Part of my story - and EPIC Bikini Burnout!

Hey everyone! So today's lesson is a reminder that exercising your body is something you put into it, a sort of raw material, and is just as important as food. It's easy to view working out as an option compared to the necessity of eating, because our stomachs grumble and give us warning bells when we're hungry. Your body will give you warning bells when you haven't given it proper exercise too, but you have to be listening and willing to respond accordingly by either giving some form of exercise, or changing the kind of exercise you're doing depending on the situation. For me, it was about changing the kind of exercise I was doing. But let me back up a ways.

I've always been into fitness. I guess a decade of competitive gymnastics starting at age 8 will hard wire the need to move into a body. I was forced to quit because of a ridiculous number of stress fractures in both shins. These threatened my bone density and integrity in a way that if I had continued I could have gotten to a point where supporting my own weight would've been extremely dangerous. I was fifteen and a junior in high school (I'm a year young for my year in school - more on that later).

After that, I grew 4 inches and gained about 20 lbs over the next two years, and since then I hadn't been able to replicate the muscle strength, tone or endurance I'd always had. So I started hitting the gym - doing 55 -60 minutes on either the treadmill or the elliptical depending on what my knees could take that day, and 10 minutes of high rep low weight toning exercise. That's a long, boring, horrible, awful, no good way to workout. And I did it five days a week. And nothing seemed to change. Ever. If I had been listening, these long bouts of cardio with little or no endorphin upswing at the end, and the lack of noticeable change in endurance or strength would have been the signs my body was giving me that I was exercising it improperly.

Then MKBBF introduced me to this CrossFit idea. So I did some research, started Tabata training everything I could think of, and cut the strict cardio to 25 minutes. The mental effects of Tabata training are immediate. I submit that NOTHING will take your muscles to absolute zero more quickly, and pushing through the burn in the last 20% of your ability is what makes your mind strong. I started to physically feel the effects of my new strength in about a week and I could see them within three weeks. Once I could see the results, this method of exercise entered a positive feedback loop.

One night while looking up CrossFit stuff with MKBBF, we discovered one of Zuzana's workout videos on YouTube. It was the 550Rep Fat Massacre. It looked brutal. I was intrigued - and I did it the next day. From then on I was hooked on BodyRock, and high(est) intensity interval training. This method of working out has absolutely shredded my body, and it takes 25 fewer minutes TOTAL per day (even on 2 workout days) than the grueling hour of cardio plus 10 minutes of toning weights I was doing before.

My joints don't hurt, my muscles are sore and getting functionally strong, and more importantly than anything, when I'm done with these workouts I feel like I accomplished something amazing. "Take your lunch break, Atlas. I can handle the weight of the world for a while."

:)

SO! Without further ado, here's the workout!

Workout of the Day:
Bikini Beach Workout

Followed by 1 minute shadow roping
1 minute of jumping jacks
x10 rounds

*count the jumping jacks - we're going to be using this interval again so you'll want to compare scores to see how much stronger/quicker you've gotten*

ROCK!

*******UPDATE*******
My scores for the workout were as follows.

Backward Lunge and Knee Up
1) L 18,16 R 19,17
Plank Jumps: 20,20
2) L 19,16 R 18,16
Plank Jumps: 21,20

2x Walking Push-Up + 4x Low Side Step
1) 8
2) 9
3) 9

Jump Forward and Backward and Jump Tuck
1) 7,5
Side Plank & Push-Up
L 10,9 R 9,7
Jump Forward and Backward and Jump Tuck
2) 7,6
Side Plank & Push-Up
L 10,8 R 7,7

Then I did the 10 rounds of 1 min shadow roping and 1 min jumping jacks immediately to avoid getting too sore and keep my heart rate up.

Total Jumping Jacks: 660.

AAAAnd I'm wiped.