Love Workout

In honor of Valentines Day today, how about a little "love" themed workout inspiration?

If you actually do the below 3-4 times through, in fact, you'd get a pretty dang good full body workout.  Not too bad, eh?

Much love to you and yours!

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Barre Blend

A few weeks ago, I took some CECs (continuing education classes) for my group fitness certification.

Just to get you up to speed:

(1) Yes, I am a certified Group Fitness Instructor
(2) Every two years, I have to complete 20 credits worth of CECs to stay certified

In the last year or so, I have completed (or am in the process of completing) credits involving a range of topics such as: boot camp planning, body composition analysis, and pre/post natal exercise modification.

Yeah.  That's military inspired fitness, body fat calculations and pregnant lady stuff.  I suppose I couldn't get more of a mixed bag than that, huh?

Given my ADD in choosing CECs, it should only make sense that I continue that pattern... as such, my choice du jour for my last few CECs was ...


***DRUM ROLL***


BARRE BLEND!  TA-DA!!

If you are totally new to barre, which I was, essentially barre blend is a ballet inspired workout.  That you do with no shoes.  (As you can tell, this disturbs me a little.)  And you mix in some strength and cardio moves as well to get a full body workout.

And - very important here - a portion of the workout involves holding poses for isometric muscle work.

To explain using pictures instead of words, it's basically:

and

Looks like medieval torture fun, no?

And yes, you are required to wear the Michelle leo & sweatband.

Just kidding. 

Maybe.

Anyway, I actually came into the barre class being pretty excited.  Since I've read and heard a lot of great things about the barre format, I thought this class would be a blast.  Unfortunately, though, I was a little disappointed.

Let me back pedal for a second.

I wasn't disappointed in the class concept itself.  I was more disappointed that I didn't try barre in a real studio first, BEFORE learning the theories behind it, and how to teach it as an instructor.

Rather than pick apart my training, let me just simply state what I think the real problem for me was: by jumping the gun and going straight into exercise theory, I missed the opportunity to find the joy in the barre workout.

I found that I spend much of the class picking apart what each exercise did for the body and a particular muscle group.  And I lost focus on the most important part (to me) about an exersize:

WHAT MAKES THIS THING FUN?!

Because, let's face it - if it's not fun, you're not going to keep doing it in the future, right?!

So that being said, today I'm looking for recommendations.  Have you been to a barre class in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area?  Do you have a studio recommendation, or a class you think I should try?  (Bonus points if they offer a first week free promo to try it out).

Let me know.  Who knows?!  Maybe YOU will inspire a future blog post!!

So ... go!!  Comment below!!

Form is Everything - Burpees

Adding to my post from Friday, I wanted to talk about another fitness move I often see people do wrong.

Burpees.

Yep, I said it.  The swear word of the fitness world.

Seriously, every time I introduce a set of burpees into class, I swear the reaction from every student is something like:

Yeah, yeah.  I get it.  Burpees are hard.  No point in sugar coating it.  Moving on...

Anyway, I was inspired to talk about burpees thanks to this video, which was sent to me by a friend as a response to my write up on Cross Fit last week (here's a backup link for the video if that first link doesn't work).  If you've spent any time in a gym that shares a cardio space with weight lifters, you'll get a kick out of that video - take a second to watch it, and pay careful attention to the portion where one guy starts doing "burpees" on the floor.

Side note: this is about the time where I wish I was cool and knew how to make my own GIFs, because that guy's burpee form is awesomely bad.  Since I do not know how to make GIFs, I'll just have to insert some other pre-made, awesomely bad burpee GIFs I found online instead.

So before we get too far, let's revisit my plank post from last week.  Remember the good form connect the dots game?

Burpees essentially are a plank with some dynamic movement added, so think back to that good form first... and then add the jumps.  In case you're not sure what that should look like, here's a few basic demonstrations, with or without push-up at the bottom (I prefer without to keep the cardio moving more quickly).

 

 

If you compare these form drawings to the "awesomely bad" GIFs above, what do you see?

Well, there's the obvious issue of bad plank form - butt too high/low.

BUT!  There's another issue too... notice how quickly the two guys drop down to the floor, and how they both let their knees touch?  WTF is that?!  (OK, to be fair, the guy in grey isn't too terrible, but it does look like he's dropping to his knees some, and he's definitely got some belly dropping seal action going ... maybe that's why he wore gray?!  LOL!).

Also, what's with all three of them letting gravity and momentum take over?  None of them are truly popping out into plank and engaging their muscles to hold it.  Honestly!  There's no point in doing a burpee if you're just going to let gravity take over and pull you down to the floor, then let momentum swing you back up again.

The idea of a burpee is to engage those core muscles while getting some cardio.  When gravity and momentum take over, they do that work.  Not your muscles.

Of course there are other possible ways to do burpees wrong, too.  But instead of talking more about incorrect moves, let's see some folks rock burpees!!!  Check this out:

WOW!  Dots connected!  Engaged muscles stopping gravity and momentum.  I LOVE IT!!

So... that's about it!!  With a few easy corrections, any burpee can go from bad to good.  Just remember: connect those dots, engage those muscles, and get that burpee done right!!

Form is Everything - Plank

Recently, I was reading a fellow blogger friend's post and stumbled across this photo:

Seriously.  Seriously!  I just.  Can't.  CAN. NOT.

Fortunately, I was not the only one who saw the problem in this photo, and a few of us readers (and the blog owner, too) had a little poke-fun session.

Why?

This is why:

Do you see the difference?  Here, let me draw it out for you.

 

 

 

Ugh.  Cheating in plank is my ultimate pet peeve.  I so hate seeing someone do plank with bad form.

So, you might ask ... what's the problem with the above, and how do I fix it?

Well, as you know, I try to make every workout fun.  And with plank, I try to keep it fun by asking folks to think back to old school games to correct their form. 

What do I mean by that?  Well - when planking, why not play some good ol' "connect the dots"?

Notice how in the photo of the single woman, you can draw a nice straight line between her shoulders, hips and ankles.  Then, look at the group photo - those lines are more like an inverted V, right?

The true goal of plank is to have a nice straight line of connect the dots.  Lift those hips too high and you negate all the core building benefits of plank.  So - play the game right!  Get a good, straight line.

That principle, by the way, applies both ways.  While I don't want to see a bunch of inverted V's, I also don't want to see a bunch of seals either.

What do I mean by that?

 

Some people have a tendency in plank to over-correct the inverted V.  Then, before you know it, their belly is dropping down like a seal, hanging towards the floor.  This is equally bad, and may also lead to back troubles when done in plank position.  Don't do it!! 

Again, the focus here is to keep those hips in line - raise them up and connect those ankle and shoulder dots with a straight line!!

**(Yes, I will admit that this photo is actually a demonstration of a yoga form called up dog - just ignore that.  I needed an example of how you can lower your hips too far down in plank as well, and this gets my point across.)

And that's about it!!  With a few easy corrections, any plank can go from bad to good.  Just remember: connect those dots, skip those V's, and keep the seals out of your workout.  Get that plank done right!!