Working Out Far From Home in a Confined Area

Hey Guys--


Hannah B. is apparently not fluent in blogger German and asked us to post this.  It's obviously awesome.  Read it below.  


It features a Zuzana reference, who you should be all too familiar with because I constantly reference her... and her video is in another post below this.  


p*killah
_______________
Greetings from Germany! Being abroad and traveling and all that has made my sisters and I super motivated to work out (ya know, eating every meal out, desserts, car trips, Christmas markets ugghhhh i hate it but i donttt) and so we've been trying to develop some workouts that can be done in a relatively short amount of time in a relatively constrained area, ie hotel rooms. I figured these might be good things to post on the blog for people who are in the same position aka away from home/tennis shoes, etc! The idea is a basic, fairly simple workout structured around differing exercises. Most of these exercises are taken from past softball conditioning and/or adapted from http://www.bodyrock.tv/category/daily-workouts/all-workouts/ -- a site designed by Zuzana, this crazy super-hot eastern european fitness model who basically just kicks your ass and attempts to get you looking like her...which if you look at her pictures is motivation enough, not to add fit frisbee points to the bonus! Not going to lie some of those shots of her doing squats DEFINITELY border on pornographic but HEY WHATEVER GETS YOU MOTIVATED. Anyways, I've tried to describe the basic idea of the workout below, and if you're curious and/or want to have washboard abs and an ass like iron, check out the website!!

THE WORKOUT
All of these workouts follow a basic timing structure -- 5 exercises for 50 seconds each, with 10 seconds rest in between each exercise, and all of that repeated 3 times for a total of 15 minutes. I always do a bit of cardio beforehand (running up and down the hotel stairs twice or something) and stretching afterwards, taking a total of about 23 minutes, and all totally possible within the hotel or house closest to you!

*The great part about this workout is that you can mix and match exercises to suit your fancy! Just make sure you get a good mix of abs/arms/legs, but that's fairly easy as Zuzana is really good about beating you into shape.

Exercise options!
Exercise 1 - Sumo squats. Squat, then shift your weight left and being your right leg up to your chest, so you look kind of like a kickboxer. Bring that leg back down, squat, then repeat with your left leg.
Exercise 2 - Kamikaze. Start in plank position, up on your hands. Swoop down, as if you were going into cobra position in yoga, but don't let your legs touch the ground. Then push yourself back up. More of the same.
Exercise 3 - Split jump lunges. Do a lunge, then instead of just putting the other foot in front of the last one, jump into that position. Repeat with both legs.
Exercise 4 - V-ups. We all know what these are. Yeah, they suck.
Exercise 5 - Plank position, hands on the ground. Alternate lifting each leg up, while keeping your back flat.
Exercise 6 - Burpees! Add a pushup, for those overachievers out there.
Exercise 7 - Intense pushups. Get in push up position, do one, then move both your hands to the right, pivoting on your feet so it's an ab workout. Do a pushup, and then go back to the original spot and repeat.
Exercise 8 - Sleeping crab. Get in crab position, then alternate lifting your left hand/right leg and then right hand/left leg up. Go as fast as you can!
*Also, feel free to add any exercises to the list that you want! Just make sure you can do them all out of 50 seconds, so you break a sweat.
FYI, all of her other exercises are here: http://www.bodyrock.tv/category/daily-workouts/all-exercises/

So, your workout should look like:
Exercise 1 - 50 seconds, 10 seconds rest
Exercise 2 - 50 seconds, 10 seconds rest
Exercise 3 - 50 seconds, 10 seconds rest
Exercise 4 - 50 seconds, 10 seconds rest
Exercise 5 - 50 seconds, 10 seconds rest

If this (http://miyoparker.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/zuzana-bodyrock1.jpg) isn't inspiration, then this (http://fiveultimate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/georgia.jpg) should be!!!

