Finally Fit in 2010: Secrets from Belly Bootcamp

the trainer’s toolbox

We'll bet the farm this resolution is on your list....

Resolution déjà vu?  Make that fitness resolution for the last time this year and finally achieve it with these secrets from the popular Belly Bootcamp fitness classes for modern mommies.

Start by choosing a realistic goal with a specific timeline – instead of “I want to lose all my baby weight,” try “I will weigh 145 pounds by April 1” or “I will run a 10K race on May 20.”  Then break that goal down into manageable steps – figure out how many pounds you need to lose per week or per month, or how many minutes you need to run each week as you work your way up to your jogging goal, for example.

Got your goal set and your path laid out?  Every fitness achievement starts with effective workouts (and a healthy dose of willpower).  Take a page from the Belly Bootcamp bible and steal these women’s fitness secrets that help our mommies get their fittest ever:

1. super sets (and circuits) are super. Structure your workout so you perform two exercises working different muscles back-to-back.  Try pairing up one leg exercise with one upper body exercise or one core exercise with any large muscle move using the legs, back or chest.  Complete one set of each in succession, then rest 30-60 seconds before your next set. Cardio junkies will love squeezing in 1-5 minutes of sprinting, cycling or stepping as well – try completing one circuit of 8-10 different exercises, then a bit of cardio before completing a final set of each exercise.
2. power up your cardio. Interval training uses short bouts of high-intensity cardio (approximately 85% of maximum heart rate) with periods of active rest (65-75% of MHR) to blast off more calories in less time and boost your metabolism for hours after you step off the treadmill.  After a 5-10 minute warmup, try 1 minute running as hard as you can with 2 minutes jogging or speedwalking; repeat 6 times and cool down.
3. use your downtime. Instead of completing a set and resting 1-2 minutes before starting again, recover those lost minutes by performing a lighter exercise while you recover from your main move.  Try a standing shoulder press while you rest your legs or some crunches while you rest your back.  By the time you finish those crunches your back will be ready to go again! 
4. go for compound moves. These are the moves that really get your heart rate up in half the time and burn tons of calories by incorporating two exercises into one, such as a squat with a shoulder press or a bent-over row with a triceps kickback. Perform these moves as you would any others, in succession with no rest until you complete the set.  Not for the faint of heart!
5. know how much is too much. There is a difference between feeling “the burn” and feeling like you’re about to pass out.  Your workout should be challenging enough to make you grit your teeth a bit as you finish those last few reps or the last few minutes of your cardio.  If you breeze through it, it’s not stimulating your muscles and brain enough to make the impact you’re looking for.  If it’s downright painful or causes faintness, dizziness, or extreme fatigue, chances are you’ll burn out or become injured long before you’ve had a chance to reach that goal of yours. 

One last secret of Belly Bootcampers?  You can get fit without a gym membership, without much equipment and without spending a lot of money.  For tons of trainer-tested exercises you can do at home or to try a Belly Bootcamp class near you, visit www.fitfamily.ca or www.bellybootcamp.ca.

life is tough

personal trainer diary

wine, please...

Oh boy, today I could really pack it all in and run off to an ashram.  I would consider trading my husband, child and career for a lifetime of peace and happiness.

My daughter, C, has been feverish and sick all week.  Last night was the worst of it.  3 a.m. brought a round of hacking and coughing so powerful it woke her from her hot and sticky toddler sleep.  I could hear the rustle of her blankets on the baby monitor and I knew.  That familiar feeling of panic struck my heart… she was awake.  And, so, I was awake… for the day… at 3 a.m.

Two hours later, with much whining, hubby finally took her out of our bed (where she had been definitely NOT sleeping for two hours and instead nursing, kicking, crying and pinching me) to give me a 20-minute nap before I left to see a client at 6:00 a.m.

That’s right.

