Having small kids at home is tough. Finding time to do everything you need to do is even tougher. Exercise becomes nonexistent. I came up with some easy ways you can sneak small segments of exercise into your day. You don’t have to do 30 minutes at a time. Even doing sets of 5 or 10 minutes through out the day is a good start.
I didn’t have a baby to do one of the demos. My “toddler” is 18 now and would not agree to be in my demo. My 31 year old son probably would have had he lived in town.
We did this really fun workout last week that really challenged the entire core from top to bottom. Everyone loved it even though it was pretty tough.
Don’t have ropes and chains at home? No problem. You can drag anything. Just stay low and tight.
This morning I woke up at 4:00 am. Seems like every few months, I get insomnia. I fall asleep quickly but then wake up after a couple of hours.
After lying in bed for thirty minutes I decided to turn on the TV.
I was hoping to find something boring and doze back off to sleep. With blurry eyes I flipped through the channels. I thought my remote was stuck because it looked like the same show was on every station. It was nothing but infomercials. Three stations had weight loss gadgets, one station was some gadget to change your life in the kitchen and one station was showing something to change your life in the bedroom. At 4:00 am, the only change I want going on in my bedroom is some sleep!!
I decided to see what kind of crap was being sold at 4:00 am and what kind of ridiculous promises were being made.
First channel surfing stop was a product known as the Contour. This gadget is a belt that when worn around the midsection sends electrical currents to tighten and tone while you get to sit around and watch TV. I watched as they showed the user doing traditional sit ups. On cue, he made the squishy, contorted facial expression of a man in pain. He said the sit up hurt his back….poor baby, poor incredibly ripped, lean hunk of gorgeousnesses.
Enter the expert!
The expert showed a thermoscan of gorgeous male model’s muscles while doing sit ups and then while wearing the “amazing” Contour belt. Of course the Thermoscan lit up when that hunk of a man put on the belt.
Even in my sleep deprived state, I knew that this was a load of crap.
If you watch closely enough and take you eyes off of that hot body long enough, you will see a quick flash of print at the bottom of the screen, the same print that is on the bottom of the TV screen of all these stupid gadgets and that is that results are not typical….blah, blah, blah. Does anyone even read that or they already on the phone ordering, not one but 2? God forbid you ever get just one item from an infomercial. We all know that if you act now, they will send you another one for FREE!!
Ok, in case you missed the print at the bottom of the screen, here it is.
Regular users of the Contour device can generally expect modest strengthening and toning of abdominal muscles. Results are not typical. He lost weight on a reduced calorie diet and an exercise program.
Please do me a favor and read the above paragraph again, this time out loud.
This was just one station. The others were showing a Brazilion Butt Lift program and The Tracy Anderson Metamorphosis. Same crap, different delivery.
After flipping back and forth between several of these programs, I finally found and settled on an I Love Lucy marathon. Those were the good old days!
I came across some more pictures from our Halloween workout. They were too good not to share.
This workout was inspired by the Death Race. I named it The 3 Circles of Hell.
This week we did something a little different in our workout. Although our workouts are always different and very unique, we’ve decided to add some challenges. The military refers to these as Gut Checks. We divided the groups into teams of 2. Each team was given a Prowler (pushing sled), a pulling sled, a sandbag, a log, 2 heavy Kettlebells, an ammo can and a wheelbarrow full of heavy items. The goal was for each team to get these items up hill and around the block in the allotted time. Multiple switches were done throughout the 3/4 mile block so that everyone had a chance to use each item. We ended our workout with heavy Kettlebell Farmers Walks around the lot and up 3 sets of stairs. Not only were heart rates soaring but muscles that they never knew existed were put to the test.
Waiting for the 5:30 pm class
So if you get bored with your fitness routine and want a unique workout that is challenging and fun then join us. We have a FREE trial waiting for you.
We are mixing things up in boot camp this month. Once a week we will be adding a “dig deep” workout. Not only will these workouts focus on strength, they will focus on tenacity.
