Morning!

Did everyone enjoy their first day of summer?  Mother Nature decided to make it a hot one to ring in the season.  And it’s still out hot there today!

Last Night’s Eats

Last night consisted of a work outing at the British Beer Company in Walpole.  We had to celebrate Jess and Jamie’s belated birthdays after all!  It was fun to catch up with some of my old coworkers I haven’t seen in so long.

I drank two of these:

And ate this:

The Mediterranean Tabouli Salad — chopped fresh greens tossed with bulgur wheat, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted red peppers, kalamata olives (I’m a fake Greek, remember?!) parsley, onions, and mint tossed in a lemon and garlic dressing.  Served with toasted naan bread.

Twas decent, but there was too much bread served with the salad and I ate it all when I really only wanted a slice or two, oops.  And they left one spare olive in there.  How dare they.

This Morning’s Workout

This sums it up:

Here’s the workout!  You’ll need a bench, a mat, and dumbbells.

First, a warmup.  Duh.

Then, this circuit:

Notes for the inchworm with pushup pyramid:
Roll down and walk out to plank.  Do 1 pushup, hold for a 4 count, then walk yourself back, and jump.  Next time do 2 pushups, then 3, etc. until you get to 5.  Then work your way back down.  <—Been LOVING this move lately!

Then this cardio:

Then, repeat the circuit above.

Some change ups I made for round 2:

• Instead of the inchworm pushup series I did inchworm side plank series:  Roll down and walk out to plank, open to a side plank to the right, come back to regular plank, open to a side plank to the left, come back to regular plank, walk yourself back, and jump.  Repeat x5.
• Instead of the seated concentration curls we did standing alternating front bicep curls.

Finally, we finished with some floor work:

• Lying on side on the bench, 10 leg lifts on right but instead of straight down and up, drop leg to front (so it comes off the bench) and then lift.  Then do the same to the back, again with 10 reps.  Repeat other side.
• Triceps dips on step
• Ab ladder
• Heel Taps
• 6 inch supine leg hold

Cooldown & Stretch

Rocked the summer playlist again too!

Do You Guys Feel This?

Sometimes when I teach and nobody is making any noise — like no breathing, no talking, no giggling, no groaning, no complaining, I get a little nervous.  Like, hellooooo are you alive out there!?  Sometimes it’s hard to tell if everyone gets silent because they are bored OR because they are really working hard.  So I’ll say “Do you guys feel this?”  Sometimes I’ll STILL hear crickets and say, “No?  Want more?” and then usually someone pipes up and answers me.  But today on those side leg lifts at the end I got a unanimous YES!  Was kinda funny.  Seriously those WORK.  Gluteus medius all the way.

On that note, please make sure to BREATHE during your workout no matter what you are feeling.  It helps you, I promise.  🙂

Do you pay attention to breathing during your workouts?  Fellow instructors, can you relate?

P.S.  Check out my guest post today over on Be Fit With Kristen – my turkey quinoa loaf recipe is being featured as part of her healthy dinner series!