Friday Core Burner and Friday Plans

Happy Friday!

Last night I gave this workout to one of my classes. Everyone was hurting and glaring at me by the end, so I figured it was a good one to share with you! Let me know if you try it!

For a 20 minute workout, go through the entire thing twice. Do each exercise for 1 minute each, including the planks. Abs of steel!!

I have the day off before a long weekend working. You can guess what my day is going to involve.

First things first, I've got some group fitness stuff to do at my gym including lots of aerobics. I am supposed to be choreographing a routine so I can show my mentor, but I haven't had time to, yet. I'm probably just going to take his class and then ask him a million questions afterwards. Always a good time. Goal: Don't wear myself out! See below.

This will be next on my agenda today. Our box is doing the workout "Fight Gone Bad" today. I couldn't miss that! This workout includes 5 stations that you move through for one minute each and accumulate points by how many reps you get done. If that isn't hard enough, you do it 3 times through. I've done this workout once before and it wasn't easy. So, of course, that's why I'm excited for it.

And my day is going to round itself out running with these lovely ladies:

Our plan is to do 20 miles this afternoon along the route that Beth is running her first marathon on and I am running my first 50k on. Apparently it's flat and boring, so it's good we will have each other!

I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about running 20 miles so late in the day (team morning all the way), but I am hoping with all the afternoon running I've been doing lately my stomach and body will cooperate!

Its been very cold in Seattle the past few days. Definitely feels like winter out there, although I'm not complaining. I am so excited that I don't have to deal with the freezing New York temperatures this year. I can handle a little rain any day. Anyways, cold weather makes me crave warm beverages, so yesterday I stopped at Starbucks to get a hot tea.

I got the Vanilla Rooibos tea with a splash of soy milk. Hot damn was it delicious! Why oh why did I start the Starbucks addiction! I have a feeling this may be happening again today, but I am going to try and hold off so I can save the Starbucks for a special treat.

I hope you have a great Friday!

Adventures in Group Fitness, Monday Edition

I had a somewhat interesting morning yesterday! Our morning step aerobics teacher needed a sub instructor at the last minute for his class and guess who stepped up to the plate?!

THIS GIRL!

I am "THIS" girl. Obviously!

Since I am still not comfortable with aerobics enough to teach an entire hour long class, I decided to go with more of a conditioning class. I had all of  five minutes to get my *hit together and teach, so I basically wrote down a bunch of exercises that were in my head and had the class tackle them as several different circuits.

Although I wasn't the usual teacher, and didn't do the standard aerobics, I got great feedback! I ended the class with the following Super Sweaty AMRAP (as many rounds as possible).

Feel free to try it out, too! Let me know how it goes if you do!

The rest of the day was not quite as eventful. I got in a slow 4 miles before work. And I got in a good Crossfit workout in the evening.

It's been really cold in Seattle the past few days and it's totally frustrating me when I go to CrossFit. Our "box" is literally a warehouse.

Which means there is no heat.

Which means I barely work up a sweat.

Sad panda! I love sweating and it makes me feel like I'm not working hard when I still have 2 layers on at the end of a workout!

I managed to do waaaay too many lunges and squats when I was teaching yesterday morning, so of course, our Crossfit WOD had a crap ton of lunges. Go figure!

We did 2 rounds of the following:
Walking lunges across the gym
15 wall ball
15 pullups
Walking lunges across the gym
Farmer's walk
15 push ups
15 v ups
Farmer's walk

Not too bad! I blew through that in about 10 minutes.

I can't tell you how excited I am for a day off tomorrow! You can guess how I'll be spending it!

Source

I'm finally going to head over to Bar Method and take a class. Since my gym really wants me to teach a class like this, I need to get my rear in gear and start taking classes. I'm probably going to have to trade out some CrossFit workouts to fit it in, but I'm determined to teach a bar class like this. It's so similar to dance and I think with my background, I'll be really good at it!

After Bar class, I'm heading out to Lake Youngs for a trail run! Excited for a fun day off! I hope everyone is having a great start to their week!

Weekend Workouts

My weekend consisted mostly of working. Good thing I like my job! Saturday and Sunday I held down the gym for most of the day and Friday, even though I wasn't scheduled, ended up spending several hours at the gym anyways.

I feel so lucky to have a great support and teaching system at my gym. Our most popular aerobics instructor has taken me under his wing and is helping me with not just my classes, but coaching me to teach aerobics as well!

I've mentioned this before, but teaching choreographed classes like step aerobics is very challenging and requires lots of skills. The one I am currently struggling with and scares me the most is cuing. I can't tell you how hard it is to stay on beat, remember what sequence the steps are in and call them out as you go! It's one of those things where it doesn't really get better unless you practice.

So guess what I'm doing?!

Being a huge doof, watching aerobics videos and then practicing the sequences aloud in my apartment. By myself. I win the cool kid award! =D

On top of that, I am working to build my repertoire for my core classes that I already teach. The challenge for me is using props. Our gym has a limited number of things like stability balls, so if I randomly have a big class and there aren't enough for everyone, I have to think quickly on my feet and come up with something else!