When she was younger I may have cancelled poor G.  He and his wife, S, have been clients of mine for a couple of years now.  That’s the lovely S you’ll see in the recent Move of the Month photos, in fact.  There is just something about G & S… almost without fail, if the baby decides to go all nocturnal on me, it’s a night before I have an early morning appointment with one (or both) of them.  I could not cancel again.  Truthfully, I have few interrupted sleeps anymore.  C began sleeping through the night around 12 months and the blips are few and far between (irony gods, please don’t strike me down now… where is some wood I can knock on?) so I don’t have much right to complain anymore.

But I will definitely, positively, not be exercising today.  And I’m 100% okay about it.  Because rest is crucial to my fitness and crucial to the continued survival of my family.  Hide the sharp knives… mommy needs a nap.

falling off the wagon should hurt a bit

family fitness

Ah, February…  slush is in the streets, love is in the air and everybody in the whole, freakin’ world is in the gym.  At least for a few more weeks.  As New Year’s Resolutions get a little fuzzier and the temperatures get a little warmer, many gymgoers struggle to stay committed.  And sometimes, you just have to party.

So if you’ve been partying a bit, or feeling under the weather, or sleeping in and missing your step class, or – as in the case of my client, S – you’ve been under doctor’s orders to abstain from exercise for two weeks – you might be wondering how to get yourself started again.  Here are some strategies I always recommend to clients as they re-mount the metaphorical wagon after a hiatus.

• Establish a goal. When you’ve been inactive, it can be difficult to get the momentum up to return to regular exercise and you may find yourself unmotivated because it’s harder, you’re more tired than usual and you feel less confident than you would had you been consistently exercising all along.  Check out the Canada Running Series to find an upcoming 5K or 10K walk or run, or have a fitness assessment done by a personal trainer and schedule a follow-up in 6-8 weeks.  Your personal trainer should help you set healthy, realistic goals based on the results of your original assessment.  Generally, 1-2 pounds per week is a healthy rate of weight loss.

• Get to the heart of things. Muscular strength is retained for several weeks up to several months after an exerciser becomes inactive; however, cardiovascular capacity begins to deteriorate virtually with the first missed workout.  Strict bedrest, severe illness or injury will cause greater levels of “detraining” than merely falling off the wagon, taking a lazy vacation or catching cold for a week or two.  Three cardiovascular workouts per week are required just to maintain cardiovascular capacity; you should take it up to 4-5 cardiovascular workouts of at least 20-30 minutes in the first couple of weeks back.  If you’re focusing on building your cardio back up, do the cardio portion of your workouts before the strength portion.

• Start a new program. There’s nothing more discouraging than returning to your regular workouts to realize just how out of shape you’ve become.  Instead, begin a new program when you head back to the gym.  We expect to struggle a bit with new exercises or routines and to have sore muscles and fatigue in the day or two after.  You’ll be more interested in mastering a new routine than you would be in “retraining” yourself to get back to the same level you were at before your break.  Aim for 2-3 full-body strength training workouts per week.

• Stretch it out. It’s going to hurt.  Laying in bed, laying on the couch, or laying on a beach chair in the tropics, you’re probably not working your muscles strenuously or with a variety of movements.  Lift tea, drink tea, lift tea, drink tea does not a workout make.  Be sure to stretch your chest, back, legs and hips after your workouts.  Have a comfortable, hot bath or shower (or a sauna, if you have access to one) for 10-15 minutes after your workouts.  You’ll still be stiff, but you may be lucky enough to be stiff for only one day instead of two after those first workouts.

In a couple of weeks, you’ll barely remember that you ever left the gym in the first place.  A break from exercise can be a great opportunity to revitalize your program and reset your goals.  Take advantage and enjoy those aches and pains – if your body didn’t punish you, you might never learn your lesson…

making something from nothing

personal trainer diary

Some weeks, even I struggle to get to the gym.  A bad week for me might mean I only get three workouts in, sandwiched between clients, my daughter’s nap schedule and my attempts to keep our home clean enough to at least stave off visits from Child Protection Services.  A normal week usually finds me at the gym five days, with walking, hiking, shopping, playing and housecleaning filling in my off days but still keeping me off my rear end and on my feet, as a human being was intended to do (If we were meant to sit all day, my butt wouldn’t be numb after an hour of commuting…).

