This week's workout will utilize all planes of movement and target each region of your core muscles. the only piece of equipment required for this workout is a TRX Suspension system. However, if you don't have one or have access to one, you can still perform all exercises.
Complete 30 seconds for each exercise and rest 15 seconds between each. Try to complete 2-3 rounds of all exercises and allow 30-60 seconds of rest between rounds.
Inchworms Supine 90* Hip Rotations Front Lunge with Rotation Bob and Weave with Punch TRX Mountain Climber (or regular Mtn. Climbers) Trunk Twists (with or workout a bar/stick, just twist Left then Right. keep knees bent during movement Squat Thrusts Tight Core Rotation (fast) - clasp palms together with arms extended out in front. Move hands side to side fast moving only your shoulders and arms, but NOT the hips.
I have to say that I am very impressed with the Tough Mudder event. Everything from parking, course design, volunteers, to organization they had it dialed. I'm not sure of the exact number of cars in the parking field, but I would guess that there were about 600, so that would mean there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 people there to participate.
a wall obstacle to climb over to warm up before the start
Tough Mudder is not a race, so there's lots of camaraderie among everyone along the course, instead of throwing elbows. Instead of sending all 2000 people of at once, they sent about 300-400 people off at different times; just about every hour starting at 10am and the last one at 2pm I believe.
Over the course of 10.5 miles, there was probably 8,000ft of elevation gain. I was amazed by how much steep hills were included in the course. Not to make it any easier, the terrain was almost always off-camber and loaded with rocks. I don't think I was ever able to get into a normal running stride, even though I was jogging. I ran everything except one hill around mile 8.5; which was extremely steep and long and rocky.
giving Jenny (backpack on right) the Mudder pose while running
There were 19 obstacles that we had to navigate, none of which were that difficult, but one on particular, the mud mile, would probably have been impossible to do without the help of someone else. There were about 8 mounds of mud, separated by 3 foot wide troughs of muddy water that we had to jump into and then climb out of. Because the mud was so slippery, the help of your fellow Mudder was needed to get up and over.
I think I underestimated the "Walk the Plank" obstacle. This one involves you to walk up 20 feet to a wooden platform and then plunge into a 12-foot deep pool. I didn't think I would have any problem with this one, but once I got atop the platform, things seemed a bit higher than they looked in You Tube videos. I paused for about 10 sec. and then jumped feet-first into the pool and crawled out using their netting. One girl was so freaked out that she was up there for about 5 min.
The Electric Eel and Electroshock Therapy obstacles involved crawling and running through hanging wires that sent of electrical shocks (all while crawling and running through water of course). The shocks were more potent than I thought they would be, but nothing that left a lasting impression on me.
As I mentioned earlier, I ran most of the course, and roughly 7 miles was with a guy I met from Portland. Lots of people came to the event with a group of 3-6 others as a "Team", I did it solo. I tried to get others from bend to join me but couldn't rally any takers. I think if you had people who were of equal fitness level that it would be pretty damn fun. It's basically a big party going on the whole time.
Here is one video from the event...
And here is another...
With all of the military-style belly crawling and hopping over logs, my stomach, elbows, and knees have a few scratches, and my knees are a little swollen from all of the steep running. The worst thing I take away from the event is a major sunburn on my back. I loaded up the sunscreen but being out in the sun for almost 2 hours I still got burned. can't image those who were out there for 4 hours...ouch!
I can't wait to do my next obstacle course event, the Spartan Race, Aug 3rd, which IS a race and there is prize money to be won.
This weekend's workout will again be pretty simple on paper, but by no means will it be easy to complete. It's a workout that can be completed by all fitness levels, and adding a few more sets will simply make it more challenging.
There are 5 exercises in this workout, 8 reps for each, during each set. Each exercise is to be completed with as minimal rest as needed, moving from one to the next. After finishing the last exercise, allow 1-2 minutes of recovery before starting the next set. Repeat for a total of 5-7 sets.
For the exercises that use weight, select a weight that is challenging to perform the 8 reps with.
For the first time in 10 years, I am not competing this summer as a professional cyclist. Being a competitive athlete, however, I need something to set as a goal to keep me motivated mentally and challenged physically. So I signed up to compete in this years Tough Mudder Oregon, held June 15th in Fossil, OR.
Tough Mudder and many other obstacle course events, have been quite the buzz the past few years. Get muddy, climb over tall walls, and jump into freezing water over a course of 10-12 miles, is pretty common among these military-style workouts.