Friday I also had a lovely trail run at Discovery Park. I met Jess and Scott there for a loop. We were planning to do the big loop, but Jess forgot her trail shoes and Scott is still struggling to get the small loop done! I did a small loop with them and then another one by myself. It was such a beautiful afternoon and after getting some startling news on Thursday, it was great to be in the woods clearing my head.

That is one thing I just love about running. No matter what is going on in your head, you can run and push yourself and for that hour or so, you are not thinking about your problems. You're just running. And it is magical. Aaaannnddd I'm done being a cheeseball.

Running is beautiful. 

Friday evening, I headed over to Crossfit. Thankfully, our workout was on the mellow side as far as CrossFit goes.

We did a barbell complex. Starting with 4 front squats, 6 military press, 8 bent over row and 10 deadlifts. We added weight after each round. The first time through was fine, second I was starting to feel it and by the third and fourth rounds the military press and the rows just about did me in. We kept the same weight once we started a round, which I though a little odd because leg muscles are so much stronger than upper body, so the squats and deadlifts were no big deal.

As I said, this was pretty mellow. No heavy weight, no crazy time constraints. I'm learning to appreciate these types of workouts. Even just a month ago, I would've been complaining that I didn't get in a good enough workout. I felt sufficiently worked after this one, though, and I'm coming to realize I don't need to feel like I'm dying to have a good workout!

Progress.

Sunday night's workout was NOT as easy. We started with bear crawls. I love bear crawls because I'm good at them (great flexibility helps), but my quads hate them. Then we did 5 rounds of pushups, knees to chest and squats.

We ended with a 600 meter medicine ball run. Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE running with "props". Medicine balls, kettle bells, weighted vests. They all are awful! When I run, I want to run!!

Anyways, we finished that and then had to do a 400 meter farmers walk with kettlebells. Not fun either. It ended up being hilarious, though. I had set my kettle bells down for a second and a random dude came and carried them a few meters for me. He ran up, schlepped them off, set them down, and ran off. It was so random!

I had some great runs this weekend, too! Saturday and Monday were easy 4 milers and Sunday I did some 800s. Today starts peak week for me! I have a 22 miler on tap for Friday and lots of other workouts before then!

Go Go Wednesday

What a crazy Wednesday! It started with a 4:15am wake-up call. I remember when I used to think 5am was early! Oh how times have changed. I headed out for the first part of my run and got in just about 3 miles before I headed in to work. I kept the first mile nice and slow, then was able to pick it up for miles 2 and 3, coming in at 7:52 and then 7:14 (!).

I was at the gym to open for about an hour before I could get back out and finish my run. Once back out on the roads, I couldn't get my pace back. For some reason my stride felt really short and I couldn't get my legs to pick it up! Oh well, two miles later I was back at my apartment for a total of 5 miles. I quickly showered, breakfast-ed and rushed back to work.

After work I got to spend an hour with our most popular aerobics instructor, Jose. Although I am already teaching basic classes, the classes with choreography such as aerobics and total body conditioning require a bit more training. I am very lucky to have lots of supportive instructors around me who are ready to lead me through the process.

Our group fitness room!

Jose and I worked through my warm up that I had already choreographed for about an hour. Basically I need to work on counting out loud, cueing and being big and loud! Teaching feels sort of like dancing did. You almost have to create a persona for yourself while you teach that is big over the top. I find myself doing the same thing to a lesser degree when I train clients, but it was very evident today while I was training with Jose.

Even though I'd pretty much already done two workouts, I just HAD to go to CrossFit. As usual, I was so glad I went.

After our warm up, we found a workable weight for deadlifts. I ended up with 55 lbs, which I was pretty happy with until I heard that we were doing 12 at a time during the workout. I thought about going down a bit in weight, but decided to suck it up and go slower if I had to!

Our WOD was four rounds of a 400 meter run followed by 12 deadlifts and 21 box jumps. At first I didn't think the workout was going to be too bad, but once I got back from my first 400 meter run and started doing those heavy deadlifts, I pretty much wanted to die! And I loved it. What a weirdo! I finished my four rounds and immediately pooped out on the floor for two minutes. That's when you know its a good workout!

After a morning run, being on my feet for 6 hours at work, doing aerobics for an hour and then a Crossfit workout, I was pretty much spent by the time I finally got home.

Thankfully earlier in the day I had made pretty much my favorite sauce ever. This stuff is so good, I just had to share! I could literally eat it with a spoon. I usually make a big double batch of this dressing and then use it for several meals. I like to mix raw vegetables, cooked vegetables, chicken, pretty much anything into this! Last night it was chicken, broccoli, tomatoes and brussel sprouts with Tahini Lemon Dressing over massaged kale. So good! My muscles thanked me after!

Tahini Lemon Dressing
From Oh She Glows

1/4 cup Tahini
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast or a bit more, to taste
2-4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
1 tsp kosher salt + freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
3 tbsp water, or as needed

In a food processor or blender, add all ingredients and process until smooth. Makes just under 1 cup.