This white shit just won't stop coming down. I hate it. My neighbors just had to come push my car for me because it was stuck on the teensiest amount of snow you've ever seen! My back is killing me from the amount of shoveling I've done today just in order to keep my precious beemer from disappearing under a mound of fluff and the plow guys don't seem to realize that they can't just plow one lane through the development and be done, but that they actually need to plow our parking spots too. Urghhhhhh!
Thank god I brought my laptop home last night so I could work from home today. There's no way I would have made it into the office. Luckily I happened to check Facebook at 11:00 this morning and saw that World's was going to close at 1:00 so my only chance to get in my weight sesh today was if I could make it in during my lunch hour. Thankfully, I was able to persuade my neighbor who was in need of a workout himself to take me to the gym at that time. Today was day "E" of my Cathy Savage Fitness (CSF) bikini weight training program (day 6 of the 7-day split) and I was not going to miss out on legs! Before leaving for the gym I did two of the moves, squat jumps and curtsey lunges, on my kitchen floor since they didn't require any equipment and I didn't want to make my neighbor stand around during an epic weight session. Then, once I got to the gym I did the following moves:
-Barbell front squats
-Bulgarian split squats using a bosu for the back leg
-Barbell straight leg dead-lifts on a bosu
-Hip adduction machine
-Hip abduction machine
-Walking/Twisting med ball lunges
The use of the bosu and the med ball was my own added feature as the plan as stated didn't seem to be as intense as I thought it should be. Somehow I managed to plow through this routine in under an hour so I added two ab moves, 1-leg med ball wood-chops balancing on a foam square and stability ball crunches where I had my neighbor throwing a med ball to me on each crunch. I decided today would be a no-cardio day. My new plan requires 5 days/week of cardio, 3 days of High Intensity Interval Training (spin class, running intervals, etc.) and 2 days of steady-state cardio like elliptical or a light jog/fast walk on the treadmill. Yesterday I did spin so after doing legs today I decided it would be a good off-day. Tomorrow is supposed to be a no-weights day so I'll probably do my interval run and then follow it with some core work. I just hope this snow lets up at some point soon so the gym can open back up!
I'm going to change the subject here for the remainder of this post. A couple of blogs that I follow have made similar end-of-the-year posts about 3 important areas of growth both in 2012 and in the coming year. These are career growth, mental/personal growth, and physical growth. This got me thinking about my physical transformation over the past year and how everything seems to be coming together for a strong finish to 2012 and a promising year ahead. When I think back to where I was a year ago, I realize A LOT has either changed or is in the process of changing in all three categories. However, since this a blog about health and fitness I'll stick to the physical change category here.
A year ago, I was just as much of a die hard gym rat as I am today only I didn't have any specific goals other than of course that crazy running regimen I was on and was largely at a plateau with my weight training. However, slowly over the course of the year I met many new people, each of whom implanted on me a different piece of information about either nutrition or fitness. My brain is like a sponge when I'm being told something I'm actually interested in and now as the year comes to a close I am looking back thinking how each one of these people altered my approach to my own program. Things that have stuck with me are the "eat clean get lean mantra", "more is not always better" when it comes to cardio, go heavier whenever possible when weight training, have a future goal in mind and an organized plan on how you will achieve it, and most importantly do what makes you happy and don't listen to the negativity brought forth by those who don't understand your lifestyle.
Looking ahead at 2013 I truly believe it will be my best year yet; health, fitness, personal/mental, and career-wise. I'm sure some shitty things will happen too, imperfection is inevitable, but there are just so many things to look forward to that I plan to simply brush off any crap that comes my way. I'm half-way completed with my ISSA personal training course so I'll soon have that to add to my resume and can then get started with the ISSA fitness nutrition course, I have the April OCB show to keep me motivated and making constant physique gains for, and I seem to be in an unusually happy mood lately that I can't seem to attribute to anything other than having a more positive outlook and possibly my nutritional improvements. After all, when you eat well, you feel well!
