A knockout can be characterized by temporary unconsciousness. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Yes. Life won…even with bonus rounds, overtime and extra innings. I can’t believe, well actually I can believe, that my last post was waaaaaaaay back on Friday the 16th of November. She-oot! That was a long time ago. And no, I was not unconscious as the free image next to this introductory paragraph indicate. Rather I was caught up in the rush of a 3 day work week before the Thanksgiving holiday followed by a planned 5 day stay-cation. Of course in those 3 days before the holiday a whole bunch of work stuff had to get taken care of – both anticipated and unanticipated. Which resulted in no yoga attendance for the last week and a half. 😦 Boot! In addition to no bloggedy blog posting. Double Boot! 😦 😦 It’s not like I didn’t want to (yoga or blog) – but after spending all day in front of a computer for long work hours I took great pleasure in turning off both computers (the work one and the home one) after I stopped working. Plus the boys were out of school for the holiday week and I wanted to spend some time with them before I said “you can stay up if you want but I’m going to bed” everynight at 9pm. Super killjoy I know. 10yo usually responded by going to bed too…while 12yo put himself to bed around 930-10pm. He doesn’t stay up too late – lucky for me.
Circuit Training Mix Master Style
I know my last post said something about blogging about the circuit workouts that I’ve been doing. Hope you weren’t holding your breath or anything – otherwise I’d be feeling pretty terribly about myself right about now. I’ll try to whip up a graphic with the circuits I’ve been doing because I’d like to repeat a couple of them myself. I make it super easy for me to remember and also completely different every time so I don’t get bored AND my muscles pay attention. 🙂
A couple essentials.
- An interval timer. I use a free one on my iPad that lets me set up whatever amounts of time I want for Warm Ups, High/Low Interval Cycles, Repeats, Number of Cycles, Rest Times (between cycles) and Cool Downs.
- Dumb bells in a range of weights. I have a set of 3lb’ers, 5lb’ers and 15lb’ers. If I want to bust it all Mr. America style I can always use HunBuns 25lb’ers (Uh, never).
- Kettle bells. I have a 5lb one and a 10lb one I got in a Jillian Michaels workout set I bought a while back.
- A towel. I work out in the garage so I like to put a towel down on the rubber mat for me to lie on or put my hands/elbows on when I do planks. Otherwise I’d have to sweep every morning – bleah!
- A bench. I do bent over tricep rows on the wooden bench we have in the garage so that we can sit down while putting on our shoes.
- A weight bench. I do chest presses lying on HunBun’s weight bench.
- A step. I use the steps that go from the garage to the laundry room to do toe taps or “box jumps” (or rather “step jumps” HA! )
- A big space. I move around a lot so I make sure there’s nothing I can fall over or step on as I “plyo” my way to healthy living. 🙂
- Randoms: Jump rope and stretchy bands (I can’t remember what their real name is, but it’s those rubber tubes that sometimes come with handles on the end that you can stand on or tie to door knobs to increase resistance)
So once you’ve got your slick little home gym set up you can start making up a circuit for the morning/afternoon/night or whenever you feel like getting a little (a lot) sweaty.
I start with whatever warm up time I want – depending on how I feel. That can be 1 minute of jumping jacks to 10 minutes on the treadmill or stationary bike. You can do whatever you want to get your body warmed up. Then I usually do 2 repeats of 12 (high/low) intervals with 1 minute (high) and 10 seconds (low) and a 30 second rest between repeats. That’s a 29:30 circuit work out that I end with 1 minute of cool down. You can change the time for any of these to suit your needs – be creative to keep your excitement up!
I do as many of the exercise as I can within the 1 minute high interval time frame and use the 10 seconds to grab dumb bells or position my towel on the ground or get whatever extra doo-dah or space I need. I try to plan out what I want to work – legs, arms, core, a mix and then select exercises that work those areas. So now you know where I spend my time, here’s what I use to fill it up with. Use your DJ skills and mix-master your way to a totally unique circuit:
Pick whatever you want from:
- Jumping Jacks, High Knees, Butt Kicks, Toe Taps (on the step), Skaters, Box Jumps (on the step), Jump Squats
- Planks, Side Planks (each side gets 1 minute), Elbow Planks, Up/Down Planks, One-legged Plans (each side gets 1 minute), Side Planks with “Thread the Needle” or rib grab or whatever call it when you grab your side rib with the opposite hand (each side gets 1 minute).
- Dumb bells or Kettle Bells: Bicep curls (each side gets 1 minute), Deadlifts, Shoulder Raises, Chest Press, Hammer Curl to Shoulder Press, Shoulder Press, Single Arm Row (each side gets 1 minute), Bent Over Row, Weighted Squat, Weighted Lunges, Push Ups
- Squats, Lunges (each side gets 1 minute), Walking Lunges, Side Lunges, Jump Lunges, Single Leg Deadlifts, Mountain Climbers, Burpees, Plank Jacks
- Whatever exercise you see in a magazine, on a tv show, on a fitness video, or read on a blog.
And that’s how I keep it interesting and fit a really nice workout into a 30-50 minute window. Hope that was worth the wait. 🙂
So how’d life get 10 and this little bloggedy blog get a big fat goose egg? Well here’s a photo montage for the past 10 days (or why life scored a perfect 10).
Random Eats over the last 10 days…
Can you believe I didn’t take any photos of Thanksgiving dinner? Super Fail.
Nitro Turkey 10K Thanksgiving Morning!
I did a 10K the morning of Thanksgiving up at Point Pinole near Richmond. It was so cold I couldn’t feel my toes for the first mile or so…then my fingers felt numb I was freaking out. I need to invest in some pocket warmers for next year. Brazen Racing is awesome! Check them out if you’re in the Bay Area! Of course I had to eat my It’s It Cappucino ice cream sandwich – even after I told myself not to. Oh well. 🙂 Maybe our energetic Scrabble rounds at Thanksgiving dinner wore off the calories in that tasty treat!
Quarry Turkey 10K the Saturday after Thanksgiving!
Early Saturday morning I was back in the cold for the Quarry Turkey 10K over in Quarry Lakes, Fremont CA. I again wished I had some pocket warmers for my toes as those digits were like ice cubes when I started running. I kept my pace up and didn’t stop running! I was super stoked that I kept my legs moving even when my brain was trying to figure out ways to convince them to slow down or take a break. I was greeted at the end with a high five from the dad pushing the running stoller (wha???) and with HunBun’s parents meeting me at the finish line. Super awesome surprise! So after another It’s It Cappucino ice cream sandwich (what can I do they’re there all the time) they drove me home where I took a hot shower….AAAAAAAaaaaaaaahhhhhh! 🙂
After all that busy’ness, HunBun and I are taking the week off to putz around.
How we started the first 2 days of vacation…mmmmm!
Tomorrow some super storm is supposed to roll into or ONto the Bay Area so we’ll see what HunBun and I get done around the house. I’ll have to photo the front landscaping project we accomplished yesterday and post it up. I have to say it looks down right lovely. 🙂
See ya later!
Cathy
Thursday, January 10th: 5-6pm Muscle & Flow
onthevector 