Tag: hotel workout

Wednesday Workout: 20 Minute Hotel Room AMRAP Workout

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Wait, what?! Is this really a true “Wednesday Workout” post? I just scrolled through my posts and realized that I haven’t posted a workout for you in over a MONTH, so for those of you who come here only for those- I’m sorry! I hope you read this post which explained why I haven’t been sharing workouts on here as frequently as I used to.

I wanted to share this workout with you today because with summer basically here, it likely means lots of travel/vacations are popping up, which could result in having less time to get to your normal gym time. This workout is perfect for those times where you’re traveling and/or just away from your normal gym because it can be done anywhere: in a hotel room, in a house, on the beach, at a park- you get the idea! Quickie body weight workouts are a great way to get in a sweat without hindering your plans or taking away time from something more fun.

I don’t know if it was because I was tired from traveling, stressed from work or just because this was a tough workout, but I was really huffing and puffing throughout the whole thing. I was originally on a pace to finish 8 rounds but only finished 6 rounds and then the squats on the 7th round. By the end I was drenched and felt sufficiently worked!

20 Minute AMRAP Hotel Room Workout

A hyperlapse snapshot of the workout can be found here:

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Early morning flight back to the east coast meant an early hotel room quickie 20 min workout. Don't be fooled, though, 20 mins was all I needed to be a sweaty, tired mess by the end! This is an abbreviated clip, but the whole thing is as follows: # 20 min AMRAP: ▶️10 squats ▶️10 push-ups ▶️10 knee to chest in plank ▶️10 mtn climbers ▶️10 reverse lunges ▶️10 burpees ▶️10 standing oblique dips # Great way to start my day, especially before a long flight home!! Also, BSC friends- @dana_leigh_9 is subbing for me tonight- I decided getting home to relax and spend time with RM was more in line with what I need these days (read my post from Monday!)- I'm sure you understand 😀 #inspiringfitness #morningworkout #riseandgrind #hotelroomworkout #amrap #fightersconditioning #everybodyfights #buffbride

A post shared by Monique Gagnon- Magno (@burpeestobubbly) on

Let me know if you try this!

Questions for you: Do you have a lot of travel plans this summer?

Weekending: Review through pictures

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Good morning! Did you guys have a good weekend? We sure did- here’s a glimpse 🙂

  • I had to go to Milwaukee Thursday-Friday, which was a really nice trip. I wasn’t sure Milwaukee would be anything that exciting, but I have to say I really loved the little city! It was a much quieter city than I’m used to, but it was still really cool! I stayed right downtown and was within walking distance to the river walk and lots of cool restaurants and shopping.

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  • I made sure to get in workouts while I was gone, too 🙂 One strength one and then one quickie bodyweight hotel room workout one- I’ll share both with you soon!

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Hotel room bodyweight workout

  • I met my sister at a new restaurant in Watertown called Branch Line. It’s right near her new office and close to me, plus the owners of Eastern Standard (one of my favorite Boston restaurants) started it so I couldn’t wait to try it out. The verdict? LOVED IT! We only got drinks and their fried cheese bites, but the whole experience was very good and RM and I plan on going back for dinner since their menu looked intriguing!

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  • RM and I ended up going to Stellina for dinner which was where we went to dinner the night we got engaged! The food was great, although I didn’t take any pictures 😉
  • Saturday we lounged in the morning. It was weird to be around with no plans AND no teaching. Rather than rushing out for the gym, I decided to hang around and get all my house chores done first. We had people over on Saturday night so I wanted to prep the chili and dessert and clean/pick up. I finally went to SoulCycle for a 1pm class. It was a good class, but not the hardest I’ve been to, or as much of a party as SC usually is. Oh well!
  • I had time to relax when I got back so I caught up on Greys anatomy while sharing a beer with RM.

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  • Our dinner party was a blast! I made a sweet potato turkey chili which was a hit, a cheese and prosciutto board, guacamole and a batch of these delicious Paleo Pumpkin Bars. I added in chocolate chips and pumpkin spice chips and they came out SO GOOD! Along with these treats, RM’s sister-in-law Emily brought a tasty apple crisp and Amanda brought a fantastic brie/pecans/craisin ball. Oh, and lots of wine 😉

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  • Sunday we made our way to NH to go look at another venue and while we liked it, we were kind of turned off by how far lodging was from the venue so I’m not sure we will pursue it further. Oh well.
  • We were staving when we got back so we heated up chili and other treats from Saturday night and had a medley sort of lunch. While RM watch/snoozed through the Patriots game, I whipped up some lemon blueberry muffins from his Practical Paleo cookbook (we are trying to incorporate more paleo-like meals these days). They came out pretty good!

