Tabata Shoulder and Thigh Ass-Kick

Happy Friday everyone! Here is the workout for today.

Tabata:
Pull-Ups
Jumping Split Squat with Stability Ball Squeeze
Isometric Half Squat with Shoulder Press
Hand Food Hand Off

16 total minutes of big bad burn.

Here's the video, which gives basic technique and some alternatives if you don't have weights or a pull up bar.



My scores:
Pull Ups: 8 strict/unaided, all others with stability ball 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5 (Total: 47)
*Last time I did Tabata Pull Ups I did Jumping which are much easier than the ones I did today*
Jumping Split Squat: 17, 13, 10, 9, 9, 11, 11, 10 (Total: 90)
Squat Shoulder Presses w/ 10 lb weight: 10, 10, 10, 7, 7, 7, 9, 8 (Total: 68)
Hand Food Hand Off: 12, 10, 10, 11, 10, 9, 10, 10 (Total: 82)

This is how you should feel after you do 4 Tabata rounds. Or two for that matter. Remember, each work interval is MAXIMUM EFFORT. You can do ANYTHING for TWENTY SECONDS!

Side note: my shoulders are shaking so much in this picture I had to try to take it three different times because the immense weight of my point and shoot digital camera was too much to bear with one hand.


GET IT.

Enjoy :D.

I'm BAAA-aaaaack!

Dearest distinguished chicks and dudes,

My sincerest apologies for being off the radar all summer. Some of you may read that and think, "All summer? Giiiiirl, you were gone for over six months!" To which my reply would be, "I live in Georgia, it IS Summer for six months."

A few quick reminders: MKBBF = the love of my life
MKBDad = my dad
Seamus = my chocolate lab
Sasha = my kettlebell
Tabata = interval training protocol 10 seconds rest followed by 20 seconds **MAXIMUM EFFORT** for eight to ten rounds of the same exercise. A block of 8-10 rounds is a set. Between each set of different exercises is a 10 second rest.

When I say I Tabata-ed sit ups, dead lifts, and jump lunges, it means I did 8 10:20 rounds of sit ups, rested for 10 seconds, then 8 10:20 rounds of dead lifts, rested for 10 seconds and 8 10:20 rounds of jump lunges.

**MAXIMUM EFFORT = By round 5 or 6 if you're not muscle failing in the exercises where it is safe to do so, you're not going hard enough. Period.**

Okay, back to me. I trained pretty hard this summer with my workout schedule looking something like this:

Monday - 20 minute jog with Seamus (my chocolate lab for those of you who are new or have forgotten) followed by 3 sets of Tabatas - I picked three things and did them
Tuesday - West Cobb Chiropractic Warehouse Workouts - weekly, long, brutal workouts designed by Dr. Fred Roberto, a Wellness Advisory Council doctor. The man is an animal, and I have never been around a group of more driven people in my life.
Wednesday - usually spent half of Wednesdays trying to get down my stairs after getting rocked so hard on Tuesday.
Thursday - ran either a) 5.5 miles of hills on a trail at Kennesaw Mountain, or b) straight up the damn thing - a mile up and a mile and a half back down the other side. Took the brown pig regardless.
Friday - isometric workout - usually pulsing squats or pulsing half pistols - some pilates work - lots of planks - arm and back sculpting. Focused more on burn and less on gasping for air.
Saturday - short vintage body weight BodyRock challenges
Sunday - 100 pushups for time.

Am having to get back in to the home work out thing because it's getting cold out and I hate that cold weather bloody throat taste thing. UGH. Oh, and the warehouse is out of commission for the next little while. SAD TIMES!

So I'll be back with you through the colder months at least (since I have some extra time).

