STORY TIME
Reframe Your Workouts
Working out can’t be a punishment or something we HAVE to do. It can’t even be that check in the box on our To Do List.
Let’s rethink how we think about working out.
I tease my clients a lot that they always act like they’re getting tortured and yet they come back ALL. THE. TIME.
Not because they necessarily love the hard work, but because they know that finish line isn’t something anyone can take from them.
Working out can’t be a punishment or something we HAVE to do. It can’t even be that check in the box on our To Do List.
It doesn’t have to be something you love either.
Maybe it’s your moment of sanity in an insane schedule, maybe it’s your moment of peace when the kiddos are pulling on every last thread of patience you have. Maybe it’s your reminder that you’re a bada$$.
Time to find that reason.
Start with the workout below!
Tabata
Switch exercises each round
12 rounds
Swings
Bent over row
Bridge hip taps
Crunches
Save this Workout!
I want you to save the workouts so when you don’t have a lot of time to workout, you can go into that list of saved workouts and just grab one.
Every workout I create and post is not just with you in mind, but FOR you to add into your toolbox.
I want you to save the workouts so when you don’t have a lot of time to workout, you can go into that list of saved workouts and just grab one.
So you don’t have to spend any more time thinking about what you’re going to do, wasting the little amount of time you have.
Because I know your time is limited and valuable.
I know you’re squeezing your workout into the pocket of your day when you COULD be doing one of the other million things on your To Do List.
I don’t want you to feel like you’ve wasted your time. I want you to have workouts you can lean in to that you know will be worth your time.
AMRAP
10 minutes
5 single leg deadlift right
5 single leg deadlift left
5 bicep curls to push press
Don't Waste Your Time
I tell my clients all the time that they can eye roll me or let out the dramatic sigh, but I know they keep coming back because they know it’s time and money well spent.
There is nothing more annoying than walking out of a workout thinking “that wasn’t hard enough, I need to do something else.”
You’ve been there huh?
Cuz I know I have and GEEZ it is SO frustrating.
It’s not like you’ll have more time during the day to workout. The time you have is the only time you have, and there’s no worse feeling than wasting it.
I tell my clients all the time that they can eye roll me or let out the dramatic sigh, but I know they keep coming back because they know it’s time and money well spent.
They know that even though the workout is going to be challenging, it’ll be worth it.
When time is our most valuable resource because it’s non-renewable, the last thing I want is for you to leave a workout feeling like you just wasted it.
All that’s going to get you is more fuel for your excuses to not show up tomorrow.
Which leads to an even bigger waste of time because not showing up will lead to a complete regression on whatever progress you’ve made.
This is why you need to push yourself. Not to the point of breaking but to the point of inherently know that your time has been well spent.
Tabata
12 rounds
Alternate exercises each round
Swings
Headcounters
Russian twists
Sit in Discomfort
That’s the thing about working out: you’re not going to see change from a place of comfort. From the place of doing the same thing on repeat.
I am asking you to voluntarily sit in a space of discomfort.
Especially after the past couple years of LIVING that life, who would willing do that?
right?!!
Who in their right mind would WANT to be uncomfortable?
That’s the thing about working out: you’re not going to see change from a place of comfort. From the place of doing the same thing on repeat.
But you know that…
You also know that if you don’t step into those moments of discomfort NOTHING is going to change.
EMOM
15 minutes
Switch circuits each minute
Circuit #1:
12 tuck ups
12 toe touches
Circuit #2:
12 deadlifts
12 jump squats
Circuit #3:
12 bicep curls
12 push press
Time to Embrace the Booty
I know we’re in the age of the booty. Finally popular culture has caught up with every rapper I’ve ever heard who’s never rapped about a little butt.
The majority of your muscle mass is in the lower half of your body.
I know we’re in the age of the booty. Finally popular culture has caught up with every rapper I’ve ever heard who’s never rapped about a little butt.
As someone who’s got some *cough cough* junk in the trunk…I’m totally about it.
Workouts are focusing on it, plastic surgery is focusing on it, shoot there’s those pants on TikTok too…
Clients are asking for workouts that focus on that shot glass a$$ (I had to ask a client what that meant by the way and it made me feel old af).
Here’s my thing: the development of those muscles are much more than the aesthetics.
I know we focus on the mirror results and there’s nothing wrong with that, but muscle development has to be about more than what you see reflected back at you.
Don’t get me wrong, if the aesthetic piece is what initially pushes you to develop those muscles, I’m here for it. It’s the same end goal, so whatever gets you there and gets you to develop those habits.
But just so you know, here’s why I’m focused on the development of those muscles:
✔️ proper pelvic alignment
✔️ less low back pain
✔️ prevention of knee injuries
✔️ balance
✔️ stronger gait (that’s why you walk)
So work on that booty all day long, seriously every workout if you want because to me it means the quality of your life will improve because those ailments won’t be as prevalent.
Grab the workout below to help develop ALL those muscles!
4 Rounds
10 reps each exercise
Single side lateral lunge
Hand to hand swings
Single leg deadlift
Grab This Circuit Workout
Give yourself time with this workout if you do it as written. It’s a little longer and will take you a hot second.
