycling studio and 25 minutes running. It’s very popular and attracts new and experienced triathletes.

Back when I started, I didn’t know how to swim. Yup that’s right. Believe it or not, I learned how to swim as an adult. I remember signing up for a swim class at the Oak Square Y. The class was called intermediate stroke. I told the instructor that I took the class because I wanted to prepare for an Ironman. “Let me see you swim” she says. I got in and “tried” to swim one length of the pool and basically put together a series of movements that did not remotely resemble any known swim stroke. The instructor probably had to restrain her laughter, and then she basically expressed derision because I signed up for a class I clearly was not ready for. The irony in the whole thing is that I now teach that same class and people do the same thing to me.

Well, needless to say I learned how to swim, and very well. I caught fire with what I call, self-propelled motion fitness. Today I’m a 4x Ironman distance triathlon finisher. I’ve finished over 100 long course endurance events over 11 years including numerous half Ironman races, century bike rides, over 40 marathons of which, 12 are consecutive Boston Marathon finishes. I started my own coaching business and team several years ago. The formidable EventHorizon endurance sport where I help train people for endurance sports with the science of self-propelled motion. I’m sure Monique won’t mind that I threw in that shameless plug. 🙂

One of the biggest challenges with newer triathletes is the “stuff” you have to get. Almost every month I get an email from someone saying “Tony, how much of this stuff do I really need?” Wetsuit, triathlon racing kit, cap, goggles, and probably the biggest expense of the triathlete- the bike and everything you have to get for the bike (clipless pedals, bike shoes, apparel…etc). Thankfully the biggest costs is for stuff you only have to get once. Here’s a photo of me with my first triathlon bike that I ride to this day. I call him Dark Matter. Of course if you’re a cool triathlete you have to name your bike. Tony 3

One of the biggest benefits of triathlon is you get into incredible shape. People think of triathlon as a sport only having cardiovascular benefits, but self-propelled motion activities build a tremendous amount of strength. You’ll start seeing your body composition take a shape that would make a fitness model jealous. Here’s some advice for you: get your significant other into triathlon and I guarantee that you’ll both reap the benefits. I’ve trained several clients for long course events, and when I see their significant others, they ask me “so Tony when are you going to start training “insert name” for another Ironman.” Hmmm I say, I think you’re asking me this for a reason that might be slightly self-serving.

The time commitment is considerable for long course triathlons but my advice for people interested is to start with a short course event, a good program or consider talking to a coach for help. I actually know of a pretty good one. 😉

Last year my big event was the Indoor Ironman Guinness World Record attempt at the Oak Square YMCA. We attempted to break the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to complete an Ironman all Indoors! I actually applied to get this accepted as a record and won. That was the first battle. To complete the indoor Ironman, I had to swim 2.4 miles in the pool (169 lengths), bike 2.4 miles on an indoor bike, and run a marathon on a treadmill! I know you’ve probably thought I’d lost my mind attempting this. But, it was all to benefit the Y’s Annual Fund to help families in need of health & wellness services and after school programs. The record was 8 hours and for comparison that’s a speed only seen by professional triathletes on outdoor Ironman courses.

So many people came out to support the event. People swam along side me, biked and ran with me throughout the entire day. We had to document and record everything just in case we broke the record. I trained for this harder than any event and I was in the best shape that I had ever been. My times in training were faster than ever and my body composition was as lean and strong as ever.

It was a crazy day that included a fire alarm in the middle of the event (I kept going). It was overcast for the entire day, but as soon as I got on the treadmill, the sun came out. As you can see from the pics I was in the atrium which was like a glass fish bowl. A greenhouse effect caused a spike in temperature. This surely doomed my chances at the record. I felt horrible by the last hour and had to interval the last few miles on the treadmill.

My finishing times were about 1 hour and 13 minutes on the swim about 3 hrs and 25 minutes on the bike and about 3 hours and 50 minutes on the marathon.

I ended up at a total of 8 hours and 30 minutes, about 30 minutes shy of the record. Do I want another swing at it? Hell yeah! I had a lot of fun and raised nearly $6,000 for charity. I guess it’s not bad for a guy who, in the very same facility, once upon a time, couldn’t swim one length of the pool.

