Favorite New Moves
So today I did my first leg workout of the new year with Candy. It was a high rep day so we did a couple of new moves and some plyometric exercises.
We, of course, did heavy back squats (I always have to include a big lift!!) and then did some plyo moves, including box jumps, split squat jumps AND my new FAVORITE plyometric move – the “walking” plyo front lunge (ok it needs a better name but I haven’t come up with one yet!)!
Today Candy and I were super tired by the time we got to the “walking” plyo lunges so we didn’t use a weight vest like we usually do. It was still killer.
To perform the move:
1. Start in a lunge.
2. As you jump up out of the lunge to land in a lunge on the other side (like a split squat jump), you also move forward. (So like a walking lunge, you are moving forward each time you lunge on the other side.)
3. You keep switching sides as you move forward, completing about 15 lunges on each side.
I find that my legs burn so bad after completing these because of the effort it takes to jump up AND forward! Anyone else find these to be absolute torture….and love them because of it!?!
AND another move that I decided today was one of my FAVORITES is the TRX preacher squat with dumbbells. Doing it in the TRX made the normal preacher squat (balance lunge, Bulgarian split squat, pitcher squat…whatever name you use..) even HARDER! YAY! 🙂
To do the move:
1. Carefully place one foot back into the TRX strap. Jump forward and pick up the dumbbells.
2. Bend the front knee and squat down. Make sure as you lunge, you don’t let your front knee pass beyond your front toe.
3. Push through your heel to stand back up.
Add weights!!!
All your stabilizer muscles definitely work with these!!! It is hard to balance with one foot hooked into the TRX!
Anyway, try these two moves!!!
Give it 3 months
I have a love-hate relationship with January.
Be honest...Does this sound like you?
On the one hand, January means lots of new members and clients (YAY!). It is also a great time to rethink your goals and plan out new strategies to reach them. It is usually a time when you are most gung-ho about your goals so it is a great time to start working hard!
On the other hand, January means a crowded gym and goals that are never achieved by the majority of the population. It means a lot of frustration for me as a trainer and fitness enthusiast because I see person after person quickly give up on their fitness goals.
How are some people just happy about signing up for a gym membership? I mean literally we have people come in during January who sign up for a membership and never come in after signing up. Why waste your money? I mean if you aren’t going to use it – if you aren’t going to follow through on this resolution – why even set it?
Don’t be one of those people!!! I can deal with a crowded gym but I can’t deal with the people who don’t even give their resolutions a fair chance.
Making a commitment to your health and fitness isn’t easy. There are even times that fanatics like me falter…like these last two weeks…and trust me I feel so crappy I can’t wait to not see bad food or the couch for a while. (Actually my body is screaming out to me, “VEGETABLES!!! VEGETABLES!!!”)
Anyway, committing to a healthy diet and fitness program isn’t easy. You don’t just say to yourself, “I want to be healthy” and it instantly happens.
No! There are cravings for bad food. There are days when you feel sore and tired and just don’t want to workout. There are friends and family who can act as bad influences!
It isn’t easy. No one ever said it would be.
BUT if you give yourself a chance to really settle into a ROUTINE, it will get EASIER!!! You may always still crave certain foods, and there may be times you skip workouts, but you will feel committed and CRAVE your healthy lifestyle if you stray from it for a few days.
How long does it take before you actually feel committed? I tell my clients that if they can push through the initial struggle and stick with their resolutions for 3 months, they will find that it gets like 100 times easier to stick to their goals after that. It takes about 3 months to make working out and eating well a HABIT. Once you’ve made a habit out of enacting your goals, you are way less likely to give up on them.
So don’t be one of those people who only crowd up the gym in January or sign up and never come!
Join a gym, set some goals and push through the first three months. It will be worth it. Trust me.
P.S. If you need help staying committed for those first three months, hire a trainer! I always tell my clients that my job is to help them make working out and lifting weights a habit so that they can do it on their own!
Do you need help!?!
So yesterday was the first weekday that I’ve been at home and NOT posted. Why didn’t I post yesterday?
Because I was mentally fatigued from running billing for our club and physically drained from moving around all of our new equipment.