Friday’s workout was inspired by The Death Race in which I was on a support team for two of our boot campers. We had 3 circles with logs, aquabags, sandbags, ammo cans filled with weights, Kettlebells and fire hoses. Each team had to do one squat thrust, pick up their item to chest level, put it down and then rotate to the next item and repeat. After 3 rotations, they had to pick up an item and take it for a little walk. Then they switched circles. We repeated this for 40 minutes.
During our last week of camp we had a team competition.
Each team was given a log, 44 lb Kettlebell and an ammo can. They had to split hundreds of squats, push ups and pull ups without letting any of their equipment touch the ground. When they completed that, they had to take all of their equipment on a .6 mile hike.
As you can see, some of the teams were very creative in how they kept their equipment from touching the ground.
I don’t know about any other fitness business in town, but we have been getting a lot of calls from people ready to start a fitness program. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled with the prospect of new clients, but I also want to make sure that you aren’t setting yourself up for failure.
You see, this happens with the start of every new year. People are so anxious to get a fresh start on being healthy, getting fit and losing weight. They try to do everything at once. Join a gym (or boot camp), start a super strict diet, or worse, join one of those unhealthy ultra-low calorie diet centers.
Your intentions are great, it’s just that most people set themselves up for failure by trying to change everything all at once.
What happens with most people is that they start off strong, work out 5 days a week, change their diet and then give up in a few weeks when they see they haven’t lost huge numbers on the scale like they see on The Biggest Loser.
They begin to think all their hard work is futile. They become discouraged and eventually workouts become less of a priority. With the decrease in workouts, the healthy eating isn’t as important. “What’s the point, I’m not losing weight, I might as well eat”. I’ve heard this a million times. Heck, I’ve said this myself and I know better.
The number one problem is that too many people are focused on the “almighty scale”. If the scale isn’t showing progress, they think, that THEY are not making progress. Their self worth, self esteem and happiness boil down to the number they see in the morning.
Let me assure you that the scale and the numbers on the scale are just that; numbers! Those numbers represent your entire body. The scale has no idea if your weight is fat, water, bones, hair or internal organs. It’s just a number.
If you want to measure your progress, then the best thing you can do is to get your body fat tested, check how your clothes fit, use a tape measure or even take weekly pictures.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear women complain that they are working out so hard and the scale isn’t moving. I ask them if their clothes fit different and most of the time they will tell me that their clothes are getting lose. So why are you still focused on the scale?
I’ve trained 1,000s of people over the last 10 years and I’ve done 1,000s of body fat testing. I’ve trained people who lost tons of inches and body fat, lost several sizes in their clothes and the scale either didn’t move at all, or it only moved slightly.
I like to give people an example of my younger days when I was struggling with an eating disorder.
In my early 20s, I weighed just under 100 lbs. I wasn’t working out; just starving myself. I wore a size 9 jean.
In my 30s I started working out, lifting super heavy weights and competing in bodybuilding competitions. In the weeks leading up to one of my contests, I weighed 124 lbs, but I wore a size 0.
Had I judged my progress on the scale alone, I would have been very discouraged and probably given up. Thank God, I knew better.
Do yourself a favor this year. Work out, eat healthy and stay off the scale. Instead of judging your progress by a little machine that doesn’t know any better, judge your progress by how you look and feel in your clothes and how you feel.
Don’t give up! Some people take longer than others to see changes. Trust me, if you are changing your life, then changes are happening inside of your body. It may just take longer to see those changes on the outside.
Have a healthy week!
Laurel
We had some huge success stories this session. Not only were people improving times for running and races but lots of people lost a lot of weight in just 4 short weeks. It just goes to show that hard work pays off in a big way.
This is just a quick video of one of the last workouts for the April session. As you can see, everything can be modified to fit your current fitness level.
Here are the Tuesday and Thursday classes doing the same workout.
