Good morning!
Don’t forget to start your day with today’s Ab Challenge, a Monday morning ab blaster. If you forgot to do this right when you got out of bed this morning, no worries… there is still plenty of time left in the day to squeeze it in. Takes less than five minutes, so really… there’s no excuse NOT to.
Don’t forget to check in on either the blog or my Facebook page once you’ve done the core work for today!
Let’s discuss Best Body Bootcamp.
Week 1 of Best Body Bootcamp (BBB) Round 4 kicks off this week. For those who haven’t read my past posts on BBB, it’s pretty much awesome. Tina is another blogger and personal trainer who runs the virtual bootcamp program, and while this is her fourth time holding a session, this is the third time I’ve participated. Each session is eight weeks long, it’s divided into four phases (each phase is two weeks), and it only costs $25. Score! The workouts consist of both strength and cardio, and each week’s program is very flexible so I’m able to adapt it to my busy schedule, including working them around and into my fitness classes. Tina also is amazing and includes links to videos of each exercise, both modified and more advanced options for each move, and at home versions of each move as well.
If you are wondering why the heck I would want to take part in something like this since I am a fitness instructor and personal trainer myself, well, sometimes it’s just nice to have someone else plan my fitness regime for once instead of always being the one planning. Plus I love getting new ideas for different exercises to use in class and apply to the concepts I teach. And I’ve felt amazing each time I’ve participated. It’s just refreshing!
Also, this time around Tina included some fitness tests that we could do before the session starts, that we can do halfway through, and some to do at the end. I love the idea of measurable progress, and I am pumped to see how my body progresses throughout. Here are my results from the weekend:
Lower Body Strength
Hold a wall squat for as long as possible with good form. I held one without weights for 2:32.
Upper Body Strength
Complete as many pushups as possible in good form in 60 seconds. I did 28 regular pushups.
Core Strength
Hold an elbow plank for as long as possible with good form. 4:05!
Power Fitness
Tina had us pick one power move out of burpees, jump squats, air jacks, or jumping jacks to see how many we could complete with good form in 60 seconds. I chose burpees and was able to do 23.
Cardiovascular Fitness
There were a few options here, but I did a timed mile on the treadmill and came in at 7:52.
You’ll see some mentioning of these and how I included them in my weekly workouts below. I loved “taking a step back” to take a look at how I’m doing in the different areas. That is much, much, MUCH more important to me than the numbers on the scale.
Anyways, all this being said, you’ll see a lot more mentioning of BBB over the next few weeks.
Weekly Workouts
Last Week’s Workouts
Last week I had some really, really awesome workouts.
- Sunday: Off
- Monday: Took Lauren’s cycle class on New Year’s Eve
- Tuesday: New Year’s Day sweat sesh with my gym friends! 30 minutes of Monique’s kickboxing, 30 minutes of my bosu blast partner workout, and 30 minutes of Liz’s gliding disc strength work. I also did my first timed plank for my 31 Day Abs Challenge, and came in at 4:05!
- Wednesday: Off from a scheduled workout. Did my 100 stability ball crunches for the abs challenge before bed, and a lot of hip stretches since I was so sore from Tuesday’s ass kicking.
- Thursday: Taught a countdown workout in my 6am class.
- Friday: Proud that I got up and went again in the morning! I did this workout on a cycle bike, with the 20 second sprint as a seated sprint, and the 40 second recovery as a run in high third with increased resistance. After cardio, I did both the power fitness (burpees) and lower body strength (wall sit) tests. I finished up my morning workout with my back exercises from the abs challenge, and called it a day.
- Saturday: Did the mile fitness test on the treadmill, followed by the upper body strength (pushups) fitness test, followed by some random other moves and hip stretching.
This Week’s Workouts
Here’s how I’ve planned to fit it all in!
- Sunday: Did a 20 minute cardio interval workout on the elliptical (5 minute warmup > then 7 rounds of 30 seconds at resistance 10, 30 seconds at resistance 12, and 30 seconds at resistance 8 > then 5 minute cooldown) followed by three rounds of core strength circuits. Both from BBB.
- Monday: Morning ab burner + BBB cardio interval workout.
- Tuesday: Another timed plank + Liz’s kickboxing class + teaching strength workout A in class
- Wednesday: Off except for ab ladder before bed
- Thursday: Teaching strength workout C + ab Tabata
- Friday: Either off or cardio intervals or a class (chest from the ab challenge either way)
- Saturday: Either off or cardio intervals or a class
I’m psyched!
How are your workouts going so far this year? Any other boot-campers out there excited? How’s everyone doing in the Abs challenge?
Have a great Monday!
Is it cheating that I did some of these moves in my class today? Either way I checked the box!
I’m with you. It’s nice not having to plan your own workouts every once in awhile. I actually do the BBB workouts myself often since they are already planned out and I love them!
Abs challenge is going great. Keeping up and working them around my other workouts. Did Monday’s today on Tuesday morning, not liking doing jumping jacks straight out of bed at 600am. I have a new appreciation for those who workout before work.
I am creating something like that BBB fitness test this session in my Dynamax class and I’m excited! It’s a great way to measure progress an motivate members to work REALLY hard!
You don’t need to spend hours and hours in the gym in order to be in awesome shape or to drop pounds. In fact, little interjections of sporadic physical activity into your daily routine, like the abs workout routine, are not only effective, but they can also serve to speed up your metabolic rate.