Love and sore legs,
Hannah B

Shaving Time Off Your Mile

Hey All--

Never have I ever actively tried to shave time off my mile!  I talked to a few runners and consulted the internet to bring you this post, BUT this would be a great time for someone with more expertise to chime in.  Here are some general things I learned:

1. Depending on where your starting point is, just going out and running and training in any way shape or form will probably improve your mile, particularly if you haven't done a lot of running to train before.  So there is no need to be intimidated or over-think this!  Hooray!
2. Setting a goal for your mile is an integral part of training.  Not only does it help motivate you, but it also is really important for bullet point number three...
3. You should do interval runs at the pace you are striving to achieve or faster.  I'll use the indoor track at Grinnell as an example we are all familiar with: Start with running the straights (55s) at the pace you need to achieve your goal, and walk or jog the curves.  Work up to running longer distances at that faster pace and increasing the speed at which you run your "off" intervals.
4. You'll need to run more than a mile sometimes in order to get your mile time down.  You shouldn't need to go much more over 5 miles, and anything you can do will help.  
5. Make sure to keep track of your progress (actively time your mile every once and while to see how much harder you need to work), but don't get frustrated by little differences.  I know I personally vary a tremendous amount in my mile time, and this can be caused by hydration, sleep, the air quality, temperature, etc.  

Missing from this post that other people should contribute: 

• Is there a good schedule people have used to improve their mile (ex: the rotation between "long" days, "short" days, "on" days,  and "off" days?)
• Any suggestions for doing useful intervals without a great way to measure distance (for people who are just running outside)?
• Any more specific interval suggestions besides "do them"?  ex: Are 400s more useful than 800s, etc.

Love, love, love!

Paigey

Initial Thoughts on Getting Ripped

Hi guys--

This is the first post I wrote for the blog last year, and I think it will be useful for workouts this year too. There is a lot of good basic information everyone should know followed by a whole body strength workout almost anybody should be able to do without equipment. 


Hope this is helpful!
p*killah

First and foremost:
If you are injured or rehabbing an injury, that is your most important job over break.  Disregard everything else and listen to your body, your doctor, and your grandma.  Additionally, please exercise good judgment while working out.  It is 100% better to take it slow at first than be injured when we come back to school.

Here are a few general thoughts about what you should keep in mind when you workout:

• Do cardio intervals instead of going straight through
• This means that whatever your chosen cardio activity is (running, biking, jump rope, etc.), alternate going easy for two minutes and then as hard as you can for one minute for a total of 30 minutes.  This is a general guideline for where to start, but if you need to tweak those times to be safe or effectively push yourself, do it, guuuurl!  Before starting interval training, make sure to warm up and stretch because jumping into going as hard as you can with only a two minute warmup sounds silly.  You can do this training up to six days a week, but make sure to give yourself a rest day, and don't start too quickly.  If you need more rest days, add them. 
• Strength training starts with your core, and, fortunately, it is one of the easiest parts of your body to work out in your living room with your grandma.  A great way to start is by doing a core circuit.  Reasonable progress is adding 5 seconds or 2 reps per week, so strive for that.  This is a workout sent to me by Melissa at Ultimate Results and is designed specifically for ultimate.  You can safely do core workouts pretty often, and striving to do this 2-5 times per week would be awesome.  Please post feedback about this workout so I can share it with her.
• Plank -- 15 seconds
• Side Plank -- 15 seconds each side
• Supine Bridge -- 15 seconds and make sure to squeeze your butt
• Single Leg Lifts -- 6 reps each leg; this is hard to do correctly, but watch the video.  If you can manage to legitimately engage your abs to lift your leg, this is a great exercise.  If you really are struggling, post a comment, and you can just skip it.  Do give it a try, though. 
• Side Crunch -- 15 reps each side
• Hip Thrusts -- 10 reps
• V-ups -- 10 reps
• The following are meant to be done with a medicine ball, but you can do them with anything.  Start with something that weighs about 4 pounds (puppy?) but make sure to adjust it to push yourself or, more importantly, ensure you have proper body positioning. 
• Russian Twists -- 10 each side
• Figure 8's -- 20
• Single leg chop -- 10 each side
• All 3 of these are explained on this page
• Twist pass  -- 10 each side; you'll need grandma for this one
• It is also important to strength train your legs so you can increase your explosive power and also sky the crap out of opponents.  Give yourself at least one day in between strength training your legs so you don't overtrain.  Here are just a couple to get you started:
• Wall Sits
• Squats
• Split Squats
• Calf raises -- You can do these on a raised surface, like stairs, to make them more difficult
• Working on arm and back strength is also important.  This is one aspect that is made significantly easier if you have access to a gym, and people who can do that should post.  I'm going to highlight a few things you can do for arm strength without a gym.  Like leg strength, you should give yourself a rest day in between working these muscle groups.
• Pushups -- a veteran favorite.  Almost as old as Brett Favre.  
• Tricep Dips 
• The following are demonstrated with fancy weights, but you can use anything to provide weight, like a couple of soup cans or your baby cousin.  
• Bicep Curls 
• Shoulder Press
• Lateral Raises

