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.
Posts Tagged ‘tallahassee fitness’
An Unusual Way to Work Your Core
Tuesday, December 4th, 2012I’m Back!
Friday, April 20th, 2012So much has happened since I lasted posted here. I’ve actually been busy with another blog, www.superstrongnana.com. I’m quickly approaching 50 and suddenly have a lot more interests in my life.
Out of all the stuff I’ve been into in the last few months, boot camp is still my first love.
We’ve really changed some things around and the first was for me to take a step back from teaching. This was very hard for me because I felt like I should be at every class since this is the business I started back in 2006. The worse part is not seeing all of the friends I have made over the years. I just couldn’t continue to run the business and get up at 3:30 am anymore to teach classes. The lack of good quality sleep effected everything from my personal life to the business.
I have now turned over the reins to Mike who has been by my side for almost the whole 6 years. Two of our clients have earned their Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification and one of those, DK is working with us “full time”. Becca will be helping teach Kettlebell classes along with Mike Munroe, another long term client.
So that leaves me with teaching a few classes, doing personal training and running the business.
We’ve changed things around and added some new classes. Some of the things we are offering are Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes at 9:00 am and 6:30 pm in addition to the classes we have always had.
We are doing monthly adventure race training with our new side business, Adventure Race Camps. We can do any type of adventure race training from 2 hour obstacle race training to all night Death Race training. Some people use our ARC to prepare for races and others use it as a gut check.
We are coming to the end of our boot camp transformation challenge that began the first week of January. So far our top male and female leads have lost over 25 pounds and that is without doing anything crazy.
We are also about to begin an on-site boot camp program for Killearn Lakes Elementary School. I am very excited about this opportunity. I think teachers today have one of the toughest jobs there is and to do something to help them improve their health is a blessing.
Now that I am not waking up in the middle of the night anymore, I hope to keep up this blog as well as all of my other projects.
I got this quick video on Wednesday of the 5:30 pm class wrapping up their workout with this human centipede ab workout.
My 4:00 am Wake Up Call
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012This 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!
Insanity; Doing the Same Thing and Expecting Different Results
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012Obviously I thought this blog would write itself since it was dated December 12th and I am just actually getting to it.
I meant to get this done before the New Year but I guess January 3rd will have to do.
There is a huge amount of commercials on TV guaranteeing fast results with little to no work. Most of these products are worthless and some are downright absurd.
Let’s start with the Shake Weight. Have you seen the commercials? I seriously thought they were Saturday Night Live spoofs. The One featuring the guy is really funny..and obscene. I hope that actor made a lot of money for that. The Shake Weight promises toned arms in just minutes a day. I guess millions of people bought into the hype because whoever invented that made a ton of money. Just because it sold millions, does that mean it works? No!! The weight loss industry was around 40 billion dollars richer from the money that was spent. I just think how many people we could feed if we quit looking for a quick fix and just did the work required to lose weight.
Let’s take a closer look at this product shall we? First of all, they are paid actors. Do you really think the actors in those commercials look like they do from using a Shake Weight? Fitness models are paid to look like they do. They work out and diet for a living so that when a product comes calling, they are ready.
Secondly, I imagine that most of the people who buy these products are overweight or have higher than average body fat. Even if the Shake Weight did tone your arms, you wouldn’t see anything until you drop your body fat percentage into the lean category.
Getting your body fat low enough to show off toned arms takes some serious consistent changes in the diet along with regular exercise that includes weight training. There is no gadget that is going to get you there..unless that gadget happens to include a plastic surgeon. Even then, there is only so much they can do.
Next blog I will talk about another ridiculous product I saw last night. It’s a t-shirt for men that promises a 6 inch loss around the stomach. I bet the call centers were busy last night.
Sunday, December 11th, 2011
I’ve been dreaming about doing adventure race training since I trained Ricky and Megan for last year’s Death Race.
This past month it finally came into fruition.
Although planning the training comes easily to me, I was just lacking some of the obstacles needed to train people for the climbing that most of the races rely heavily upon.
Enter 2 wonderful guys from Tallahassee Police Dept’s SWAT team. They constructed a monster of a 12 ft wall designed for different types of climbing including various attachments for my 24 ft. cargo net.
This along with the many other pieces of equipment that we already have, I was able to officially start Adventure Race Training. Yes, the name isn’t fancy but it is direct and to the point. I don’t think anyone would mistake what we do.
My first group of trainees for November were people signed up for The Tough Mudder.
I explained that although I couldn’t replicate an actual race, I would give them the skills, strength and challenge that these type of races require.
We hold the workouts most weekends for 2 hours. I combine conditioning, upper body and core strength along with race simulations of climbing, crawling, getting wet and cold and lots of short distance running. The workouts change each week but keep the same elements.
The workouts can be designed for any type of group and for as long as someone wants to pay me. Our Death Race workouts lasted up to 12 hours and went through the night.
Here is a video of our ART (simple name but at least the initials spell something) and our clients at the Tough Mudder in Tampa and the Urban Disturbance here in Tallahassee.
http://youtu.be/bh0qDGMPMkc
More Halloween Horror Nights
Thursday, November 10th, 2011I came across some more pictures from our Halloween workout. They were too good not to share.
Halloween at Boot Camp
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011This workout was inspired by the Death Race. I named it The 3 Circles of Hell.
Boot Camp Challenge
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011This 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.
Even a Trainer needs a Trainer
Monday, October 3rd, 2011Wow, just got done with a whirl wind weekend of brainstorming, working out, trouble shooting, lifting stuff, pushing stuff, more brainstorming followed by more lifting stuff.
Fellow RKC 2, Adrienne Harvey, also know as Girya Girl came up to spend the weekend with me and my family in Tallahassee. When we realized that we are the only 2 female RKC 2s in the entire state, we decided it’s probably safer not to travel together. That way if anything goes wrong, there will always be 1 female RKC 2 in Florida.
One of our goals for this weekend, was to do some business brainstorming. Adrienne possesses mad skills that I don’t have and I possess a lot of business experience that she doesn’t have. Five minutes after she walked in the door, we were at my kitchen table with laptops and notebooks. We spent a few hours planning how we could take over the world and then it was off to my gym for a workout test.
I had this “Gut Check” workout planned for my boot campers, but it had not been tested to see if it was inhumane. I decided that we would do part of the workout to get the time and also to see if we would survive.
Since there were only 2 of us, we decided on the sleds, even though my campers would be using several items for this workout. The block around my gym from my door and back is just at 3/4s of a mile. It really doesn’t seem that far…until you load up a couple of sleds. We switched off pushing and pulling for the next 45 minutes…yes, that is how long it took 2 fit girls to get around the block.
Then it was back home to a well deserved steak dinner cooked by my husband, Rick followed by more brainstorming until about 1:00 am.
Sunday we went back to the gym. This is where the magic happened. We took time to evaluate each others form on certain exercises. Mine were pull ups, pistol squats and presses. Adrienne was able to see things in my form that I needed to work on so that I can improve. Sometimes it’s hard to swallow your pride and accept help and I think it’s even harder to do when you are already a trainer. My desire to get better and stronger is much more important than my pride. Another great tool is having someone video tape your form. My body was saying, “YEAH, good form”, but the video said otherwise. I was grooving patterns that felt right but were oh so wrong.
We wrapped up the day with more brainstorming on our businesses. Again, having another set of eyes is invaluable. Adrienne left late afternoon and although I was pretty exhausted, I was filled with excitement over the possibilities of progressing in my strength and building up my business.
Wonder Twins…activate!
Combing our powers to take over the world
Our Dig Deep Workout
Monday, August 22nd, 2011We 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.