So what’s going on with me now? This year I finished the Boston Marathon again for the 12th consecutive time. I always look forward running Boston and will keep the streak alive for as long as I can. What a historic outcome with Meb Keflezighi being the first American to win Boston in decades. Here’s a shot of Meb and I outside of the World Trade Center.

I’m still considering what races that I will do. Having completed so many events I spend more time helping other people achieve their race goals and my race schedule is much more pulled back these days. But before you know it, I’ll be back on another crusade for sure. 🙂

Well, I enjoyed writing this, but it’s time for me to hand this back to Monique. Burpees and Bubbly fans, I have an assignment for you: I need all of you to encourage Monique to do her first triathlon. If you think it would be AWESOME for Monique to do her first triathlon and chronicle her experience on Burpees to Bubbly, place a very enthusiastic comment below! Let’s see how many people will comment and convince her! 🙂 See you folks.

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Wow! How’s that for an incredible story?! The fact that Tony has completed so many endurance races is mind-boggling to me! I actually remember going into the Y to teach on the day that Tony was doing his indoor Ironman and thinking to myself: I’m dead after teaching a 1 hour class… he’s been at this for 3 hours at this point- that’s insane!

I’d love to hear from all of you! Have you ever completed a triathlon (of any distance) or other endurance race? What was it like? Hardest part? Does this post make you want to do one? I’m now really interested in doing a sprint triathlon… maybe I’ll look for a race in the fall!

Again, big thanks to Tony for sharing his story and hopefully inspiring all of you like he did me!

How to stay fit when you’re stuck behind a desk all day

April 3, 2014April 2, 20148 Comments

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then I’m sure you’ve seen the guest post that I wrote over at BostInno the other day. But- in case you missed it, I thought I would share it with you here, too. I’m sure a number of you are fellow “9-5’ers”, so hopefully some of these tips will help serve as a reminder of ways to stay active throughout the day.

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9-5 jobs. Whether we like it or not, this is the harsh reality that most of us face on a day to day basis. When you factor in your commute to and from work, sometimes an 8 hour work day turns into a 10 hour commitment, which can leave very little time for staying active and healthy. It’s all to easy to hit snooze in the morning and to say yes to after work drinks with friends or coworkers instead of workout, right? Over the years, I’ve learned how to manage working an 8-9 hour/day desk job AND stay fit. Want to get in on my secrets? Check it out:

Put your workout in your calendar

If I write down my workout and make it part of my day, I am less likely to skip it. Every Monday, I post a Weekly Workout Log which helps me figure out what workouts I want to do for the week and hold me accountable for doing them. I get motivated by seeing my weekly workouts listed out in front of me.

Plan workout “dates” with friends

Working out with friends is not only fun, but it serves as motivation to get to the gym. Plan a date with a friend or a few friends to try out a new studio or a new class. Most gyms will offer you free guest passes or a free “first class”.

Stay active during the day

This may seem like a no-brainer, but I work with people who sometimes go HOURS without even standing up! I drink lots of water during the day, which serves 2 purposes: keeps me hydrated AND causes me to need to get up and go to the bathroom all the time. This is a great way to make sure you’re getting up and moving around every hour or so. Take the stairs when you can, walk during your lunch break, walk to someone’s office or cube instead of emailing them or calling them- all of these things help get you up and our of your chair. Every little bit counts!

Workout before work

If I know I have something going on or want to be ready in case after work plans evolve during the day (Thursday or Friday nights in the summer when outdoor cocktails are too hard to resist), I make sure to workout in the morning. I set my clothes out and mentally prepare for an early morning workout. It may not be easy to get out of bed, but I remind myself of how good I’ll feel after my workout is done, which helps. Remember: you never regret a workout!

Bribe yourself

Still having a hard time getting to the gym before or after work (or working out at home)? Bribe yourself with something to get you there and get a workout in. For instance, sometimes I tell myself that I can meet up with friends after my workout or that I can treat myself to a glass of wine when I get home if I spend 30 minutes at the gym. Sometimes even something as simple as signing up for a new class or buying a new workout top serves as enough motivation to get to the gym.

So, even though I, too, sit behind a computer most of the day, I am able to stay fit and active by doing some of the things I’ve listed above. Working out and committing to a healthy, active and fit lifestyle isn’t easy, but the more you do it, the easier it gets!

Questions for you: What’s something you do to stay active during the day? Are you a fan of making fitness dates? Do you workout before work, after work or during your lunch break?

