January Cross Training: Week 4 #xtrainJan16

Well, I have to say that week 4 of this project has definitely been the toughest. Frankly, I’m running out of new workouts to do. Not that there aren’t tons of things I haven’t tried, but accessing and scheduling these things is definitely a science. Two weekends in row of travel didn’t help either. But alas, we have made it to the end. I think I have taken more selfies this month than the cumulative sum of the rest of my life. I’m sure my Instagram friends will be happy for a break from that.

Saturday, Jan 23 – Hotel Burpee Bonanza

Today I am staying in a hotel and am scheduled nonstop from 7:30am to 8:00ish pm for a press tour. My press tour companions were super helpful in coming up with weird and wacky ideas for my daily workout, but in the end I settled for my friend Carrie’s suggestion 10 minutes of one minute burpee intervals with one minute rest between. Only, after the first minute of burpees, I became keenly aware of the fact that I was not going to make it through a second set of 1 minute burpees. So instead, I did one minute intervals of other things, like mountain climbers and pushups, alternating with more burpee reps.  I lasted 12 minutes before I decided I didn’t want to die alone in my hotel room.

Sunday, Jan 24 – Kinect Adventures!

I do this workout a lot when I want something challenging but fun. Adventures! was one of the first games that xbox made for the Kinect, Since I had been gone most of the weekend, the workout was also family time, as the kids got in on the action in 2 player mode. You can pilot a whitewater raft, race through an obstacle course, or play my favorite – ralley ball. It takes pictures of you while you play, which is also entertaining.

Monday, Jan 25 – Tabata

While researching other fitness programs and workouts, I had come across Tabata a few times, but wasn’t really sure what it was.  Essentially, it’s a workout where you work for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds in between. I grabbed Cardio Tabata from BodyFit by Amy on YouTube. Definitely a good workout and easy to follow. The short reps keep things moving, which in turn makes the workout go by pretty quickly.  My friend Lisa sent me a Tabata app that you can use to make your own Tabata workouts (or there are several on Pinterest).

Tuesday, Jan 26 – Aqua Fit

Water aerobics is always a nice, relaxing workout for me. It brings back memories of swimming with my grandmother, who taught water aerobics into her 90s, and also of being pregnant with my kiddos, because I did prenatal water aerobics. I wasn’t surprised to find a large class of mostly older ladies, but I was surprised to find my neighbor and friend, Bri, in the class. She is expecting her first baby and said that the classes have really been great for her (she normally does cross-fit). Water aerobics are fun because you can do things in the water you can’t do on land, like lay on your side and move your legs around in a circle like a helicopter.

Wednesday, Jan 27 – The Mix

I think this was my favorite class that I took at the Ozark Community Center this month. The Mix is half spin class (so about 20 minutes) followed by weights. The class is different every time, so you never know what you’ll get. This appeals to my slight ADHD. In the class I did, we finished with two suicides, aka shuttle runs, on the basketball court.  Haven’t done those since high school!  I almost died, but it was fun!! I’m planning to incorporate this one into my regular routine.

Thursday, Jan 28 – Nope.

Another fail day! One of the points of this project is to test how accessible and efficient different workouts are for me, to show myself that there’s always some type of workout that I can do every day, no matter where I am. However, some days just come tumbling down on your head, and when you hurry to pick the pieces up, a few get kicked under the couch. On purpose. Today my workout got kicked under the couch.

Friday, Jan 29 – Group Cycle

I have done the group cycle classes at the OC a few times, and they are always an intense workout, but only for your legs. Your upper body doesn’t get much work at all. I like the class ok, but it is a little too long for me, so I sometimes start to lose interest/focus. It also doesn’t really translate well to real life cycling, so I don’t feel like it helps much with getting ready to ride outside, whereas riding my bike on my trainer does. So, I don’t know that I’ll go back to the spin class anytime soon.

Saturday, Jan 30 – Personal Trainer?

Craig has been working out very seriously for quite a while now. He’s done lots of research and tweaking and is getting great results from his fitness and diet program. I finally talked him into taking me through his workout. We were in Las Vegas for his archery tournament, so he couldn’t really do a workout, but the resort we stayed at had a really nice gym and we wanted to take advantage. We started out with 5×5 weights, which just means you do 5 sets of 5 reps for each exercise.  By the time I got to the last circuit, I was exhausted! Then, he had me do tabata sprints – 8 reps of sprinting for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds jogging. We did this on a treadmill, which was a challenge, but Craig stood on the side of my treadmill and pushed the buttons for me.  It made me feel like a biggest looser contestant.

Sunday, Jan 31 – FitStar App

We were still in Vegas, and I was hoping to find something really fun as a grand finale to this project. For a moment it looked like we might be able to go take a trapeeze class, but it ended up conflicting with Craig’s shoot time. Our room was on the 20th floor, so I was considering running up the stairs just to see if I could (I’ve never run 20 flights before). But, our room had a great view of the mountains, and on Sunday morning there were all these crazy storm clouds coming in, so I decided to do my workout in front of the window to enjoy the view.

I downloaded the FitStar app to my phone and was surprised to find that it is narrated by Tony Gonzalez. You first go through a fit test to gauge your starting level. As far as what is free, you get access to about 4 beginner level workouts, none of which are more than 15 minutes long.  Anything else requires a subscription of $8 per month or $40 per year. I ended up stacking three of the free workouts to make one. The only problem with that is that each individual exercise has a file that goes along with it that has to be downloaded. If you are somewhere with slow wifi, it takes forever. I liked the workouts, and the audible ques make it easy to do the workout without having to look at the screen, so I might keep FitStar for travel backup, but I don’t think I would pitch in for a membership at this point.

What’s next?

In February my plan is to try to get a regular weekly schedule down, i.e., Monday – swim, Tuesday – bike trainer, Wednesday – The Mix class, and so on.  I’m hoping to still try something new at least one day a week. (This week I tried a rebound class (on a trampoline) and it was a blast. I’ll also do one more post on this project to talk about my favorite classes, lessons and results, and so on. If you have questions, let me know in the comments here and I’ll try to address them!

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