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  • After I finished my book/the Patriots game was over, I coerced RM into going to Marshall’s and Target with me. We are on the hunt for a new dining room table and living room chair and I wanted him to see some of the things I was digging. Love this table from Target:

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  • Although I was really craving pizza or something like that, we opted for a healthier dinner and had chicken thighs, kale, mashed sweet potatoes and butternut squash and for some reason, everything came out SO GOOD. Nothing fancy, but so tasty. (I snapped a pic halfway through).

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All in all, a great weekend filled with friends and family, relaxation and productivity. Oh, and wine. Definitely wine 😉

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Have you tried out any new restaurants? What’s the coolest city you’ve traveled to? Did you get in any good workouts? Any good meals?

Boston>Dallas>Chicago

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Few! Hi everyone! How’s it going? I can’t believe that a week ago today I was packing up and heading out to Dallas. After making a detour through Chicago for a long weekend vaca, I finally made it back to Boston last night, just in time to jump into my car and head to Watertown to sub a kickboxing class. Not the brightest idea, but I wanted to help a fellow instructor out and I was itching to teach (it’s crazy how much I miss teaching when I haven’t taught in a week+.).

Let’s catch up, shall we? I am going to get to my Chicago recaps later this week, but I wanted to share some things I did and learned about while I was in Dallas. We are required to take certain classes at my company, one of those classes being a Business Writing Course. I’ve never been a terrific writer, and blog writing is veryyy different from business writing, so I was actually excited to take the course.

I got to Dallas on Tuesday night around 7 and immediately met up with a few coworkers (some taking the course and some just work in Dallas). We went to Pappadeaux and I ordered a glass of Chardonnay to quench my hunger thirst. I don’t know what it is, but as soon as I travel for work, I feel like I am on “vacation”, which means I tend to indulge in more alcoholic beverages than usual (on a normal week, I don’t drink at all Sunday-Thursday).

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For dinner, I ordered the Seafood Skewers which were delicious! It was a mixture of salmon, shrimp and scallops with an assortment of grilled veggies sandwiched between. The plate was HUGE, so I barely made a dent in the meal- always a shame when I’m traveling and can’t take leftovers home.

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Wednesday morning, I headed to the gym for a cardio and light strength workout and then went to day 1 of the training course. One of the best things I learned throughout the 2 days was how we have been taught to use big, filler words rather than using smaller, stronger words. I think some of you can agree that when typing business emails, a common sentence may be “Attached please find a word document with responses pursuant to your earlier requests. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.”, right? Well, in this course, we learned that no one likes to read emails with “filler” words that are used to try to make the piece sound fancier than it is. We want to read things that are quick, short and things that we understand. We were encouraged to re-write the sentence above with removing unnecessary words: “The answers to your questions are attached. Please let me know if you have questions.” Much easier to read, right?

I could go on and on about the course, but in attempt to not make this post ridiculously long, I’ll stop there. 😉

Wednesday night, my coworker and I grabbed Mexican at Chuy’s which is a restaurant our team went to the last time we were in Dallas. I splurged and ordered a margarita to start… It was SO worth the splurge!

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I ordered one of the “lighter” chicken dinner options since I consumed my weight in chips, salsa and queso and was no longer very hungry.

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We grabbed a glass of wine at the hotel bar before calling it a night. I was happy to have some earlier nights during this leg of my trip since I knew I would be staying out much later while in Chicago.

After the course ended for the day on Thursday, I headed to the Dallas airport. I mentioned on Instagram; that I had planned on eating healthier and not drinking, but what did I end up doing? Sitting at a Mexican bar drinking wine and eating chips/salsa. Ugh. I wasn’t so mad about it, though, because there were a few cute guys sitting next to me so chatting with them was a good way to pass the time. 😉

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I got to Chicago around 10pm and headed to the hotel where my sister was staying. I was so excited to see her and start “vacationing”. We caught up for a bit and then went to bed. I had to work a bit on Friday morning so I got up early to work out and start my day. I usually rest on Friday’s, but I knew I likely wouldn’t work out over the weekend so I wanted to get something in.

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Around noon, we headed back to the airport to take the Blue Line into the city. Our room was ready, so we checked in, dropped off our bags and quickly headed out. We stayed at the Sheraton in downtown Chicago and I highly recommend it if you’re looking for some place to stay. It was super affordable (I used points for 2 nights, but it was still affordable even without points), very clean/nice, had a great gym and was in a great location.

