Wednesday…middle of the week and more ice/snow/rain. Ick. Does anyone think this is the worst winter ever (literally)? I can’t remember a winter where we got so beat down with snow week after week, or day after day at this point!
I haven’t written about fitness in awhile. Right now I’m doing Tina’s Best Body Bootcamp. I think this is my favorite round, out of all of them. It’s so tough! My arms are so fatigued from Monday’s workout.
In the past couple of weeks I got the amazing chance to workout with Jillian Michaels and then last week I attended Under Armour’s Super Bowl workout in Grand Central Station with Natalie Uhling. It was such a fun workout broken up into 3 parts. First 20 minutes was kickboxing, second 20 was boxing with gloves and third 20 was leg and core work. It was a TOUGH class and we were all dripping. I haven’t taken a group fitness class in um…over a year and a half. I’m so used to working out on my own, it was nice to hear music blasting and get energy from the others in class.
With my friends Christine & Megan! 
For awhile there I was just skating through my workouts and runs. I was getting them done, but I wasn’t really pushing myself to increase weights or get faster. That’s totally fine, but a couple weeks ago I decided I’d like to try and get faster. I’m not following any particular plan I’m just actually pushing myself to increase my pace and pick up heavier weights.
I’m totally fine with the fact that I wasn’t working on increasing speed or my weights for awhile. I feel like we don’t always need to be working to get faster, stronger, better. I was working out because I enjoyed it and I felt/feel good afterward. There’s so much pressure on social media to always be working SO hard and getting stronger, leaner, more fit. There’s nothing wrong with that, I just worry that it can be a bit much at times.
You have to do you. Don’t compare yourself to the next person’s 6 pack, lean arms or 7 minute mile. There’s so much inspiration out there and if that’s what you need to get you moving so you can be healthy (and reach your goals) then that’s great, but it’s important to recognize when it’s not healthy and it’s affecting you in a negative way.
Going along with that, there is a FitFluential Burpee challenge. FitFluential teamed up with Under Armour to bring this burpee challenge, complete 1000 burpees by February 28th and use the #FFBURPEE. I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to commit to the challenge.
First of all 1000 burpees is a lot! It breaks down to about 33 a day (it started before Feb 1st.) I didn’t want to do 33 a day because I didn’t really feel like I should be doing burpees every single day….or on days that I run. (Again this is MY feeling for myself!) I also know myself and my workout past, which involved doing 45-60 minutes of cardio every day. I didn’t want to get in the habit of adding these burpees onto my workouts and then making workouts go 1.5 hours. I just don’t have time for that. And I didn’t want to get back into that mindset of more, more, more cardio. I only walk 20 minutes on days I strength train (M,W,F).
I decided in the end it would be fun to do the challenge, but for every 10 burpees I did, I would exchange that for 1 minute of my walking time. (So if I did 50 burpees, I’d only walk for 15 minutes after). I’m breaking it down by doing 50 burpees Monday & Wednesday and 138 on Friday. I just will do burpees for cardio on Friday and just walk for a couple of minutes to warm up/cool down.
I made it work for me…in a healthy way, for me. My workouts still are between 45-60 minutes and that’s it. No more. Again, if you are inspired and want to do this, then GO FOR IT! If it’s going to affect you in a negative way, feel free to PASS.
For different burpee workouts check out Lindsay’s Burpee or Bust post she has tons of different burpee workouts for you to try!
What do you think? Are you doing the burpee challenge?
*Something cool: I received Koss Fit Series headphones as part of a FitFluential Campaign in December. Right now they are currently on sale for $19.99 at Walgreens! All colors and models are part of the promotion and it’s only for a limited time, so go grab them! They are made just for women, sweat resistant and come with 3 different ear buds so you can pick what fits!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
thanks for sharing friend! i so wish i could come do these workouts with you and christine. But i will wait till it stops snowing. haha
I think I need to partake in a group class again – just to get out by myself and do something for ME. And that also might include a few hours at Starbucks to just sit and enjoy a latte while browsing on my laptop!!
I think I missed the schpeal about the burpee challenge, so I won’t be joining in on the fun! Had I know sooner, I might have. Burpees kind of scare me right now. Or any workout for that matter. This is why I need to get more consistent again!