The Four D's to Success.

Training at the track was an an extremely enjoyable experience today.  Today (by accident) this was my fifth time working out this week vs. the 4x I normally work out.  Generally speaking BC is an sufficient amount of work out to drive the changes I want to make, however I signed up for a personal trainer 1x per week to get specific instruction for my individual needs since BC is more of a general type of work out.  It just so happens that I lost track of the days this week and thought Wednesday was Thursday and ended up working out an extra day.  Once I got to the gym and realized my BC group wasn't there (and why would they be? Its not Thursday) I just spent the hour doing cardio (tread mill, stair climber and elliptical).


In my personal sessions I generally spend some time running, stretching (at least one hour) and lastly I focus on my core.  Well today as I was going through my stretching my trainer mentions to me that his 50 years of experience has lead him to believe success has 4 components to it.  He labeled success as having 4 D's and besides paying attention to them closely I thought I would tell you about them too.


Desire
Determination
Discipline 
Diet


I also want to spend a quick second recapping for myself how I have used the 4D's in my life.

Desire- This is obviously the foundation of it all right.  To want to do something is half the battle. I desire to be a healthier person who has conquered this yo-yo diet lifestyle.  I wanted to be in control of my life, weight, and dress size.  Anyone who knows me right now knows how bad I wanted to loose weight/get in shape and knows what I was willing to do to achieve this goal.  I signed up for BC... need I say more.

Determination-Once I made my mind up that I wanted to do something about my fitness situation or lack there of, I was very focused or determined to achieving my goals.  I knew that this process would take time and a lot of energy and thought either way I have to do it.  Giving up was not an option for me (this time) because I wanted this change so bad.  For some reason feeling unhealthy took me away from who I saw myself as.  Being unhealthy affected all areas of my life both professional and personal in a negative way and thus I was unhappy.  This feeling of wanting to focus on this aspect of my life overtook me and has carried me to where I am.  Half way through.  I continue to revisit the idea of staying determined to stay focused.

Discipline-One of the greatest traits that I have had to learn over time is discipline.  I use many external and internal factors to help me accomplish my goals, such as will power, motivation, and self control which go hand and hand with discipline. You might hear me even rationalize through this processes as I blog sometime in the morning when I am deciding to go or not to go to the gym.  It takes discipline to wake up at 4am, it takes motivation to get up and put my clothes on, further more to even walk outside in the cold and drive 15 min away to a gym when I so much would rather stay in bed.  It takes self control to change my eating to mainly fish/chicken and veggies when I really want  1 cheese enchilada with a shredded beef taco (with sour cream) Thank You!  Really what I have come to understand is that discipline is freedom.  Freedom from the excuses not to live your best life everyday! 

Diet- I have come to understand we are what we eat period.  Taking time to understand foods and how eating less of the bad foods and more of the good foods has simply allowed me to change my body size.  I guess this wasn't the hardest part of this process since eating healthy for the most part has been a part of my life since I got married to a fitness guru, however eating too much or eating fast food when time got away from me became easier as I got busy.  It became evident as time went on that if I want to be healthy and look the part, something was gonna have to change.  I can only work out so much, so changing my eating habits had to be the component that I change if I want to see further results.  This is and will always be a work in progress since I love good food. Learning how to prepare foods in a healthy way and eat less of the bad foods have been key for me.  Once I learned about eating fiber foods, overeating became less of a threat as well as taking time to prepare and pack lunches.  The extra time is worth the results I am seeing.

Cadence- Get It Up!

Spinning Thursday's evolves right before our eyes.  It starts in a cycling room where we get on our bikes (after sizing it for our height and preference). how-to-set-up-a-spinning-bike. Our bikes don't have gears like a normal outdoor bike might have, but simply a resistance knob that turns to the left or right to set resistance.  The normal starting speed of cycling for me is usually moderate.  At the starting point there is a need to get your legs warm and ready for the class which is where we all begin.  As we sit through this process (John our instructor) starts setting up an obstacle course right in front of us.  This process can take 5-10 minutes. 

Today he set 2 dumb bells at the base of our bikes and then set mats randomly next to one another, then he set up step raises far enough from each other so we have room to jump, run, or zig zag our way through them.  At the other end we did (with weights in hand) sit ups, mountain climbers, and planks.  On the back end of the exercises we held our weights up over our heads while on our backs and while our legs were lifted over our head moved our legs from side to side. We also did a few sets of lunges with our weights in our hands back and forth a few times.

All exercises are done in between spurts on the bike. John emphasised the need to ensure our cadence was at a strong enough speed that we were burning enough.  Even though the cadence that I prefer is at a moderate speed, being that this is boot camp was pushed to Get It Up to a speed that brings discomfort.  I'm sure the outcome means more calories burned, increased endurance, and strength~ but it's still hard.

Circuit Training~ Tuesday's

This week I am slowly transitioning back into my exercise routine.  Last week I threw my back out and could hardly move.  Anytime you stop working out for a week it always feels like you are starting over so I had to account and prepare for more soreness, fatigue, and loss of strength during my work out.  I am not sure if that is all in my head but that is my experience so I will go with that.  Tuesday's work outs are usually circuit training of which are what I enjoy the most out of all of my boot camp days. 

Today we started running (here we go... I am very tired and running seemed to be a challenge for me) but I pushed through the feeling of wanting to stop after 1-2 minutes.  I find that once I push myself over that hump, I usually find myself on the other side of the run happy as I look at the time on the treadmill as it reads 10-15 min and I am a jogging little fool.