Guest Post: Starting Over At 27

November 8, 2013November 5, 20134 Comments

While I am in Chicago, I thought it would be fun to have a guest post for you guys! My friend, Meredith, blogs over at What Meredith Makes and is one of my most favorite people. Seriously, you cannot get a much sweeter, kinder, more genuine person. Meredith has always been one of those friends that makes me feel so much better, regardless of what I am going through. We spent many summers and many, many, many hours working together at Shaw’s Ridge Farm and I couldn’t have been happier when she moved to Boston because that meant we got to hang out more! There was one summer where I literally went out every Thursday with her and her work friends after work. Looking back, I have no idea how we did that, Mere, and then went to work on Friday… I definitely cannot manage that anymore!

Anyway, I think you’re going to love this post from Meredith. She has made some huge life changes over the past year and I couldn’t be more proud of her for them! It takes incredible strength to completely change your life, not to mention move across the world. With that said, I’m happy to have you back on the east cost in the US, Mere!

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Starting Over at 27
Hi there! I’m Meredith and I blog over at What Meredith Makes. A few fun facts: I’m a twin, I just moved back to the USA after a 9-month stint in Australia, and I love all-things dessert. Monique is one of my closest friends from home, so I was ecstatic when she started her blog, and especially honored that she asked me to guest post!

One of the things I’ve always admired about Monique is her work ethic. I mean just reading about her weekly adventures makes me tired sometimes! Balancing a full-time job in the city, plus teaching multiple classes per week and making time for her own daily work-outs, plus having a social life…that’s a lot on her plate. However, she’s doing what she loves, and loving what she’s doing, which is something I think a lot of us struggle with as we enter adulthood. I know I do. Anyway, I wanted to share why I started over at 27 and some tips about how I did it in order to pursue what I love. Whether you’re 27 or 47, I hope these help!

It seems natural as a 20-something and in the current economy to take a job out of college simply because we have to. Whether it’s because we need the money immediately, or we’re simply settling for now, we all have our reasons. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do for a career when I graduated. My degree was a BS in Business Administration, concentrating in Accounting and Literary Studies, neither of which were things I was sure I wanted to do.

Anyway, I ended up accepting a position at a financial services company in Boston and ended up working there for 4.5 years. While I loved my co-workers, I just wasn’t happy in my job. That’s not to say I didn’t try. In fact, I held four different positions over the course of those four years, trying sales, product marketing, and editorial marketing, anything I could to get more experience and find my ‘nitch’. All the while, I was researching ways to go back to school and earn a master’s degree for my true passion, nutrition. I quickly learned that a financial services company wasn’t going to reimburse me for going back for a master’s of nutrition, and they certainly didn’t support me leaving work early to do that either. I thought I was stuck, but I wasn’t. An opportunity to move abroad and begin studying overseas was what ultimately prompted my decision to ‘start over’ in my career, but here’s a few other things I did along the way:

1) I asked for help
Everyone’s situation is different, but for me, my parents knew I was unhappy at work. They just didn’t know how to help me. While it was intimidating to ask, I’m so happy I did and forever grateful. For example, when my apartment lease was up I asked my grandparents for a place to live and they took me in for two months. This helped reduce my living and car expenses greatly. Plus, my sister and parents loaned me money for a school enrollment deposit that I couldn’t have made without them, and my old boss hired me for part-time work during school breaks to supplement my income stream.

Source

2) I did my research
Going back to school can be very pricey. If you’re considering it, I suggest doing your research. I have a daunting list of undergrad science classes I need to complete in order to even apply for my desired Master’s program this spring, and I wanted to achieve this in the most affordable way possible. Community Colleges are the way to go in my opinion. I did price comparisons, researched the classes offered, worked with admissions, toured a few facilities, and within days I was registered for classes. Doing your research pays off, I promise!