Without further ado today's workout: Crossfit Angie Tabata style.
My Scores:
Pull Ups (had to do some of them as jumping pull ups to maintain intensity) -51 total - 8,8,7,7,6,6,5,4
Push Ups (strict military) - 64 total - 17,10,9,7,5 (muscle failed),6,5 (muscle failed),5
Squats (tops of thighs parallel with ground, pushing through heels, driving with hips) - 111 total - 18,15,15,14,14,12 (muscle failed),12,11
Sit Ups (legs bent, feet NOT tucked into anything, reps where feet not planted on the ground not counted) - 86 total - 14,11,11,11,10,10,9,10

Will update you on my life, share some pictures etc. tomorrow. For now, get your asses to the gym and beat my scores!

ROCK!

Woke up to the sound of the rain

Hey guys!

I woke up to the sound of the rain and my two dogs snoring today. Favorite wake up call EVER.

Anyway, I am RIDICULOUSLY sore from the last two days workouts so today I'm going to take it easy. And by easy I just mean short. Because there's nothing easy about the 10 minutes of Tabata intervals I'm going to use to burn myself out :).

Workout of the Day:
Pretty Fly Exercise Challenge
8 minute abs

Then I'm going to roll over to Stone Summit - spend some time in the bouldering room and do some Tabata interval work (10 seconds rest 20 seconds work is one round).

1 round jumping jacks
1 round on stationary bike
1 round burpees
1 round on stationary bike
x5 sets for a total time of 10 minutes

Then maybe tonight I'll go to Gonstead Club with MKBBF and get a ridiculously forceful adjustment :) and afterward con him into giving me a (extremely painful) deep tissue massage.

I'll let you know how it all goes, and post my score from the Pretty Fly Challenge later.

ROCK!

*******UPDATE*******
Went to the rock gym, bouldered for about half an hour until my grip strength and toes were shot to hell, and then headed upstairs to do my stationary bike/jumping jacks/burpee intervals. I did 25-26 jacks each round and my burpee scores were 14/12/11/10/10 for totals of 125 jacks and 57 burpees. I hadn't done the Pretty Fly Challenge so I went ahead and tacked it on afterward. I did 19 sets in 10 minutes which comes to 570 high knees and 190 knee hugs. I never got around to 8 minute abs because after I got back, I whipped up a quick onion, celery, mushroom, olive, kale, sun dried tomato sauté and MKBBF and I headed down to Caribou in Buckhead to have a study date. *Study dates go back to the very beginning of our relationship. I consider them (along with absurd roadtripping) to be one of our "things".

Goal AchievemenTuesday!

Hey everybody!

I am writing this a bit late in the day because I was hoping I'd get to make this announcement in the main body of the post instead of in the update section. I attempted Angie today.

Let me back up a second for those of you who don't know what Angie is. It's a CrossFit Benchmark workout which involves completing the following exercises in unbroken sets for time. That means you can't move on to the next exercise until you are done with all 100 reps of the one you're in the middle of.

100 pull ups
100 push ups
100 squats
100 sit ups (not crunches)

For time.

This is my second attempt to do this workout. Theoretically I could've opted out and used a band or something for the pull ups the first time, but I chose to do them unmodified and couldn't finish. I did 73 pull ups and by that point my hands had ripped open and my grip was shot. So I moved on. I finished all the other reps of each workout unmodified (ie strict military push ups etc, below parallel squats etc.), and my total time was 38:57. That was back in August or September I believe.

Today? I. FINISHED. ANGIE.

Time: 25:52

So, I finished the workout which before I left incomplete AND shaved THIRTEEN minutes off my time. I can honestly say I owe the ability to do all of this to high intensity interval and Tabata training. No other method I have run across gives the same dual effect of increasing not only explosive power, but also endurance.

Then I did 10 minutes of random stuff to keep my heart rate up:
1 minute Straight Arm Plank Leg Raises (so you're in push up ready position and you flex your butt and lift one straight leg up behind you - put it back down - switch legs - etc)
1 minute shadow roping
1 minute Swimmers
1 minute shadow roping
1 minute Plank Hold
x2 rounds

Then 8 minute abs

Workout of the Day - Redux:
Angie - 100 each pull ups, push ups, squats, sit ups
10 minutes of random intervals and jumping
8 minute abs

Total Time: ~44 minutes.

