OBSTACLES INTO OPPORTUNITIES

Forgot your gym shoes at home. Snow storm. Stuck in a hotel. Babysitter cancelled. Super busy at work.  What do you think?  OBSTACLES?  Yes... OPPORTUNITIES? Maybe.. ;)
I am honestly impressed and inspired daily by my amazing clientele and class participants.  These guys are HARD CORE.  Hard core.  They have shown up to train with socks on, Crocs on, even barefoot (ie. forgot your gym shoes at home). I once trained a client in her suit.  She forgot her workout clothes, but was determined to get her session in.  Awesome!  Bad snow storm hits Denver. My clients make it in.  My class is still full. I have had class participants rearrange their work schedules around class time. If they have to leave early to make a meeting, they show up, do as much as they can, wipe off their sweat and get back to work.  The client story that inspired this blog post happened last week. She was in Vegas for work and determined not to get off track or let her fitness slip. She'll tell you about it...

"To stick to my fitness goals in Vegas and not be defeated by the $20+ gym fee, I packed my running shoes and used the strip to log in 15,000 steps a day.  I used a pedometer to keep my motivation and to try to push myself to go further each day.  I also took to the hotel stairs, my particular hotel tower had 15 floors and a stair well to go with it, as all do per fire code.  I hiked those stairs and when I got to the top I took the elevator down.  Back up again, elevator down.  Up again, elevator down.  Five times, for a total 39 minutes of stair heaven.  

The nice part of using the elevator down was that it gave me just enough time to catch my breath before starting the next hike which allowed me to do it more times than I would have otherwise done if I took the stairs down. Each stair workout (which I did two out of the four days I was there) and every other walking day was followed by the regular push-up, crunch and oblique routine I have established.

That is how I met my fitness goals in Vegas.  In getting my workouts in, it helped me to make good choices while eating out.

Thanks Emilee for the inspiration and for getting my head back in the game before I took off to Vegas, the week could have gone in a completely different direction."

Seriously awesome! Talk about turning an obstacle into an opportunity! 

Life is going to get busy, things are going to happen. How you handle it and what you choose to do makes all the difference. Stay focused and get creative!  Obstacles or opportunities?  It is up to you ;)  Get to it!

WHY YOU SHOULD BE CROSS-TRAINING

I absolutely LOVE running, truly one of my most favorite things to do .  However, I only run 2-3 days a week.  WHY?  3 reasons: CONDITIONING, INJURY PREVENTION and ACTIVE RECOVERY. In an effort to improve my fitness and achieve my best physical form, I cross train. In order to avoid hitting a plateau, your muscles need to be challenged with different movements, different weights and different workouts. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and incorporating different resistance workouts and forms of cardio is the best way to get results and keep your muscles fresh. Cross training is a highly effective and productive way to workout. Because you are combining several different workout strategies, you are going to improve your conditioning, avoid injury and engage your muscles in active recovery. Cross training is gaining popularity for many reasons.  Read more about my top 3 reasons below:

• CONDITIONING: Instead of asking your body to do the exact same thing over and over, you surprise your muscles by performing a variety of movements and exercises. You can even further change you workouts by increasing the intensity, number of reps, duration, pace, switching up the order of exercises, etc. Variety and change ask more from the body and produce increased muscle capability and improved fitness performance. Cross training is not designed with one specific goal in mind, but rather to improve your overall fitness. Cross-training is comprehensive. You can gain muscle, lose fat, improve your cardiovascular strength, improve speed and performance; conditioning your body to perform at it's optimum level.

• INJURY PREVENTION: The most common injuries I see are overuse injuries as a result of continuously doing the same activities and workouts. It doesn't matter if it is running, biking, lifting or plyometrics. Constantly performing repeitive movements and exercises can stress your body and wear down your joints, ligaments, muscles and tendons. By mixing up your routine, you give the over-used parts of your body a chance to rest and the under-used a chance to strengthen. Cross training is a great way to avoid injuries and keep your body healthy!

• ACTIVE RECOVERY: Active recovery is the practice of using an alternative type of training to recover from your primary training method. For instance, many professional football players do swimming workouts and pool resistance exercises to actively recover from their on-field practices and traditional weight room training. In addition to the conditioning and injury preventing benefits of active recovery, it has been show to actually speed up recovery by increasing blood flow and the delivery of nutrients to stressed or damaged muscle tissue.

Get out there and try something new!  Switch up your workouts and I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the results!  You will see an improvement in your overall fitness, avoid injuries and be able to maximize your efforts by engaging in active recovery!  HAVE FUN! : )

BOOT CAMP and BRUNCH

BOOT CAMP AND BRUNCH...hmmmmm...sound like a good idea? I think so! (-:

Integrating fitness and good nutrition into your social life makes getting fit and eating healthy SO much easier! Taking away from time with friends and family to go workout on the weekends is not always easy and it can be hard to get motivated to go to the gym. Plan a workout "date" and not only will you end up working out harder (a little healthy competition always turns up the intensity), but you will also get to spend that time with your friends or significant other. BE creative and come up with fun ideas for the workout and a YUM post workout meal like the Baked Carrot Cake Oatmeal I posted below. It is a great way to get those weekend workouts in and try some fabulous healthy food together! Let's GET IT!!! Have FUN!!! (-: