Motivation Monday: Consistency

Hello! I hope you all had a great weekend.

Weekend Recap

I landed in Boston on Friday night around 7pm.  I had a successful work trip, but was so happy to be home.  After getting back to my apartment, Tim and I made a homemade harvest pizza to eat while we watched the season première of Homeland.

We also drank the organic Spanish red wine that Dawn bought me for my birthday.  Oh, and look what was in our apartment waiting for me when I got in:

Yayyy.  I love fall flowers.

On Saturday we decided to just have a relaxing day around the house instead of going apple picking.  Maybe we’ll go next weekend instead, but we just weren’t feeling it this weekend.  We also did our grocery shopping for the week and prepped some food for the dinner party that my friend Shannon was hosting for my group of friends from home.  Tim made butternut squash bruschetta, and I made chocolate chip cookie bars.  I’ll post more about our eats in my Weekly Eats post this week, but dinner was delicious and I had fun catching up with my home friends.

Finally, on Sunday I woke up and went to Emily’s 20/20/20 class, had a quick catch up coffee/smoothie date with Liz, and then braved the rain with Tim.  We headed downtown to the Boston Local Food Festival.  It was cold, but we got to try yummy treats and still enjoy the day.

All in all, another fun fall weekend!

Motivation Monday: Consistency

I follow Kyle Clarke on Facebook and Twitter.  Kyle is a fitness model and an MRI athlete, and one of his recent posts really caught my attention.  He talked about a weekend where he really splurged – ate a lot, drank a lot:

“Olympia weekend is over! Time to head back to LA. I ate everything I wanted and I drank quite a bit as well this weekend. It just goes to show you that one bad weekend does not ruin your physique, just like one weekend at the gym won’t help it. It’s all about consistency with any goal. So envision your goal, determine the steps you need to take to accomplish it, and chip away at them every day until you get there.”

Does this resonate with anyone else? Do any of you get hung up on one “bad” weekend? Try not to!  Like Kyle said, with any goal it’s all about consistency. Commit to a certain # of days at the gym per week, and shoot for that every week.  If you mess up, that’s okay.  You might need to be patient when it comes to consistency, but all that matters is that you get back in there.  Consistency might seem boring to some, but it is consistency that can create powerful habits.  And it’s the lack of consistency that forces you to start building the habits all over again.

Just some food for thought on this rainy Monday morning!  And to keep up with consistency, here’s my weekly workout recap and plan for this week:

Last Week’s Workouts

Last week’s workouts were pretty much on the road style!

Sunday
Ultimate Bootcamp workout at City Sports in Porter Square with Lauren, Monique, and Jess.

Monday
Off

Tuesday
Morning workout – did 25 minutes on the elliptical, followed by a total body superset strength workout in the hotel gym.  At night I did my reverse lunge jumps for Fall Into Fitness.

Wednesday
Another morning workout.  This one had to be a quick one, so I did a mile run on the treadmill, followed by a 12 minute timed cardio and core circuit, and I finished up with 5 minutes of planks.  Did my pushups at night in the hotel room for Fall Into Fitness.

Thursday
Off, except for the heismans tabata before bed!

Friday
Another 5:30am workout.  Did a 15 minute elliptical pyramid, followed by this upper body tabata strength workout, and Friday’s Fall Into Fitness glute exercises.

Saturday
I had grand plans to wake up for a workout in the morning on Saturday, but I was feeling so “crunchy” in both my shoulder and in my hip that I listened to my body and took an extra off day last week.

This Week’s Workouts

• Sunday: 20/20/20 class
• Monday: Planning on coming up with a circuit to do at the gym tonight.  Craving some rowing!
• Tuesday:  Back to Two A Day!
• Wednesday: Rest
• Thursday: Teaching 6am class
• Friday:  Workout TBD
• Saturday: Rest

And of course, my Fall Into Fitness moves of each day!

How were your weekends?  Any advice on keeping consistent to meet your goals?  How were your workouts last week?

Have a great week!

My First CrossFit Class

Hey friends!  This week sure is flying by.  I’ve been so busy playing catch up from my week off that I haven’t had much blogging or blog reading time.  But that’s okay.  And then on Tuesday night I came home from the gym and instead of doing anything productive I spent two hours catching up on Food Network Star.  *SPOILER ALERT* — can you guys even BELIEVE that Nikki didn’t make it to the finale?!  I was rooting for her since day 1 and was so sad to see her go.  But the second she got voted off I went online and voted for Damaris as many times as I could.  She definitely deserves it over the other finalists!  Any Food Network Star fans with me on this one?!