So as your year comes to a close and you think about what the new year will bring I hope that you too have something to look forward to. If not, ask yourself where you really want to be in life and then make a list of what you need to do to get there. One of my high school English teachers once shared her favourite line from a poem called The Summer Day and it has stuck with me for the past 10 or so years:
Thank god I brought my laptop home last night so I could work from home today. There's no way I would have made it into the office. Luckily I happened to check Facebook at 11:00 this morning and saw that World's was going to close at 1:00 so my only chance to get in my weight sesh today was if I could make it in during my lunch hour. Thankfully, I was able to persuade my neighbor who was in need of a workout himself to take me to the gym at that time. Today was day "E" of my Cathy Savage Fitness (CSF) bikini weight training program (day 6 of the 7-day split) and I was not going to miss out on legs! Before leaving for the gym I did two of the moves, squat jumps and curtsey lunges, on my kitchen floor since they didn't require any equipment and I didn't want to make my neighbor stand around during an epic weight session. Then, once I got to the gym I did the following moves:
-Barbell front squats
-Bulgarian split squats using a bosu for the back leg
-Barbell straight leg dead-lifts on a bosu
-Hip adduction machine
-Hip abduction machine
-Walking/Twisting med ball lunges
The use of the bosu and the med ball was my own added feature as the plan as stated didn't seem to be as intense as I thought it should be. Somehow I managed to plow through this routine in under an hour so I added two ab moves, 1-leg med ball wood-chops balancing on a foam square and stability ball crunches where I had my neighbor throwing a med ball to me on each crunch. I decided today would be a no-cardio day. My new plan requires 5 days/week of cardio, 3 days of High Intensity Interval Training (spin class, running intervals, etc.) and 2 days of steady-state cardio like elliptical or a light jog/fast walk on the treadmill. Yesterday I did spin so after doing legs today I decided it would be a good off-day. Tomorrow is supposed to be a no-weights day so I'll probably do my interval run and then follow it with some core work. I just hope this snow lets up at some point soon so the gym can open back up!
I'm going to change the subject here for the remainder of this post. A couple of blogs that I follow have made similar end-of-the-year posts about 3 important areas of growth both in 2012 and in the coming year. These are career growth, mental/personal growth, and physical growth. This got me thinking about my physical transformation over the past year and how everything seems to be coming together for a strong finish to 2012 and a promising year ahead. When I think back to where I was a year ago, I realize A LOT has either changed or is in the process of changing in all three categories. However, since this a blog about health and fitness I'll stick to the physical change category here.
A year ago, I was just as much of a die hard gym rat as I am today only I didn't have any specific goals other than of course that crazy running regimen I was on and was largely at a plateau with my weight training. However, slowly over the course of the year I met many new people, each of whom implanted on me a different piece of information about either nutrition or fitness. My brain is like a sponge when I'm being told something I'm actually interested in and now as the year comes to a close I am looking back thinking how each one of these people altered my approach to my own program. Things that have stuck with me are the "eat clean get lean mantra", "more is not always better" when it comes to cardio, go heavier whenever possible when weight training, have a future goal in mind and an organized plan on how you will achieve it, and most importantly do what makes you happy and don't listen to the negativity brought forth by those who don't understand your lifestyle.
Looking ahead at 2013 I truly believe it will be my best year yet; health, fitness, personal/mental, and career-wise. I'm sure some shitty things will happen too, imperfection is inevitable, but there are just so many things to look forward to that I plan to simply brush off any crap that comes my way. I'm half-way completed with my ISSA personal training course so I'll soon have that to add to my resume and can then get started with the ISSA fitness nutrition course, I have the April OCB show to keep me motivated and making constant physique gains for, and I seem to be in an unusually happy mood lately that I can't seem to attribute to anything other than having a more positive outlook and possibly my nutritional improvements. After all, when you eat well, you feel well!
So as your year comes to a close and you think about what the new year will bring I hope that you too have something to look forward to. If not, ask yourself where you really want to be in life and then make a list of what you need to do to get there. One of my high school English teachers once shared her favourite line from a poem called The Summer Day and it has stuck with me for the past 10 or so years:
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
-Mary Oliver
Think about it.
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