Check this workout out. But make sure as you’re looking through it that you’re grabbing all the tips so you know you’re getting the most out of the work you’re putting in.
Give yourself time with this workout if you do it as written. It’s a little longer and will take you a hot second.
Like all my other workouts, it has those versatile aspects just in case you don’t have the time to do the workout as written.
If you can do it as written, go for it.
If you don’t have the time here’s what you do:
Take one (or two) of the circuits.
When you get to the work portion, do 3 rounds instead of one
Pro Tip: Mix and match the runs and the plank holds.
Running not your thing? Do the plank holds instead!
Circuit 1
400m run or 1 minute plank hold
15 swings
10 high pulls
10 renegade rows
10 deadlifts
15 swings
400 m run or 1 minute plank hold
Rest 1 minute
Circuit 2
400m run or 1 minute plank hold
15 swings
15 push press
10 push ups
10 squats
15 swings
400m run or 1 minute plank hold
Rest 1 minute
Circuit 3
400m run or 1 minute plank hold
15 swings
15 sumo deadlift
10 tricep presses
10 alternating lateral lunges
15 swings
400m run or 1 minute plank hold
How to Make HIIT Work
You get into the interval and you push super hard right from the start, gassing yourself out in the first 10ish seconds. That makes you want to take a break, and when you do that, you’re not utilizing the interval in the way it was intended.
How do I work a HIIT workout?
When I started getting certified to train people, I got certifications in the modalities of fitness that interested me. The first being CrossFit.
Back in the day, the components of CrossFit were unheard of to the majority of the population. The biggest of these being the utilization of HIIT in a workout routine.
Over the years, with the popularity of CrossFit and HIIT workouts growing, HIIT is one modality of fitness I train on a consistent basis.
It is also, arguably, the one that intimidates people the most. There’s hesitance to try it because it looks cool but also scary as hell, and the general thought of getting that uncomfortable during a workout doesn’t endear us to do the workout.
Buuutttt…while there’s great science behind its benefits, there’s also strategy behind how to start it.
Here’s what I notice:
If you’re new to it, it’s intimidating AF. You see those people making the burpees look easy and you’re like “well, that’ll never be me”.
That breathless feeling sucks. You either come to love it or hate it but there’s often no in between.
A lot of people train HIIT incorrectly. This is what I mean:
You get into the interval and you push super hard right from the start, gassing yourself out in the first 10ish seconds. That makes you want to take a break, and when you do that, you’re not utilizing the interval in the way it was intended.
HIIT work is not intended for you to break until the break is written in. You gotta earn that rest girl.
Here’s my Top 3 Tips for Pacing Yourself During a HIIT Workout for Optimal Results:
Find a comfortably uncomfortable pace. That’s the pace where you don’t feel like you need to take a break 15 seconds in but you do feel like you’re pushing your limits.
Choose the appropriate weights. Heavy enough to challenge you and not so light that you feel like you’re breezing through the work.
Take advantage of the rest. That’s why it’s written in. For you to use it to recover your breath and your heart rate so you can push just as hard on the next interval.
Why Do HIIT Workouts Work?
You know when you workout, your heart rate increases. HIIT training exploits the increasing and decreasing of your heart rate as a means to build muscle and burn calories.
When I first started going to a CrossFit box in 2007, I went because I wanted to prove to myself that I was still strong after my injury knocked me on my literal ass. After working out at an insane pace for so many years, just to land myself on bed rest, and then to be denied by the community I thought was my family, I was LOST. That’s putting it mildly. I was flailing.
I remember a friend telling me about this CrossFit concept of working out. Olympic lifting, hardcore interval training, body weight work, and gymnastic style exercises that could be done quickly.
Grab Free Workouts!
It worked perfectly with my work schedule, but more importantly it worked perfectly with my heard. I needed a mindset reset so I could regain the confidence I lost, and also find a place where I felt like I belonged.
Back them, CrossFit and this HIIT style of workout was not a thing. There was ONE box in San Diego, in a not so safe neighborhood. But damn did I fall in love with it.
I loved being able to move heavy things. I loved being able to move quickly, I loved the community I was in, and mostly I loved the results I was getting.
I felt strong.
I could do things I never thought I would be able to do, and never thought I would be able to do again after my injury. It helped restore my sense of self.
But no one around me understood how I could get results from a workout that was 7 minutes long.
HIIT now is a trendy workout. CrossFit is trendy af.
People love it because they see the same results I saw all those years ago, but don’t quite understand the science behind it. My current clientele included.
Here’s a basic way to explain it:
You know when you workout, your heart rate increases. HIIT training exploits the increasing and decreasing of your heart rate as a means to build muscle and burn calories.
Think of it like this: you know in that HIIT workout when you get breathless and you feel like maybe you might just barf?
That’s your body going into an oxygen deficit.
When your workout is complete, your body is determined af to restore it pre-exercise state.
It does this through increasing your metabolic state. Increasing your metabolic state means you’re burning more calories. Burning more calories means you’re going to see better results.
Granted, this rate at which your body can restore its pre-exercise state is different for every body, it does work for every body.
The way to make this work more efficiently is to make sure you’re pairing your nutrition properly post workout. That way you can maximize the caloric burn post workout, seeing even better results.