Okay, maybe that will help get you guys started?  Please remember to email if you want to become a contributor and remember to post on the google doc!

Some Workout Options

 This is again stolen from Oberlin.  Duh.


Here are a few options to get you started with the workout routine we suggest.  Look for more to be posted in the near future!


Cardio Options:

• 30 minutes of running, elliptical, biking.  You should run intervals (1 minute sprint, 2 minute jog; alternate sprinting and jogging between  telephone poles, etc.).  You can adjust the time or distance between intervals depending on how you are feeling.  
• If you don't have access to a gym and live somewhere where the roads are too icy to run on, try: Jump rope or run up and down your stairs.  Jump roping is REALLY hard, so experiment with how long you can do it for (you should still be doing intervals for this).

Core Options:
Ball core workout
Core workout we've been doing
Yoga core workout

Strength Option:
5 x 20 Circuit:  (This will be hard.)

• Do three sets of the following things with a 1 minute rest in between each thing.  You can make it more difficult by decreasing the rest time.  Conversely, you can make it easier by increasing the rest time. 
  

• 3 sets of: 
• 20 x Push-ups  
• 20/leg x Lunges (add dumbbells to increase difficulty)  
• 20 x Burpees 
• 20 x Kettlebell Swings (you can probably find something to subtitute for the kettlebell)  
• 20 x Box jumps (you get the idea)

Hand Eye Options:
Click here!

How to Use this Blog

Hey Guys--


Welcome to the blog of fun!  First, we need to give a lot of credit to the Oberlin Praying Manti.  This workout routine is largely based off of their winter break routine and the text is semi-plagiarized... but we'll just call that "patch writing" (it is a real thing).  Oberlin is awesome, a team like us, and we love them dearly.

You should aim to be working out at least 5 days a week.  You can definitely work out 6 days a week as well, but make sure to give yourself at least one rest day. Below is a schedule that we recommend you try.  It tries to balance when you are working on things and giving your body enough time to rest.  When planning your workouts for a particular day, think about this 7 day cycle. 

Day 1 - cardio, strength
Day 2- cardio, core, hand eye
Day 3- off day!
Day 4 - cardio, hand eye
Day 5 - off day!
Day 6 - strength, core
Day 7 - cardio, core, hand eye.

On this blog, the captains/your teammates will post about cool workouts they have tried to fulfill these requirements.  Everyone should feel free to contribute to this blog.  If you email us, we'll add you as a contributor (you have to have a blogger address), or you can just add your workout ideas as a comment.  This blog ONLY works if people contribute and read/apply the workouts on it.  It is an amazing tool for getting in shape, so make sure to take advantage of it!

Remember remember remember to please record your workouts on the Google Doc

Love,
Caps