Sweat, Snack, Shop: Birthday Bootcamp at Athleta

A couple of weeks ago, I teamed up with Athleta Legacy Place to teach an in store bootcamp class during the week of their one year birthday celebration.

I arrived around 6:15 to get situated, help clear the racks from the middle of the store, and make sure my music was okay. My class sold out pretty quickly which was AWESOME, and people started trickling in around 6:30. Of course my mom and bridesmaids were the first to arrive!

I started the night by welcoming everyone and thanking them for coming, introducing myself and my background, and going over some logistics. I also gave a short talk that would speak to who I am and hopefully leave everyone feeling inspired before we jumped into the workout.

“I’m passionate about empowering women through fitness. I love showing people that fitness is fun. It doesn’t have to be about spending hours on a boring piece of equipment, and it most certainly is not only about how we look. Fitness is about trying new things. It’s about how we feel, how it makes us confident, and it’s about feeling strong and happy in our own skin. Athleta’s tagline is “power to the she,” which I love because it speaks to women who see being healthy and fit as vital to life. It speaks to the fact that it is okay to make fitness and healthy living a priority, no matter how much else you have going on. And you know what’s awesome? That there are 30 of you here tonight, choosing to spend your time doing something for YOU, something healthy, and something fun.”

I then made everyone introduce themselves to someone they didn’t know since the social aspect of fitness is so important to me. As everyone was chatting away, I got my music going, and then we were off!

After the warmup, I used a tried and true format: bodyweight strength supersets with cardio and ab blasts in between each round. I tried to pick exercises that would show you don’t need a lot of fancy equipment or a gym to get a good workout in or feel the burn!

This took us right up until around 7:40, so if you are doing this on your own you can allot around 40 minutes for the workout, including the warmup. For the remaining 20 minutes, I had everyone find a partner and do the following partner exercises:

• Leg throwdowns
• Crab walks forward and backward + 4 hand claps
• Cross arm jumping lunges
• Plank reach and touch
• Back to back “wall sit”

Everyone was laughing and having so much fun together by the end of these! <—that is what I LOVE seeing and when I feel truly in my element. We finished class with some of my signature group situp lines and a stretch, and then it was time to mingle!

Here’s a sweaty pic of me and some of my gym friends… shoutout to Jen who took my class at 6am that morning AND came to the event to support me!

Athleta was kind enough to set up a table with veggies and munchies for people to snack on during the post class shopping event. They also offered a 25% discount off of any apparel purchased that night and two raffle drawings. So generous! I want to also extend a thank you to the folks at Hint Water who donated waters for us to stay hydrated and Joos who donated one of the raffle prizes for the night.

I would say the event was definitely a success! I ended up leaving with a nice thank you goodie bag from Athleta with a yoga mat, headband, water bottle, and hat. I also purchased this, these, this in white, and a pair of black leggings! Thank you to everyone who came to support me in my first event like this. I loved seeing so many familiar faces but meeting so many fun new people at the same time.
I left feeling inspired to do more things like this and less of what doesn’t fuel me, but you could probably guess that would happen. Stay tuned!

–Let’s chat–
Have you ever taken a fitness class in a store before? Were you at my Athleta event? What did you think? What does fitness mean to you? How do you interpret Athleta’s tagline of “power to the she?”

Let me know if you try the bodyweight workout at home or have any questions about it!

Fitness & Feta at Athleta

See what I did there? 😉

I have been obsessed with Athleta lately. I’m actually not sure how I didn’t discover it sooner! Before the summer, I was talking to a friend about needing new bathing suits, and she recommended Athleta’s swim line to me. I ended up going on a shopping date with my friend Ashley and buying two new suits. Let me tell you, they are comfortable, cute, and most of all – flattering!

Not only do I like their swimwear, but the rest of their apparel is awesome too. I want every single piece of workout attire on the shelf (gimme ALL THE CLOTHES), and their everyday wear is perfect for women who are always on the go. Me.

I was recently in the Legacy Place store purchasing some snazzy workout crops, and a funny thing happened. During checkout, the girl who was ringing me up looked at me and asked if I wrote for a fitness blog. I said yes, and turns out, she gave me a tour of Naked Pizza in Brighton YEARS ago. I couldn’t believe it. That was one of my very first blog experiences and giveaways. What a small world, huh? I’m surprised she recognized me! For the record, Naked Pizza no longer exists. It’s really too bad.

Anyways, the two of us started chatting about what I’m doing now, and long story long, she told me that they often will have local instructors teach in store classes or host private events. I’m sure you can guess where this is going…

[Source]

Birthday Bootcamp Blast!

On Thursday, October 2nd, I will be teaming up with Athleta in Legacy Place to teach an in-store bootcamp class! This Athleta location is turning one, so the event coincides with their week of birthday festivities. From 7-8pm, I will teach a FREE class consisting of both cardio drills and muscle conditioning exercises. It’s going to be a great way to get the most bang for your buck with no equipment while having fun with friends! The best part? After class, you can stay for healthy snacks, mingling, and shopping! Athleta will be offering a 25% discount <—-yesssss. All levels are welcome, and all attendees will be entered into a raffle for a pretty sweet prize.

So! This is the first time I’m doing something like this. Will you join me? Because space is limited, we did have to restrict signups to a max of 25 attendees. If you are interested, you must RSVP to Sarah_Colbath@stores.gap.com. She will be tracking all signups, and it’s first come first serve.

–Let’s chat–
Have you ever attended an in store fitness class before? Instructors, have you ever taught one? Do you have any advice for me?

Can’t wait to sweat, snack, and shop with you guys! Now what to teach…

Baseball Diamond Bootcamp Workout

Ever since Sarah posted this field of dreams workout, I’ve been dying to take my Thursday morning class outside for a baseball diamond bootcamp workout. The weather wasn’t on our side for a while, but this week it finally cooperated, and we were able to take our fitness outdoors.

The workout looked like this:

The premise of the workout was inspired by one of the free CrossFit classes held last summer at Legacy Place. Kaylin, thank you for passing this format along to me!

For a group exercise setting, here’s the gist:

• Break class into teams.
• Each team picks someone to be #1 and go first.
• Team member #1 for each group will start with the walking lunges from home base to first base. The second person on each team cannot start their lunges until their teammate has made it to first base, and so on.
• Once the first people reach first base, they switch from the traveling lunges to the static move. In this case, 10 squats with a three count hold at the bottom of each. Once done with those, they can start the next traveling move (bear crawls). The second person cannot move on from the static move until the first person is at the next base, so in some cases, people might be doing more than ten reps at each base.
• Continue in this pattern with all the exercises for the desired amount of time.

The point is to encourage camaraderie, and you can turn it into a competition by having each team tally how many times they cross home base. If you are doing this workout on your own outside of a class setting, it took us about 30-40 minutes to complete four rounds and a warmup. Of course this is just an estimate, as your speed has a lot to do with it!

At the end of class, I had them attack a hill. These ladies OWNED Adair Street (steeper than it looks).

I also threw in a little extra partner ab work at the end for an extra burn.

After that, we stretched and called it a morning. Well, except for me. Then I hit the weight room since I was basically just running around the diamond yelling encouraging things for an hour.

If you came to class this morning, I hope you got a great workout and enjoyed switching things up!

–Let’s chat–
Have you ever done a baseball diamond workout before? What did it entail? Instructors, do you have any other creative suggestions for taking your classes outside? Readers, do you prefer group exercise classes indoors or outdoors?

We’re almost at the weekend, friends!