Deadlifting treadmills and ellipticals isn’t easy (neither are elliptical “sled pushes.”). Farmers walks with kettlebells, dumbbells and plate weights aren’t a piece of cake either.
Actually I got a good enough workout from moving equipment to make my forearms and calves sore!
But anyway, the point of this post isn’t that moving is an AMAZING workout. The point of this post actually relates to something that happened while we were moving.
I had deadlifted up one of the ellipticals and was wheeling it out on to the floor with Candy monitoring my progress since I was walking backwards. (And by this point Candy and I had already moved about 6 or 7 ellipticals on our own.)
All of the sudden this guy, from the company that was moving in some of the new pieces of equipment, runs up to me and goes, “Here let me help you!” He was like frantically trying to grab the elliptical from me.
I said I was fine and continued to walk backwards. Before he had come up to me, I’d already picked it up and walked like 10 feet with it and was doing fine.
But even though I said I was fine, he hovered around and kept asking to help. And when I set it down, he like barged in to make sure it was in place and that I didn’t have to move it anymore.
I said thanks but was fairly annoyed that he didn’t think I could do it. As I walked away with Candy, I asked if I’d looked like I was struggling.
She said no, that I had been doing fine.
I know this guy was trying to be nice, but still! I mean he took one look at me…all 5 foot 3.5 inches of me (I found out I shrunk at the doctor’s yesterday) and decided I couldn’t possibly lift the elliptical on my own.
Now even though Jon isn’t much taller than me (sorry Jon!), the guy didn’t offer to help him!
Nope. I was a short-ish, not bulky female and he decided he was stronger than me!…Ok he might have been stronger than me, but I could still handle the elliptical!!!
Anyway, the point of all this is that the belief that females are weak and can’t lift heavy things (unless they look like men) still exists!
And we women have to disprove it! Don’t be afraid to show your muscles ladies!!! Get in there and lift the heavy stuff with the guys!!! YOU CAN DO IT!
I cuddle with my foam roller
I LOVE my foam roller. I even miss it when I travel. Actually I miss it so much that I’ve even been tempted to try to pack it in my suitcase!
I can't believe someone else made this picture!!!!
A little weird? Probably…but I don’t care! I LOVE MY FOAM ROLLER!
Why am I obsessed? Because my body feels better when I foam roll every day, which means I get more out of my workout!
However, not everyone loves the foam roller…actually I’ve found that most of my clients hate it. And I can’t blame them. Foam rolling or, self-myofascial release, can be painful especially if you are super tight.
It is essentially a deep tissue massage, which releases tension in your muscles through autogenic inhibition and improves your flexibility, function, performance all while reducing your risk of injury!
Sounds great right!?! Yes!!!
Just so you don’t get scared away by how painful it may be the first time you do it…remember these WONDERFUL benefits of foam rolling!!!
- Reduce muscle soreness
- Correct muscle imbalances
- Increase joint range of motion
- Relieve joint stress
- Maintain normal functional muscular length
When you foam roll, make sure you do your back, butt (specifically your piriformis), hamstrings, quads, adductors and IT bands. I’ve found that the IT bands are the most painful for most of my clients. To lessen the pressure when you roll your IT bands, don’t stack your feet but instead place the foot of your top leg in front of you. To add more pressure, stack your feet!
Here is a link with some good descriptions and diagrams to help you get started foam rolling!!!
Is Paleo a trend?
Right now the hot topic in fitness is trends. What were the best, worst and weirdest trends of 2011 and what trends will continue into 2012?
On a few of the trend lists I found was Paleo…of course it was listed with alternative therapies and cleanse diets….but I guess at least its popularity is being recognized?
I was both happy and sad?, confused? that it was being include in these “trend” lists.
Why did it slightly upset me? Because I don’t consider Paleo to be a trend.
I consider a “trend” to be something that is “in style or in vogue,” which means that if you call Paleo a trend, you think that it will eventually go out of style.
And Paleo, aka a healthy lifestyle, won’t ever go out of style.
