Wednesday Workout: Descending Rep Total Body Workout

January 18, 2017January 17, 2017Leave a comment

Good morning and happy Wednesday! I have so many workouts to share with you guys that I might have to start posting them twice a week 😉 I have to say that I really enjoyed the format of this workout. What I mean by “descending” is that each round you’ll decrease the number of reps performed for each exercise. We go from 12 reps to 10 reps to 8 reps…. etc. all the way down, but instead of ending with just 2 reps (where’s the fun in that?!), you’ll do 12 reps again.

In addition to enjoying the format of the workout, I liked the upper and lower combo moves because doing them always jacks up my heart rate- more bang for your buck, especially if you’re short on time like I normally am!

Here are a few explanations in case you’re confused by any of the combo moves:

Chest press & leg lowers- for this you’ll start out on your back with your legs lifted straight above your hips and your arms straight above your shoulders/chest. Since you’re working multiple things here, I’d suggest keeping it a littler lighter for the chest press weight. There are two options for doing this exercise: 1. you’ll lower your legs and bring your arms closer to your chest at the same time- this is advanced since it requires a lot of core strength to ensure your lower back stays glued to the mat or 2. you can do a chest press and then do a leg lower, as separate exercises.
Goblet clean & squat
Bent over rows- For these you’ll hold a weight in both hands and hinge forward at the waist, keeping a slight bend in the knees and keeping your chest open and shoulders pulled back. Engage your lats & squeeze your shoulder blades together as your pull your elbows back. make sure you’re going slow and controlled here!
Russian twist & press- This is just taking your standard Russian twist & adding a little more onto it. After your twist right, you’ll come back through center and press the weight up overhead. Then, you’ll bring it down and twist left.

This workout shouldn’t take you much longer than 20-25 minutes; if it takes you much less time than that, consider upping your weights and if it takes you longer than that, you might want to consider dropping your weight a bit.

I hope you try this!

Question for you: Would you like to see more workouts on the blog or keep it as is?

burpees

Wednesday Workout: Italy Workout Series {Part 2: 20 Min. Bodyweight AMRAP}

October 19, 2016October 18, 20161 Comment

Good morning! If you remember, last week I introduced part 1 of my Italy Workout Series with a quickie countdown style workout. Today, I’m sharing another quickie workout that I did outside at one of the hotels we stayed at. Our hotel room wasn’t big enough to workout in (plus RM was still sleeping!) and we didn’t have a terrace or balcony so I needed to find a new space. Luckily it was early enough that there were not other guests out and about yet!

While broad jumps by nature require a bit of space, if you don’t have space and want to workout in your hotel room or apartment living room, you can replace the broad jumps with just regular squat jumps. Easy enough!

Quite notes: for the broad jumps, do 10 out and 10 back and for the plank with knee to chest, do 10 on each side.

This workout left me SO SORE for a few days. My quads were literally screaming at me- broad jumps are no joke, especially if you land in a low squat and really push yourself in the jump part. Combine that with walking lots of hills and stairs and it’s no wonder why I didn’t recover as quickly as I normally do!

But I still thought that this was a really fun, effective, sweaty 20 minute way to start the day- I hope you try it!

Questions for you: What exercise always leaves you sore?

Wednesday Workout: 20 Minute Bodyweight Tabata Workout

March 30, 2016March 28, 2016Leave a comment

Happy hump day, friends! As I mentioned on Monday, I did a quickie bodyweight tabata workout on Sunday morning that I wanted to share with you. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time- and didn’t want to wake up extra early to give me extra time- so I opted for a tabata workout since those tend to give me the biggest bang for my buck. No matter what I choose for exercises, I tend to be sore following a tabata workout, which was definitely the case when I woke up on Monday morning!

If you’re not familiar, tabata workouts are 8 rounds of 20 seconds on (working super hard!) followed by 10 seconds of rest, totaling 4 minutes all together. Traditional tabata workouts are generally just ONE exercise to be repeated for all 8 rounds, but I opted to do 2 exercises per tabata, so that each was done 4 times. So, rather than a traditional tabata workout, it was more of a tabata theme workout.

You’ll notice that each tabata set has 1 bodyweight exercise followed by a complementary cardio exercise- gotta love that extra burn 😉

I think everything here is fairly straight forward- sometimes going back to the basics can be the best workouts. While I love spicing things up with “fancy” moves, it can also be nice to stick with tried and true exercises that don’t require as much brain work, haha. If you’re feeling good and want to use weights when you perform the exercises- feel free! Likewise, if you’re not feeling up to the cardio, you can modify or continue with the bodyweight exercise for all 8 rounds. Per usual, the workout can be adapted to fit whatever your need is on the day you decide to do it.

Questions for you: What workout format always leaves you sore? Do you like basic, tied and true exercises or do you like to get fancy and make up new combos?

Wednesday Workout: 8 Minute AMRAP Circuits

September 16, 2015September 17, 20153 Comments

Hello! I’m so happy to have more time to blog this week because I’ve been doing some good workouts that are totally share-worthy. Although it can be hard to fit everything in during busy/stressful times (hello, moving!), doing my best to stay consistent with my workouts is something that’s really important to me. They may not be the longest or most intense, but even 15-20 minutes of just bodyweight exercises is better than nothing, and sometimes exactly what I need. I have to be careful of not over-doing it with workouts during stressful times because working out is a stress on the body, but less-intense, bodyweight workouts are generally doing me more good than harm. My fellow Boston blogger friend, Stephanie, wrote a really great blog post talking about this exact thing: The Stress-Fitness Balance. All too often workouts are the first thing that gets pushed aside in stressful, busy times, but her post is a good reminder on how to gauge your stress levels and figure out if maybe a quickie workout might be exactly what you need to relieve some stress and get a clear head.

Which is a perfect segway into this workout! For those of you who are feeling short on time these days, this workout has the option of being as short as 8 minutes or as long as 24-32 minutes. Each circuit is an 8 minute AMRAP (As many rounds as possible- while keeping good form, of course!) consisting of a lower body move, cardio, upper body move and core move. Choose a challenging weight so that you’re not whipping through the reps- I promise you’ll feel it 😉 I think I ended up getting through 3-3.5 rounds in the 8 minutes.

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Wednesday Workout: 24 Minute Bodyweight Tabata Workout

September 2, 2015September 1, 20152 Comments

Hello! I’m popping in quickly to share a workout I did in a one-on-one training session with one of my bootcampers last week (Hi, Kerri!). She specifically told me to post it because it sufficiently kicked her butt in less than a half hour- and with our busy schedules these days, who doesn’t want that?! I am all about short, but effective workouts and this one satisfies both of those things. Even better? It can be done anywhere since it requires no equipment- no excuses 😉

The way it works is I picked 2 strength moves in each set and tried to compliment those with the tabata cardio rounds. You’ll do the strength moves for 30 seconds each and 2 rounds then you’ll do the tabata cardio (20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest X8 rounds= total of 4 minutes).

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