Challenge Workouts

There have been a few occasions where it appears that I’ve gone the clothing optional route….

<===Like here

When I got those peach colored tights I never thought it’d look like I was naked 😉

And yes, I’m actually wearing pants in this video….

I’ve started doing handstand burpees after one of my VIP coaching clients started going wild with burpee variations (thank you Kate!).

This is one of my favorite burpee variations and I always include them on a chest or shoulder day because they trash my triceps. My goal is to get 5 of them in a row without my feet touching the wall – I’m getting better, but I’m still a little chicken to do them in the middle of the room just yet 😉

Here’s a little routine that I’ll often do on a shoulder focused day:

• DB lateral raises (10 reps)
• DB shoulder press (8-10 reps)
• 5 burpee handstands
• 100 jump ropes (you’d be surprised at how jump rope rotations hit the shoulders when you’re fatigued!)
• Repeat 3-5 times

That is super fun – and it’s always good to keep your pants on (and maybe even your shirt tucked in so you don’t flash your belly ;))

Another fun one I did was inspired by another favorite coaching client, Suzie. She did this workout with jumping rope between squat sets, but I chose to use burpees. You’ll see I added both variations below so you can pick your poison:

• 1 burpee (or 10 jump ropes) ==>1 BB squat
• 2 burpees (or 20 jump ropes) ==> BB 2 squats
• 3 burpees (or 30 jump ropes) ==> 3 BB squats
• Continue to 10 burpess (or 100 jump ropes) ==> 10 BB squats
• Then go back down the ladder to finish with 1 burpee (or 10 jump ropes) ==>1 BB squat

This workout took me 20:48 and I used 95lbs. One of the hardest things with this style of metabolic resistance training is choosing the weight. You want to choose a weight that you can easily get 15-20 reps with. I’m on the road to recovery from a knee injury, so I went conservatively.  It’s best to err on the side of caution and keep the reps super clean. I added the push up with the burpee as well.

I love love love burpees when added to strength training – it adds so much intensity and can shorten your workout time (cuz seriously, who can do hours of burpees?)

If you want more burpee ideas and the Big Book of Beautiful Burpees with more than 77 burpee variations, then head to Challenge Burpee.

<===You can also save 33% when you use the coupon ‘Yayforburpees‘

You’ll love the metabolic resistance training and burpee workouts. You’ll find lots of variation and videos to inspire your workouts.

Did you see that?

You need to CHALLENGE your body if you want to CHANGE it.

What can you do about plantar fasciitis?

I love to jump rope but discovered that if I don’t wear proper foot wear, my feet rebell 😉 I did a ton of jump rope videos for this program  and paid the price. Plantar fasciitus is no fun and difficult to get rid of.

Thankfully I have a secret weapon where injury is concerned. Just like you, I don’t have time and would prefer not to have to go to physical therapy for rehab of injury if I can take care of it myself.

My good friend and ‘exercise for injury’ expert, Rick Kaselj gives 5 tips to help with plantar fascitis:

1. Work around the injury – don’t stop training!

2. Look at facsial stretches of the foot and not just the calf

3. Increase ankle mobility

4. Check your proper foot wear

5. Work on hamstring flexibility

If you want help with your plantar fascitis, check out Rick’s program here

All the best with your plantar faciitis – Rick helped me get over my plantar faciitis (boots and all!)

I see this every time I go to ANY gym. I figure that since I harp on this particular point so much, that everyone should have heard this message by now, but apparently not.

Many people are still stuck doing long duration, low-intensity cardiovascular workouts.

Oh dear.

Here’s the deal: If you’re looking to achieve maximal benefit from the time you put into your workouts, long duration “slow” cardio is NOT the way to go, and for many reasons.

Here are just four of them:

1. Minimal Caloric Burn

Look, 45 minutes on the treadmill may burn a whopping 300 calories if you’re lucky -the equivalent of ONE TENTH of a pound of fat. Studies have shown that most cardio equipment actually OVER estimates your calories burned for those long workouts too, so if you’re looking for more BANG for your buck exercise, long cardio workouts are a poor choice.

This workout style is NOT a poor choice 🙂

2. Time Waster

Do you have hours to spend training? I didn’t think so. The number one objection to working out is ‘I don’t have time’. Of course you don’t have time if your workout takes an hour or more daily. In fact, research has shown that anything more than 90 minutes a week can be detrimental to your fitness and fat loss efforts.

In addition to getting over use injuries, the ‘belly fat storing’ hormone cortisol sky rockets with long workouts.

 These workouts are SHORT and will not cause over use injuries or elevate cortisol.

3. No prolonged metabolic benefits

Did you know that with higher intensity exercise it’s possible to continue to burn calories for up to 48 hours post workout?

It’s true. But you know what else is true?

Long duration, low intensity cardio provides virtually NO prolonged elevation in metabolism. In fact, with slow-go cardio, metabolism returns to baseline almost IMMEDIATELY following the exercise session. You’ll burn calories while you’re exercising, but the REAL benefit of the right kind of exercise is the fitness benefits that you’ll enjoy long after you’re done.

Long slow cardio just won’t do it for you, but these workouts will burn calories LONG after you’ve stopped exercising.

4. Minimal fat loss 

If you’re burning minimal calories during your workout and virtually no additional calories after your workout, if fat loss is your goal, then it will be difficult to achieve any results. The majority of folks ‘do cardio’ to get results, so what’s the point?

So if slow-go cardio isn’t a great solution, what is?

Don’t do the #1 WORST WORKOUT EVER ==> DO THIS INSTEAD

If you’re a treadmill lover, instead of doing long slow cardio, try this treadmill workout instead of your usual long plod on the dreadmill:

Upper Body BAM

Set your timer for 20 minutes, go through this set as many times as you can.

• 10 inverted rows (feet on frame) (do wall sit stick ups if this isn’t possible)
• 10 decline push ups (feet on frame)
• Forward run 1 min – somewhat hard exertion
• Forward run 1 min – step it up!
• Forward sprint 30 seconds – as fast as possible!
• Forward run 1 min – recovery

Repeat for 20 minutes

Here’s the inverted row:

Ditch the #1 WORST WORKOUT (EVER)  and check out the workouts HERE instead.