I’ve been noticing lately that I seem to be floundering in my workouts recently. Now what do I mean by floundering? I’ve just not been able to keep a rhythm going and seemed bored all the while trying to get it together. With that I sought the help from some fellow blogger friends and the advice I was given was that it’s time to change things up a bit. When we start to flounder in our workout, our bodies and muscles adapt to our routine and we’ll reach a plateau. Great advice!
Here’s what we did to spruce things up!
Instead of a longer 3-4 mile run, we only did a 2 mile ‘quick’ run. We ran it faster than we normally would have to really get the heart rate up and wake-up those leg muscles a little more.
At the end of mile one, my lungs were yelling at me, “what the heck are you doing?” I rested for about 3 minutes (and snapped a few pictures, of course) before starting mile two.
I’m pleased with my time.
After our run we decided to do a HIIT workout. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training and is a set of exercises that you do as fast as you can in a set amount of time with a only a few seconds of rest in-between each group. This set of exercises is repeated to reach a total workout time of 4-8 minutes. Yes, I just said 4-8 minutes! Crazy to think that you can get a good workout in such a short amount of time, but that’s the idea is to get your heart rate up quickly and really work the muscles and feel the burn.
Here are the exercises we included in our HIIT workout today.
We timed each other and did each exercise for 20 seconds, rested for 10 seconds and repeated the series twice = 4 minutes of HIIT. Get it?
Wall Balls…or for us, Tree Balls 🙂
Plank Row to Burpees
Wood Chops
Thrusters
I finished up the workout with #Planks! Are you still following the Plank Challenge? I can honestly say I can feel such a difference in my abs and core since starting the challenge a couple of weeks ago. I’m also up to a record time of 3 minutes! Woop!
There ya have it! If you too are ‘floundering’ or are simply in need of something different for your own workouts, the @blondeponytail has a great YouTube channel and demos all of her workouts! I learn by seeing and doing so having someone actually show me how to do each exercise is just what I need! <3
Moving on to recovery…I am loving this new Amplified Wheybolic Extreme Protein Powder from @GNCLiveWell! The vanilla is what we bought because I like having the option of adding my own flavorings to it like left-over coffee, caramel or chocolate powder, etc—Hola! It mixes so well and does not feel heavy on my stomach like others I’ve tried and it packs a whopping 60 gms of protein per serving!
What do you do to vary your routine when you get bored?
I’ve added some new “types of runs” to my training schedule. Speed Workouts, hill training, and “Negative Split” runs [in which I run 3-5 miles, each mile faster than the last] have added a nice change of pace [no pun intended] to my workouts. And I think it makes me even more appreciative for the simply “easy paced” runs that used to seem so boring, too!
Thanks Heather. When I do faster runs, the slower ones seem a *little* more easier the next time. 😉
Thanks for visiting my YouTube! You look amazing doing the workouts! I hope you enjoyed–love the idea of an outdoor wall ball workout using the tree!
Thanks Jess! I’ve so enjoyed reading your blog and watching your workout videos! (And I’ve learned soooo much, too!)
I’m such a believer in interval training/tabatas! It makes the biggest difference in strength, gains and energy! I especially love see you work outside! Vitamin D for free! Ya’ll look great!
I really enjoyed doing it for the first time. It’s crazy to think you can jam pack such a workout in 4 minutes. My legs are sore from it! Love it!