3) I stopped comparing and instead I focus on the now, not the unknown
So your sibling gets 5 weeks off paid vacation time this year, or your friend is making x$ amount this quarter…don’t compare yourself to them. Be happy for them, and then re-focus on your goal and where you are now. At 27 years of age, I couldn’t be happier to be a student again. Having a specific goal of graduate school in the near future helps me focus, and it is also very invigorating to study a subject you love. Although it’s terrifying to not know what program I’ll be in or where I’ll be living at this time next year, worrying about that right now isn’t going to get me anywhere!

source

4) I’ve made my schedule flexible
Unsure of when to take your classes? I opted to take all night classes so that I could have my weekdays and weekends free. Plus, night classes are generally full of students my age or older, which I appreciate in terms of maturity levels. In addition, taking night classes leaves an ample amount of study time for me during the day and it offers any employer a flexible schedule to work-around. I love working back in the hospitality industry after being at a desk job for almost 5 years. Change can be so refreshing! Plus, I appreciate that my schedule isn’t “set” every day. I can sleep-in a few days a week, and wearing athletic clothes all day is a plus, too. That surely didn’t happen in corporate America!

Thanks again to Monique for asking me to guest-post today. I hope you’ll head on over to my blog every now and then, too!

Thanks again, Mere, for such a great guest post topic! B2B readers- I hope you enjoyed this!

Questions for you: Have you ever made a life changing decision or move? Do you struggle with doing what makes you happy and not comparing yourself to others?

So, you want to become a fitness intructor?

September 20, 2013September 18, 20132 Comments

TGIF! While I’m on day 2 of my road trip to Michigan with my parents, I thought I would re-post a guest post that I did for Kendall last week. I know I tend to glaze over guest post links and since I’ve had a couple of people ask me what the process is to become a fitness instructor, I thought it was a blog post worth posting again right on Burpees to Bubbly! This is mostly specific to the general group exercise certification, but if you want to learn more about my kickboxing certification, please let me know!

After college, I spent many hours at the Oak Square YMCA, where I met some awesome instructors and friends (Liz, Kim, Athena, Jen, and Ashley, just to name a few). I took Zumba classes, Kickboxing classes, Total Body Conditioning classes, Build and Burn classes… you get the idea. The gym became one of my favorite places to go because I had such a great network of people to socialize with… ones who shared my passion for all things health and fitness. It was at this time that I started thinking about getting my certification to become an instructor.

Why AFAA?

If you’ve ever looked into getting your group exercise certificate, you’ve probably noticed that there are a number of different programs (AFAA, ACE, ACSM) to choose from. AFAA and ACE are, in my opinion, the most popular programs to take as they are widely accepted across most gyms. After doing some research and talking to some other instructors, I decided that the AFAA Primary Group Exercise certification was a better choice for me. I liked the fact that they held the course on-site and put a lot of emphasis on the practical aspect of the exam. Granted, it’s good to know the information in the book, but I think even more than that, it’s important to be able to instruct well, safely, accurately and appropriately, and I think AFAA did this very well. In addition, I realized that they have a February APEX deal where they run certifications for $99 instead of the $299 that the normal AFAA program runs for! It seemed like a no brainer to me to wait a few months and sign up for this instead of paying $400+ for the course, manuals/study guides and CPR training.

What preparation work is needed prior to the exam?

You have the option to buy the texts books, study guides and video, so in typical Monique fashion, I bought all of them so that I had everything I needed in order to be fully prepared. I literally read through everything and highlighted and made notes.

While most of the information was really interesting, there were definitely some boring chapters and/or chapters that wouldn’t likely pertain to the kind of teaching I planned on doing, but since we were tested on everything, I read and studied everything.

Studying with wine helps 😉 But, let’s be honest, wine helps most things!

In addition to reading the book, I made photo copies of the study guide so that I could fill it out multiple times (I retain information best when I write it down, so the more times I write it down, the better I remember it!). This ended up being a great decision and was something I did when I got my AFAA Kickboxing certification, too (also done in February to save money!).

What happens on test day?

Both certifications I took were held at local BSCs. We spent the whole day going through the study guide, an accepted warm up, every basic exercise and doing various demos and practical exams. It was really nice to spend the majority of the day going through everything we needed to know for the exam, as well as have time to practice doing the approved moves and demo’s.

Once the afternoon rolled around, it was test time! The practical exam was first and we had to do the following demonstrations:

Proper warm up & cardio training (8 minutes as a group)
Strength & flexibility demonstrations (15 minutes as a group): chest & back, shoulders & abs, hips & buttocks, legs: front & back, core: front & back
Solo presentations- demo 1 move, showing all 3 different levels of intensity

This was actually a little scary! We all got lined up with numbers and while we performed the different demonstrations, judges walked around and gave us scores. I decided to do jumping jacks for my solo presentation, showing a beginner level, intermediate level and advanced level.