Three days in the gym is my complete and utter bare-ass minimum.  Hmmm… an awful lot of buttock references today… A three-day week means I’ve either been sick or incredibly busy.  It happens from time to time.  To get to the gym three days for a thorough workout might be a success in the week of one of my clients.  For me, the problem with a three-day week is this: three days in the gym means four days NOT in the gym.  And I never like to have the balance of my life tipped toward being less active.  Four days means that at least I have challenged my body most days of the week.  While the body doesn’t really function on the Julian calendar, we measure our days in chunks of seven and I am at my most comfortable when I have made my body work on four to six of those seven days.

I almost didn’t make it this morning.  I rarely schedule an appointment for mid-morning for the plain and simple, selfish fact that I go to the gym in the mid-morning with my daughter (or without if she is with her caregiver) almost every single weekday.  But, ladies, you’ll sympathize when I explain that I have been battling two inches of dark roots for a while here and the only time I could get in to see my lovely stylist, the amazing Jake Surette from House of Glamma, was 10:30 this morning.  I had to be home at 10:00 a.m. to greet my wonderful sister so she could watch the little monkey while I was Glammarized.  So what’s a girl with wretched hair to do?  I packed up that kid at ten minutes to nine and booted off to the gym practically to greet the lovely childcare attendants as they opened.  I dumped her in the childcare room with her snack, hit the treadmill as fast as I could and ran a quick 5K (that’s about a half-hour jog at 6 miles per hour, for those of you who are wondering).  I was back out the door just forty minutes after I arrived.  Strength training?  No.  Sauna?  No.  Shower?  No.  Sweat?  Definitely.

I only got a cardio workout.  I didn’t have a nice, leisurely stretch and sauna.  I still haven’t showered, as I write this, nearly five hours after completing that workout.  Not every workout can be perfect.  Sometimes you might only have twenty minutes to do some calisthenics in your living room.  Maybe you will only be able to lace up your sneakers and walk home from work instead of taking transit or driving.  You might think you have “no” time.  But time is relative, and you can make something from nothing.  You can be active most days of the week and you can make it fit your schedule if you really are committed to keeping your body fit and healthy.

Tomorrow will be workout number four this week and all is right with the world.

Stop Exercising & Get Fit

family fitness

Did that get your attention?

If you’re like me, taking time away from exercise is an exercise in guilt management.  Of course, there are sick days and family emergencies, even work snafoos that might necessarily keep one from the gym here and there.

Then there are those days.  You know those days.  They are the days when you wake up with a headache or you get caught up emailing an old friend and you just don’t make it to your usual workout appointment with yourself.  Those days are the guilty days.  Like that last glass of red wine, those days seem so appealing and often, in retrospect, are not worth all the regret…  If you’ve planned to work out, my advice is to stick to the plan.  This isn’t to say a day off is regrettable.  Days off should be built into your exercise program and adhered to as diligently as days on.

Days off can be great days to go for a walk, go ice skating with the kids or just get some housework done with that extra couple of hours.  During this blissful respite from your ordinary workout routine, your body is doing some miraculous things.  It is repairing its muscle fibers to build them bigger and stronger and to prepare you for your next strength training workout.  It is stocking up on carbohydrates to fuel you for your next walk or jog.  It is resting and relaxing all those tight muscles and tendons.  It is rehydrating.  It is, in essence, getting fitter.  As you play with the kids or just catch up on your favourite TV dramas, your ordinarily active body is luxuriating in some much-deserved time out to process all the work you’ve done over the last few days. Studies have even shown that competitive athletes such as gymnasts, who often train seven days a week for several weeks or months on end, actually gain strength and muscle mass when forced to rest during times of injury.  You don’t have to be that extreme.  You may take one or two days off every week and enjoy those gains on a regular basis rather than pushing yourself to the point of injury.  At least, that would be my recommendation.

When the rest is over you will head back to the gym, the yoga studio, or the track with a clear head and a ready body.  You might even get a bit of housework done in the process…