I have been training specifically for this event the past 8 weeks and it has been a blast. Actually, it has lit the fuse again that I started lacking towards the end of my cycling career. Running up steep hills (numerous times), lifting heavy weights in the gym, doing lots of challenging body weight exercises (burpees, push ups, rock squats and presses) repetitively while running through the trails, and tons of TRX core exercises has me ready to give the Tough Mudder a shot next weekend. The only thing I have not actually done is get muddy before doing all of this training, or jump into a freezing river. I guess I will have a taste of what it's like during the event.
Is anyone else doing the Tough Mudder Oregon event June 15th (Saturday)? Looking forward to seeing what all the hype is about these races. Is it the physical challenge, or is it just running around 1/2 naked and full of mud that excites everyone? Maybe it's both! See you there.
Do you, or have you ever kept track of what you eat? Did you lose weight or gain muscle or improve your athletic performance as a results from tracking the foods you eat?
As a fitness professional, it is out of my scope of practice to offer nutritional advice to any of my clients, however, I do certainly cover the basics. Items such as timing of foods, types of foods to consider, foods to avoid, andkeeping track of foods eaten are some of the things I typically discuss with clients regularly.
Today's post will cover tracking your foods. And before one can truly know how many calories they need to track and consume to meet their goals (lose weight, gain muscle, maintain weight, etc.) it's important to know your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Sixty to seventy percent (60-70%) of one's total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) comes from BMR. So once you know how many calories your body expends during a day based on your normal activities, you'll have a better idea of how many calories you'll need to consume to stay on track of your goal. Keep in mind that when you exercise, you will be expending more energy (calories) and hence will need to adjust your calories consumed to keep energy levels up.
By tracking your calories, you'll be able to closely monitor what you eat; helping you to meet your daily goals, and will also be able to tell where the majority of your nutrients (carbs, fats, protein, alcohol) are coming from. As a former professional athlete, the majority of my fuel came from carbs, and during heavy training months, making sure I was eating adequate amounts of carbs was crucial to my athletic performance. I relied heavily on Fitday.com to ensure I was getting not only adequate calories, but enough of each nutrient during my intense training. You will be surprised to find out what you eat is far more or far less than you think.
If you decide to track your calories, here are a few things to consider according to Dr.Anne McTiernan, director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
1. record everything you eat; don't try to impress yourself by leaving out the ice cream
2. be as accurate as possible; read the labels and weigh/measure your food portions
3. be consistent; track your foods regularly each day, every week for a few weeks
Although I found good use from using FitDay, I would recommend My Fitness Pal as a better option for the online/App user. Their food database is much more elaborate, it's more user friendly. FitDay didn't have lots of non-traditional foods (almond butter, coconut oil, etc), so it required you to enter your own foods more often (very time consuming).
Over this past weekend I decided to check out a hidden gem in Bend. It called Sarah's Vegan Cafe'. It's a tiny little cafe in the back alley of a chiropractors office. I was told by a friend that the smoothies were worth the trip over there.
The place is so tiny that even 2 people working behind the counter seemed a bit crowded. It sort of reminded me of the spice shop in the TV show Grimm, because they had tons of tiny jars of all their flavorings and nuts.
I tried the Vanilla Mint smoothie. I would like to share the recipe with you, or if you happen to live in Bend, or are visiting anytime soon check out Sarah's Vegan Cafe Ingredients: Almonds Banana Mint essential oil Avocado vanilla Stevia Coconut oil Dates Warrior protein powder Maca (not sure what this is) Vanilla Himalayan Sea Salt
I would also recommend theirCoconut Chocolate Dream smoothie.
Today's workout will be a pyramid workout. If you have never done a pyramid workout, you may or may not like it. It will seem easy to begin with but will not be easy by the end.
There will only be 4 exercises in this workout, all of which most of you have done at one time or another. The exercises will work the back, chest, shoulders, triceps, and core muscles primarily.
Here's the workout format, but you can modify the reps/exercises to your fitness level.
Start with 1 rep of the first exercise, 2 reps of the second exercise, 3 reps of the third and 5 reps of the forth. Continue this sequence until you reach 10 reps for the first exercise (which will mean that you do 10, 20, 30 and 50 reps for the highest rep set). The just reverse the order back down until you reach 1 rep again for the first exercise again.