Once the practical part of the exam was complete, we finished out the day with the 100 question multiple choice exam. The day was long and physically and mentally exhausting and I have to say that when I left there and called my mom to tell her how it went, I was in tears, convinced that I showed the wrong stretch for the biceps and therefore, failed the entire exam (so dramatic, I know!). But, I’m happy to report that I passed both the written and practical aspects of the exams with flying colors!

When do you find out if you passed?

The hardest part about taking exams like this is the wait period after the exam until you find out your score, right?! It took about 4-6 weeks to get the scores as we were scored both on the written exam and practical exam. The written exam was easy to score as it was all multiple choice, but the practical exam was much more complicated to score. There were multiple judges in the room and they needed to compare their scores with each other in order to determine the final score. If you got low scores from 2 or more judges on any particular aspect of the exam, you were in danger of not passing that part of the exam. If this were to happen, you could merely retake the exam that you didn’t pass (either written or practical).

How do you start teaching?

So, you take your exam, you pass your exam, you’re ready to teach… but where?! And how do you go about applying for jobs? Lucky for me, I befriended an instructor at the Wellington BSC and she definitely helped me out. She emailed the group exercise coordinators with my information so that I could be put on the next audition list. {If you’re interested in teaching at a particular gym, talk to the instructors and ask them to send the coordinator your name and email address as it helps to be kept in the loop and possibly even get an audition.} After some back and forth, the new audition date was released: April 14th- my birthday. Perfect, right?! Not necessarily, but I wanted to start teaching ASAP so I took 3 hours out of my day and headed to the auditions. I was more nervous than most because I wasn’t just applying for another job at a new-to-me gym, I was applying for my FIRST job at my FIRST gym. Yikes! Thankfully, my mentor instructor had prepped me well and I did great! About a month later, I was offered my first class: Friday nights at 5:30. Certainly not ideal, but as a new instructor trying to break into the industry, I couldn’t really be picky or choosy, so I took it… and ended up loving it!!!

What to teach?

With the AFAA group exercise certification, you are certified to teach most forms of group exercise classes, but if you want to teach specialized classes like Zumba, BodyPump, yoga, etc., you need additional certifications. I went into my audition ready to demonstrate cardio kickboxing and total body conditioning. I have been an avid cardio kickboxing goer for years and I have a bit of a dancers background, so learning routines and combinations and keeping beat comes very naturally to me, hence why I wanted to teach cardio kickboxing! The first class I started teaching was a Total Body Conditioning class, which changed to a UXF Burn class just a few months later.

From there, I took on many more (probably too many more) classes, but have scaled back over the past 6 months or so and have a schedule that I love!

Wednesdays- 6:30 pm UXF Burn at the Central Square BSC
Thursdays- 5:30 pm SHRED followed by 6:30pm Cardio Kickboxing at the Central Square BSC
Every other Saturday- 10am Cardio kickboxing at the Oak Square YMCA

What’s Next?

If you’re anything like me, the more you learn about fitness, the more you get invested in it. Now that I teach a fairly wide range of classes, I want to learn how to teach even more! Ultimately, getting my personal training certificate should be next on my list, but in all honesty, I love the class setting. I feed off of the members energy and LOVE the feeling of instructing a big group! With that said, I would like to get a Dynamax training and possibly a Tabata training under my belt… and then I’ll look into getting my personal training certificate 😉

I have been trained to teach UXF Burn and UXF Core through the BSC

With that said, with AFAA you are required to have 15 continuing education credits (CEU’s) every 2 years, which I think is good because it forces us to stay up to date with the latest trends and certifications. My two years will be up in February (I can’t believe it’s almost been 2 years!!), and I have about half of the credits. To get the rest, I think I am going to go to MANIA in November. Athena went last year and I was so jealous, so I’ll definitely be going this year!!

I think that about covers it, but if I missed anything, please let me know 🙂

Questions for you: Have you ever thought of becoming a fitness instructor? If you are an instructor, what’s your favorite class to teach?

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I’ll be back with regular blogging {hopefully} on Monday 🙂

Burpees to Bubbly

Because good workouts deserve bubbly rewards!

Tag: Guest Post

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So, you want to become a fitness intructor?

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