We start off with circuit training which simply put is a combination of different resistance/aerobic exercises.  Generally its not designed to be very difficult (which is probably why I like it) but more so tailored to be specific to training certain muscle groups with the hope of increasing muscle and endurance. 

They call it circuit training because you do a set of certain exercises on different machines traditionally for 30-60 seconds.  Our trainer (John) did it a little different for us this time.  He had us do 3 sets with the highest intensity we could handle for a set of 10 then lowering the resistance to the next weight for another set of 10 with the last set of the lowest weight class for a total of 30 that were done with no break back to back. 
We moved from machine to machine working body parts such as chest, back, shoulders, legs, arms, and core.

In between the circuit we did exercises on mats to break it up:
25 sit ups
25 burpee's
20 oblique crunches on each side.

Getting back to the basics!

The Track is Heating Up!

My work routine consist of boot camp 3x per week and one Saturday session of the track for personal trainer.  My Personal Trainer is an expert in Physical Therapy and is an amazing coach.  My sessions are usually split into some PT with the remaining part of the session we work out on my legs and core.

I started my session today running the track.  2 laps (walked one and ran one)

Next we go into about 4 or 5 stretches and then he stretches my hips and legs which is part of the PT.

The exercises I worked on today were

• hip rotations 4x
• squats 
• squats with a resistance band going from one side to another 4 times. 

When the work out and stretches were over I did 2 more laps. (walked one ran one) 

In Phoenix its getting hot so this was all done at 1pm in the day.  Definitely a hot day so 

we agreed workouts would be moved to the morning now that we are heading towards the 

summer heat! 

What is a Burpee?

Waking up this morning was difficult but again pushed through those feelings using my typical motivation of it being Friday and once this 60 minutes of exercise is over then I can begin my weekend.  When I arrived at the gym for BC my group was setting up down stairs (already a red flag that today would be hard).  We begin with running around the gym starting with 5 laps.  We went right into doing our sit ups and the routine I have listed below.  All exercises were done 3 times. 

Sit ups- set of 50

Burpee is a full body exercise that is used to strength training. There are a few variations to this exercise, even some that are less challenging than the one we did such as the non-jump burbee.  To do a burbee you would do the following. 

1. Begin in a standing position.
2. Drop into a squat position with your hands on the ground.
3. Kick your feet back while lowering yourself without a push up.
4. Return your feet to the squat position while straightening your arms.
5. Leap up as high as possible from the squat position with your arms overhead (you may not clap your hands above your head at the peak of your jump)

Burpee Example

Ab Roller Ab Roller Example

Bicep curls 15x with resistance bands

Throwing a heavy resistance ball to our coach 

Running a lap

3 sets of suicides 

3 sets of this routine

2 sets of lunges

Wall sits with 15lb weights

Leg holds 60 seconds. 

   

BC!

Boot camp was uneventful today.  Started out running for 10 minutes then off to circuit training.  I realized today that he usually splits the work out when we do circuit training to two different sets of exercises. 

Upper and Lower

• Squats with resistance bands (30lbs)
• Push ups and in between we had to step over 4 stacked step ups.
• Lunges with a 16lbs core ball
• Leg curls

After we finished 3 sets of these exercises we moved to upper body and core and did 3 sets of upper as well.

• Planks for 1 min
• 15 bicep curls
• 15 tricep reps
• 1 min of tread mill on a level 2 incline running at 6.0mph (although I did 5.0mph)

When we were finished we got on the stair master for 3min and then I was done!

I Can't Do It!

This morning was a bit of a challenge to get up and go to boot camp.  I was a little tired but mainly just didn't want to go.  I thought of 50 reasons why I should go and still couldn't motivate myself to get out of the bed.  4:40am and I am still not up and I know that if I am not out of this house in 5 minutes I will be late.  Finally the thought that motivated me clicked into place like a key unlocking a lock when I thought of the amazing results I have been seeing in my body.  Yesterday as I looked at my legs and shockingly realized that they are getting toned enough for that swim suit that I couldn't wear last year.. Yep I realized that I am ready for it and at that moment when this thought passed in my brain at 4:40am with about 21 more seconds to go before it became 4:41am I popped out of bed threw my clothes on and was off.

I was a little late but I made it! 5:08 am and I am sitting on my spin bike in BC vs. laying in my bed wishing I was at BC I immediately feel great.  I am spinning and spinning and I can see John (my instructor) setting up for our obstacle course.  He has planned something very fun and challenging no doubt, mean while all 10 of us spin spin spin until we are told to get off of our bikes and start our obstacle course.

Between our 5 min bike push we are to do the following:

Lunges on a with a bosu ball with weights 15x on each leg

Squats Jumps over steps 5 x

 

Sprints~ I found this picture of this girl with an amazing body... and thought I should run more!

Next we did step ups with a core ball 16lbs 15 each leg followed by curls and tri's.

When I got to the triceps I found it challenging to lift the weight (since we were laying on our backs)and allowed myself to get so frustrated that I wanted to quit.  I was the only one who couldn't lift the bar and felt so embarrassed. John my instructor had to help me until he eventually lighted the 40lbs weight down to 20lbs which was more feasible to lift.  I now have a new goal to work on so that next time I am faced with this challenging exercise I don't feel so lame!