Anyways.  Trying CrossFit.

Yes!  Katrina and I tried our first CrossFit class last night on the rooftop of City Sports, overlooking the parking lot of Legacy Place in Dedham.

I have wanted to try CrossFit for a while now, so when I got this month’s City Sports events newsletter and saw that there were free outdoor classes being held, I was pretty psyched.  Plus, Legacy Place is super close to some of my work locations, so it’s more convenient for me to get there during rush hour than it is to get downtown.  I was definitely nervous going into the workout because I wasn’t sure what to expect (and because a CrossFit person tweeted at me that it would be “grueling,”) but once we got started I felt comfortable right away.  Everyone was friendly and welcoming, and a few people around Katrina and I introduced themselves.  I was still glad Trina came with me so I had a buddy.

We did a quick warmup, and then we jumped right into a Tabata stations workout.  There were eight bodyweight exercises total in the workout.  They divided everyone into groups and had us rotate from station to station.  At each station we did 8 rounds of whatever move was designated for that station.

Here’s a rundown of the exercises we did:

None of these exercises were brand new to me, but we did do all the moves in the true CrossFit way.  Think: burpees done with your chest hitting the ground, mountain climbers done by having your knees hit your armpits, pushups done with chest hitting the ground, abs without hands under your butt, etc.  I think the hardest for me were the scissor lunges and maybe even the shuttle run.  The coaches told me the shuttle run was the “rest,” but that certainly did not feel like rest to me!  I secretly loved the burpees though.  Yeah, yeah, I know.

The workout format was tough, and I definitely was feeling shaky and wiped by the end of the hour.  However, I’m still interested in trying out a CrossFit class with equipment.  Unfortunately we could not use equipment on the rooftop of City Sports for liability reasons, but I imagine that the workouts with weights are much different.  And it’s that heavier lifting aspect of CrossFit that I’m intrigued by because it’s still pretty foreign to me.  What we did in the class last night was hard, don’t get me wrong (and I’m so sore today!), but the exercises and Tabata style were definitely familiar.  The coaches handed out a pretty awesome discount at the end of our session, so I’m considering trying it out for a month.  I could definitely see myself getting hooked by the community and competition aspect of the program… I’m a sucker like that!

Thank you, CrossFit Together, for a kick-ass workout!  For anyone interested, the folks at CrossFit Together are offering this free series each Wednesday in August at 6pm at the Legacy Place City Sports.  The best part?  It’s free!  I can’t make it next Wednesday, but let me know if you’d like to join me on the 21st or 28th!  I’ll definitely be going back.

Have you guys tried CrossFit before?  What do you think?  Do I have any readers out there drinking the CrossFit Kool Aid?

Have an awesome day you guys, and don’t forget that if I hit 700 Facebook followers I’m going to run another fitness challenge on the blog in September.  I only need 8 more likes and then it’s on!

Guest Post: A Trendy Tabata

Welcome! 

My name is Caroline and I blog over at The Trendy Trainer.  I am a personal trainer and group exercise instructor living in Boston, MA.  I am so excited to be guest blogging for Athena and have decided to put together a challenging yet QUICK total body workout.  This circuit shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes and can be modified to be done at home.  A great compliment to a hectic schedule or boring workout rut!

First off, a Tabata is a form of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).  It is done in a series of 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest repeated continuously for 8 rounds (or 4 minutes).  The work time, or 20 seconds, should be intense!  Really try to push yourself to perform at your greatest capacity.  Likewise, your rest time should be complete rest; march in place, walk it out, or simply stand in place.

So are you ready to try out a Trendy workout?  Grab your water, a towel, and motivation and let’s get started!

*Modifications for “home gym” workout:

-Switch the overhead presses to pushups (on knees or toes!)
-Change the kettlebell swings to squat jumps.

 Exercises:
-Jumping Jacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4DAnQ6DtF8
-Mountain Climbers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmwgirgXLYM
-Squats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3g4wAsu0R4
-OH Press https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-aVuyhvLHU
-Pushups https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaIpD_zfrJI
-Kettlebell Swings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0jalJ-3e7U
-Squat Jumps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVaEhXotL7M
-Burpees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7_TBHno0Os

**Please always check with a doctor before making any changes to your workout routine.

Enjoy 🙂

Thank you, Caroline, for sharing your workout on F&F!  I often teach Tabata style workouts in my own fitness classes, and I am psyched to try this one when I’m back from vacation.

Let’s chat – What are your favorite moves to combine into a Tabata style?