Yes, diets become super popular and then fizzle out as a new faster, easier diet pops up. But the diets that I would define as “trends” are all weight loss diets. People do these trend diets because they are looking to lose weight quickly and don’t necessarily care about long-term consequences or their overall health. They want to lose weight and they want to do it fast – that is all that matters.
So no, Paleo isn’t a trend. Yes, it has just recently been getting a ton of attention and growing in popularity, but it will never go out of style.
How could being healthy ever go out of style?
Haha ok I guess you could argue that being healthy has gone out of style for the last 50 or some years and that is why we have an obesity epidemic….BUT you could also argue that we’ve been TRYING to be healthy all along and have just been misled by the government and corporations who’ve been telling us that low-fat, high carb is healthy!
I’m going with the second one. As more research comes out Paleo has been gaining popularity. We are now realizing that a high protein, high fat, only healthy carb (like veggies and fruits) diet may be the RIGHT way.
So it isn’t a trend rapidly gaining popularity only to fizzle out. Paleo has actually been around for a while, slowly gathering momentum until finally it has only recently gained mainstream attention.
And with its solid nutritional guidelines, backed up by LOTS of research (contrary to what Conventional Wisdom would have you believe), Paleo will only continue to become more and more popular.
What do you think? Is Paleo a trend?
Really? New Years Resolutions?
I’ve never been one to make serious New Years resolutions.
I do the usual, “I want to get in even better shape” or “I want to clean my house more.” But I never set real, measurable goals.
But I want this year to be different. This year I want to set a sort of “Bucket List” – a list of things I will complete before this year is over. Things I want to be able to look back and say, “I did that!”
Unlike “resolutions,” the items on my “Pail List” (Ryan called it my “pail list” since it is smaller than a “Bucket List”…and since I don’t intended on “Kicking the bucket” anytime soon!) are all actions or events, not necessarily a goal I’m working toward that will be fully completed at some point during the year.
One thing on my “bucket list”is to create a Powerlifting training program that not only makes me the strongest woman alive (haha) but also one of the sexiest (great goal right!?!)!
I hear so many people say that you can’t train to be super strong and super lean at the same time, but then again those people probably haven’t ever seen someone who has done Crossfit! I want to create another program that proves you can do just that!
I’m going to take all the self-experimenting and research that I’ve done over the past year or so and use it to create my own program!
So first item – my own super awesome powerlifting program.
My second item, of course relates back to my first item…I want to compete in a national raw powerlifting competition! YAY!
Ok so, that is all I have so far other than maybe dying my hair a super funky color (one year it ended up being pinky/orange…long story…).
These items on my list are just things I want to complete before the year is up – some will take some training while others are things I could technically do tomorrow, but all are things that I WILL DO…unlike cleaning my house more often…I mean what really is more often….
So what are some items on your “Pail List” for 2012?
Happy Holidays Man Bicep Style!
Someone found Man Bicep by searching, “Santa doing push up.” I love it!
I then searched for "Santa doing a push up" and found a pic!
Anyway, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
The 10 Best Exercises you can do anywhere!
So our gym is closed until January 1st for reconstruction. Numerous members were upset because they wouldn’t be able to workout for an entire week.
This got me to thinking about workouts you could do at home.
If you are like me, you have dumbbells, resistance bands, pull up bars, push up stands, yoga mats and a foam roller.
If you are the average person, you probably have walls, chairs, floors, towels and other household furniture and supplies.
But the average person, who doesn’t own even a single piece of equipment, can get in a great home workout just by doing these 10 moves! (The following are in no particular order…they are all awesome…ok but Burpees are definitely the best!)
1. Burpee – If you doubt why this move is on the list, than you’ve never done a burpee. This cardiovascular move is sure to make you feel out of breath and work up a sweat.
2. Push Ups (handstand, decline, one foot off the ground) – Be it the basic push up or something as crazy as a handstand push up, this move is one of the best upper body exercises out there! It will also work your abs!
3. 1 leg squats (to bench) – If you don’t have weights, isolating one leg can make your lower body work harder than it would if you did a simple body weight squat. You can start with a squat to chair and then work up to a pistol squat.