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I’ll catch you up on the rest of Friday night in a later post… this one is getting quite lengthy!

Questions for you: What is your favorite Mexican restaurant or meal? Do you like margaritas? If so, what kind?

Wednesday Workout: Hotel Gym Circuit

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Hi B2B readers! The gym at the Stowe Mountain Lodge was unbelievable! Not even just for a hotel, either! It was spacious and fully equipped with up-to-date machines and all sorts of “Monique-type toys” to incorporate into my workouts. I wanted to share with you what I did on Friday morning as it left me tired and sweaty! You’ll notice that the equipment I used can be found at most gyms and if you have the opportunity to go to the gym at an off-peak hour, you can totally set yourself up with a similar station somewhere!

Hotel Circuit Workout

Most of these moves are moves you’ve either done in my classes or seen on the blog, but if you have questions, just let me know! I did learn a new type of burpee that I can’t WAIT to scare show my UXF Burn members 😉

I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday and hopefully I’ll see some of you tonight in class! I’ll keep you updated on Facebook to let you know whether or not I’ll be there!

Questions for you: Do you like to print out workouts you find on blogs and health/fitness sites and bring them to the gym with you for your own workouts? Or, are you more likely to stick to machine cardio and normal lifting if you’re on your own?

NYC in a Flash

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003Within a blink of an eye, my quick work trip to NYC came to an end. I’ll spare you with the details of what I did for work while I was there because I’d much rather talk about the hotel, the food and, of course, the wine!

We stayed at the Andaz Hyatt on Wall Street and I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed! This part of the city was totally flooded just a few months ago (the gentleman checking me in said the water would’ve been up to my knees!), so the fact that they were open was impressive from the start! I am generally not big into the minimalist/modern style, but these rooms were amazing!!

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Everything was sleek and stylish, but I think the best thing of all was the complimentary snacks and non-alcoholic beverages. The sure way to my heart is a constant supply of treats:)

The runner-up feature for the room was surely the products and the bath tub/shower combo. I mean, look at that thing! I definitely skipped out on the post dinner drinks in favor of going back to my room to take a tubbie (yes, I said that.). When I grow up, I want this exact tub/shower combo. For sure.

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009(Just testing it out)

Dinner, however, was not something to skip over. We ended up going to Harry’s which is right in the heart of the Financial District. My sister was supposed to meet up with me for dinner since she was on site nearby, but unfortunately her flight from Boston was delayed and she had to cancel:( Luckily I had coworkers with me!

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I had a lot of trouble deciding what I was in the mood to eat, but finally decided to go a little on the lighter side. I hadn’t really had any veggies all day (the horror!), so I got a side salad to start and the Short Rib Sliders for my meal. Omgoodness were these good! I don’t tend to gravitate towards beef, but for some reason it was totally calling my name last night. The red onion marmalade and garlic aioli was the perfect addition to these little nugget sliders.

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012Whenever the waiter asks if anyone wants dessert, my line is always “can you please bring a menu so I can just look?”…. probably 7 times out of 10 I end up persuading someone to share something with me. Last night was no exception.

013A “make your own sundae” Ice cream sundae dessert… sign.me.up! There were strawberries, toasted coconut, walnuts, fresh whipped cream and hot fudge- I died and went to ice cream heaven (I only need a couple of bits and am satisfied… that is how I justify having ice cream every day!).

As I mentioned earlier, post dinner, I skipped out on another round of drinks in lieu of taking a bath… great decision on my end, because I was able to get up and do this very sweaty workout

018Perform each move for 60 seconds and do 3 rounds if you have time. I only had time to do 2 full rounds and for the 3rd round, I had to drop to 30 seconds for each move (secretively, I was more than happy with this… I was dead!). Let me know if you try this:)

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After a long day in the office today, I made my way to LGA around 5pm. I totally sound like a loser when I say this, but I LOVE the food/bar at the Delta Shuttle Terminal.  They have this veggie Panini that I am seriously obsessed with. And, what goes better with a veggie sando? Wine, of course.

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And here I am, back in Boston and back to the normal grind. I hope I am done traveling for a bit because I miss my members and my classes:(  Can’t wait to be back for kickboxing tonight (hoping my shoulder holds up).

Questions for you: What’s your favorite thing to find in a hotel room? Airport food- love it or hate it?