Hairwell

Get it? Like farewell, but with hair? Because tonight's playlist is hair metal all the way baby.

Final count down - Europe
Nothin' But A Good Time  -  Poison
Poison  -  Alice Cooper
Rock You Like a Hurricane  -  Scorpions
Its A Long Way To The Top  -  ACDC 
Welcome To The Jungle  -  Guns 'n' Roses
Jump  -  Van Halen
Twisted Sister - Were Not Going to Take It
Mighty Wings (Album Version)  -  Cheap Trick
Feed my Frankenstein  -  Alice Cooper
Devour  -  Shinedown
Ave Maria - Hitman Soundtrack
Dreams  -  Van Halen

I had a good time finding this stuff, and there's a LOT that got cut simply because it's only a 45 minute class. I'm a little tempted to tell everyone they're welcome to stay a full 90 minutes if they want to...I'm not even sure what I'd do for that time, but I'm sure no one would like it. Worth it? Sure. But filters come down around minute 32.

The profile is going to be one of those "winging it" kind of rides. We'll see how it goes, but mostly...hills. Duh. I might actually switch Mighty Wings and Feed my Frankenstein so MW is last...that's a pretty epic final mile song, if you ask me. FmF is a solid heavy climb too, so...that works.

For the FIT class I'm teaching before spin tonight, here's what we're looking at:

That's pretty much what I do every week, by the way. Same notebook, same pink Sharpie (every week I look for a black one...never find it), same blue pen. As I put the moves in the boxes, I note what equipment we'll need up at the top, so it's easy to see what we need when I get to class. Tonight's not got a lot of toys but I don't think that's going to mean it'll be easy. It's probably not as much cardio as Karol usually does, but hey...it's my last class, so whatever. :-P

Oh, and PS for all you doubters out there (*coughLaracough*), here's as much proof as I've got that I ran Tough Mudder VT this year:

 Before

 At the end, immediately after crossing the finish line.

 With Calvin, our adopted Expendable.

 Hailing Jeremy.

 More hugging.

 Team after pic. We are fabulous.

 Monkey duck?

Pure, unabashed happiness. It was glorious.

For TM CO in a couple of weeks, I'm definitely planning on picking up a disposable waterproof camera of some variation. 

Bear With Me

I'm going to draft this throughout the day, in hopes of having a reasonably doable workout by the end of the day. The formula I decided on for tonight's FIT class is this:

Warmup


Upper body (isolate upper body)
Lower body (isolate lower body)
Combo (upper and lower moves together)
Cardio (spike heart rate)
Balance (bring heart rate back down - hold positions for 30-60 seconds)


Repeat each circuit twice (once per side, most likely)
Do 3-5 circuits, depending on how quickly we go through them. I'm hoping for about 10 minutes total per circuit (run through twice) so this should be about right.
Abs for the last 5-10 minutes.


Cool down

Bam, class dismissed.

Oh wait, I need actual exercises, huh? Crap.

Note: whoo doggy, Google is on fire today. There were some gems in the results of seemingly innocent searches. Yikes. 

---

Circuit 1: 


Upper body: Forearm curls

Ummm...Google? That's not a forearm curl. Nice try. Sorry Mom. 

Lower body: Single leg squat dynamic
Combo: Flex when up, extend when down
Cardio: High knees
Balance: Single leg squat static - come down into a single-leg squat about half way and hold.

I hadn't even thought of this one...maybe I'll see if we have enough unbalance things to make this happen.

---

Circuit 2: 

Upper body: Pushups
Lower body: Single leg lifts (in plank position, lift one leg and hold for 5 count. Lower but not all the way to the floor. Repeat.)
Combo: Single leg pushups (keeping one leg lifted, keep hips extended and perform 5 pushups. Rest and repeat. Don't hurt me.)
Cardio: Spiderman obliques (in plank position, bring one leg up, swinging out to the side, to bring knee to elbow. alternate legs, doing as many as possible in 60 seconds.)

Balance: Awkward Airplane (Get on all 4s and lift opposing arm and leg to parallel with the floor, then move arm and leg as far out to sides as possible - I can't quite make 90* without cramping my butt muscle, but that's the goal.)

Umm not quite.