4. Dips from chair (with feet up) – If you put your feet up, you will make a bench chair dip more difficult. This is a great way to work your triceps and can even be done right off of the couch!
5. Balance lunges – Again you are isolating one leg and forcing yourself to use your abs more to balance. Just find something to put your back leg up on and lunge, making sure your front knee doesn’t go beyond your front toe.
6. Climbers (decline or one foot off the ground) – Decline climbers in my opinion are like the best shoulder exercise if you don’t have weights. Your feet are up on a chair or couch and you start on your forearms. Then pushing up you climb up to your hands and then back down. Keep your abs tight and your butt down. Climbers is also a great exercise for your abs!
7. Plank crawl – On your forearms and toes, crawl forward keeping your butt down. Once you crawl across the room, move backwards. You will need to take small steps. Really this is a great exercise for your full body!!! And it definitely kills the shoulders and abs!
8. Jump Squats – Plyometrics of any kind are a great way to get in some cardio and really work the legs!! Plus they don’t require anything but your own body weight. Just make sure to land softly if you live in an apartment!
9. Wall sit – You can read a book or even freaking watch TV while you do this move. All you need is a wall so you can do this about anywhere. To make it more intense, do a 1 leg wall sit.
10. Mountain Climbers – Another great way to get in some cardio, work your abs and burn out your shoulders. When my legs are tired, I also really feel it in my quads.
Runners up: Cocktail lunges, sit ups, jumping jacks, split squat jumps, planks (front and side), glute bridge, supermans,
Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the fairest one of all?
Are there times when you don't like the answer the mirror gives you?
When I started this blog, I really had no intention of writing about anything but lifting. I just wanted to try to convince every woman out there to lift heavy weights. And I definitely didn’t plan to spend any time talking about “body image.”
But of course, I’ve now realized that you can’t convince women to lift heavy without discussing the “body image” issue.
Because lifting in and of itself is meaningless. For most women (and most men), the main reason to workout and diet is because they want to improve their body and feel better about how they look. (Yes some people just workout to be healthy and some people do it because they love it…but let’s face it…we all want to be the best versions of ourselves so will do everything we can to achieve that!)
That’s right…more than looking good for other people, we want to love the person we see in the mirror. We want to be able to look in the mirror and say, “Damn I’m sexy.”
So what is stopping us from always looking in the mirror and thinking we look amazing?
I’ve found that it stems from two main issues – the Ugly Duckling Syndrome and the Evil Queen Complex.
I definitely find myself at points suffering from the Ugly Duckling Syndrome. When I was in junior high, and even at the beginning of high school, I was a bit pudgy. Not fat, but my middle was soft and I had chipmunk cheeks.
I lost the weight, but sometimes when I look at pictures, or even in the mirror, all I can see are chipmunk cheeks. Or when I try on shirts, I get super focused on how my stomach looks.
It doesn’t matter that I know I’m not at all pudgy now because sometimes I’m just so stuck on the fact that at one point I felt I was an “ugly duckling.”
Since I began lifting super heavy and eating Primally, I find I have an easier time moving past my doubts about how I look. I know that the way I’m living is healthy so there is no way I can be out of shape. I repeat that to myself when I look in the mirror and start to think about chipmunk cheeks.
Did you go through a period you consider an “ugly duckling” phase? Do you sometimes only see what used to be there?
And, the second issue…the Evil Queen Complex.
Ever look in the mirror and focus on the fact that your hips/arms/stomach aren’t as perfect as that of a model/actress/friend’s?
If you’ve ever compared your body to that of someone else’s and wish that yours was better than theirs, than you have suffered from the Evil Queen Complex.
We all have people that we think have perfect bodies – that represent our standards of what is beautiful.
The thing is we can’t focus on how our bodies compare to theirs. We can’t look into the mirror and ask, “Who’s the fairest one of all?”
We will never EVER have the exact same body as that person. We can only make our body as perfect as possible and be content knowing that we are living a healthy life by eating well and lifting heavy weights.
Have you found yourself falling victim to either one of these body image issues? What do you do to move past them?
Man Bicep 