In other news, I woke up to kisses from MKBBF clad in white button down, torn RedSox hat and well fitting blue jeans. Favorite.

Then we had cereal. MKBBF decided that flaxseeds, banana, and coconut milk sounded like they would make an awesome breakfast. And he was SO right.

MKBBFruit Flaxseed Cereal (all ingredients organic)

3 Tbsp Large Brown Flaxseeds
1/4 Cup Pecans (you can toast these in a skillet for a minute or two or eat raw)
1/2 Cup Blueberries - I used frozen and thawed them - keep the juice
1 Banana (chopped)
1/2 Granny Smith Apple (chopped)
1/3 Cup Coconut Milk (add more if you like it more liquidy - this is a matter of personal preference)

Once we ate breakfast MKBBF had to scram to the clinic at school which meant him changing clothes into more formal attire. He emerged from the closet wearing a black button down, black suit trousers, a blue and red paisley tie and . . . a Levi's denim jacket. I always think the best fashion statements say "Screw you" (as opposed to "I'm desperate for your approval"), and his outfit today was no exception. *swoon*

Alright now I have to go study gluconeogenesis, glycogenesis, and glycogenolysis. I affectionately refer to them as the 3 G's. I have a test tomorrow on them, so I need to get cracking.

ROCK!

Friday is a beginning not an end!

Hey everyone! So today's little lesson is that Friday is a beginning not an end. It's the beginning of the weekend, not the end of a (long, tiring, boring, other blah adjectives) week. It is an opportunity to capitalize on the momentum you've built up working out during the week to start the weekend right. Those squats yesterday fried me up down left right and center, so today is a one workout day followed by a short mini challenge.

I am also going to do 15 1 minute intervals of jumping after BOTH workouts today - it's the momentum building I was talking about before. I'm going to do it like I did yesterday.

1 min shadow jump roping
1 min high knees
1 min alternating one footed jumping (10 hops one leg 10 hops other etc)
1 min shadow jump roping
1 min jumping jacks
x 3 rounds.

Workout 1: Beach Workout - ~20 minutes

Workout 2: 100 push ups for time. Do as many "regular" as you can - and if you can't continue at a pace to maintain the intensity, switch to knee push ups.

Pick one or do both, but make sure you do your jumping afterward! If you do one workout - do the full 20 minutes of jumping :) (4 rounds). The intervals I wrote above are a bit tougher but less annoying than jumping rope. I find tripping over the rope one I've gotten into a good rhythm to be an Achilles heel for my patience. Once I do it twice or three times I want to throw the rope handles into the wall and watch them smash into fifty pieces. So I'll take the physically demanding option vs. the stress spiking option any day :).

Rock!

*******UPDATE*******

So there's a voice that pops up occasionally that tells me "do it later, you can do it later" and puts it off and puts if off and builds static inertia of my butt on my desk chair to a point where it seems that I can't fight it. I/We BodyRockers call him Brutus. He almost won today. Almost. More on this bastard later.

I went to an awesome talk by Dr. James Chestnut D.C. and got re-inspired to feed my body the exercise it needs. So I got home - and the clock said 9:15PM. And I had yet to do either workout. What to do? Do an epic mind body battle to the end combination of both workouts. So I did the first workout, then 15 minutes of jumping, then immediately into 100 push ups, and 15 more minutes of jumping. I have to say, I was ANNIHILATED after both of the workouts - so I was more concerned about not stopping, keeping the rhythm, catching night time under my toes, and moving my arms all the time. Less concerned about doing the prescribed intervals.

My scores for the workouts were:
Tabata Jump Squats
1) 13,12,11,10,10,10,10,10
2) 12,11,10,10,10,10,10,10
3) 11,10,10,10,10,10,10,10

Total time for workout 1: 29:15.

I did the lunges with knee up with a 25 lb plate, but you could use a duffel bag full of rice or canned goods - whatever you like - just something mild/moderately heavy that is a challenge but doesn't cause you to lose your balance or sacrifice form.

100 push-up challenge time: 5:44
All push-ups military. HUZZAH!