---

Circuit 3: 


Upper body: bicep curls
Lower body: forward lunges (one side per circuit - stable foot is the one that stays static)

Combo: curl while going into lunge
Cardio: keeping stable foot in the same place, lunge forward, side, back, then squat. repeat.
Balance: Warrior III on stable foot

Switch to other foot for second time through circuit.

---

Circuit 4: 

Upper body: Shoulder shapers (alternate one arm forward, one arm side, raising to parallel to floor)

Leg down lady, you're making this harder than it has to be. 

Lower body: Walking lunges
Combo: Alternate arms to maintain balance while walking lunging
Cardio: Alligator crawl (on hands and feet, get as low to the ground as possible and crawl as quickly as possible across the room - accent on staying low to the ground, this is not a bear crawl!)

Yeah, like that. 

Balance: Tree pose (stand on one leg and put the other foot as high up on that leg as you can...like a tree?)

---

Circuit 5: 

Upper body: Tricep extensions

Lower body: Squats. Just squats
Combo: Raise arms as you come out of squat

Cardio: Jumping jacks
Balance: The things I saw at PT that one (several) time. Put a dumbbell on its end on the floor to the outside of the stable foot, stand on one foot, and twist while you squat to touch the top of the dumbbell. Add challenge by holding a dumbbell as well. Make sure you keep your back straight, toes behind your knees, and core engaged. If you can't reach all the way down/to the side, do the best you can but do NOT go to the point of pain.

If it looks like we're only going to get through 4 circuits, I'll move this balance move to circuit 4 instead of the tree one.

---

Abs: 

Pilates 100

Russian twists: in a seated position, grab a weight of some sort and lean back and twist from side to side. Pick your feet up off the ground for added challenge. We'll go through this at 2 different lean angles: low and hernia.

Alternating triangles...do this:

using your obliques to pull you back up into standing. Repeat on each side 5 times, making sure movement is slow and controlled.

---

That should about do it. I'll print this out in very large type so my workout-stupid brain can see it from a distance, and modify as needed if it turns out I'm either a wimp or a slave driver. I want my classes to be tough but not stupid hard...there will be breaks between circuits, and I won't be going through them at a breakneck pace (I hope), so hopefully it'll be good. I figure I'll keep the favorite moves in rotation so people will see improvements week to week as well.

Any moves I missed that you love doing?
The playlist isn't special, just a Power Music one that's continuous 128 bpm.

Never Say No

You know what? I tried really hard to stomach looking for a Justin Bieber picture to photoshop and put up here, but I literally couldn't fight the rage long enough to post it.

My mentor, who usually teaches Tuesday nights, just asked if I could sub for her tomorrow. It's at 5:30, which is not 6:30 (when I'm teaching FIT), which means I had nothing better to do, which means I said yes. Duh.

So tomorrow at about 7:43 PM I'll be pulling one of these:

But you know what? That'll mean that Tuesday nights are back in action. I miss my Tuesday night "go hard or go home" workouts. In another month, they'll include Biggest Loser treadmill time and by Christmas I'll be a rockstar. Or something.

What's your favorite day of the week for workouts? What are your long workout days?

Any suggestions for new music? I'm probably going to be rocking the Grand Canyon profile again (sorry Fred) but I need new music. I'm also thinking about making the FIT class a simulation of the trip, just to milk this trip for all it's worth. Don't judge, I'm sucking creative fumes these days with all the essays and such I've written lately.

On that note, A&P II is done tomorrow! I'm thinking I'm going to take my exam first thing in the morning so I won't have to worry about it tomorrow night. Then I'll have 2 blessed weeks of academic freedom until fall semester starts. That's going to be MUCH easier though. I'm hoping my workout routine will find its place in my life again and I'll be able to keep it up much more during the next few months.

Tonight I need to finish the last 30 pages of reading, come up with a FIT routine, come up with a spin playlist, and avoid the temptation to sew the latest quilting project:

Laugh if you want, but quilting makes me money...therapy costs money. It's financially responsible. Really.

UPDATE: 
Also teaching FIT on the 29th. Hopefully I can work out some of the kinks before I start my own class in a month.

Oops

you know when you offer to do someone a favor and you don't really mean it, you just want to make sure they're covered, but then they call your bluff? Well, that's what means I'm teaching FIT on Tuesday night at 6:30. First full-length class, and will likely be a circuit of some sort because I don't have time to come up with and rehearse a full routine before then. Come for the butt whooping, stay for the iced coffee they have downstairs. w00t.