Staying fit and healthy-even on vacation

So I’m on vacation on the beach this week. Does this mean all my hard work goes down the drain? Of course not! If you really are committed to health and the lifestyle (that means this isn’t a diet or a temporary thing-you live this healthy way all the time) you know you feel best when you workout at least 20-30 minutes a day to get your endorphins raging, to lift your mood and give you energy. You know eating grilled or broiled versus fried makes you feel alive. If you go on vacation and have been living the healthy lifestyle a while, you don’t want to have a whole cheat week otherwise you’re in for some pain. You’ll feel bloated, tired, weak and miserable. Is that how you want to be? Didn’t think so.
So come prepared.
Just bring a cooler, book a room with at least a fridge and pack your fave health foods. Yes you can still eat out with everyone, just remember you’ll feel miserable if you don’t choose something broiled. But if you’re by the ocean, fresh seafood tastes better that way anyways. Yes you can still splurge. I’ve had froyo and other treats, but I’ve upped my water intake to help not feel so miserable from them and limit it to one treat a day ( froyo after dinner with cheesecake bites, get a small daquiri at lunch, have fries with my scallops). You should drink a lot of water anyways because you’re probably in the sun more than usual, you are walking a lot and you need to replenish and often. I brought my 1.5 liter bottles and bought 80 cent gallons of spring water to refill them. I’m drinking about 3-4 liters of water.
Sunscreen is your friend.
If you’re wanting to be healthy in life, its not just about what you eat and drink. Take care of your skin, too. I’m using 30 SPF sport. Putting it on every 2 hours. I’m getting a little color but not too much. I’m not burning. Which is key. Don’t come and get burnt your first day and be miserable the rest of your vacation. Each time you burn your also increasing your chances of skin cancer. Be cautious. If you want to be dark, I suggest faux tans. I personally use the Jergens lotion that darkens you over time. Its awesome and you apply it just like normal lotion. No skin cancer to be had.
Foods I brought
So here’s a list of the stuff I brought to stay pretty healthy plus save money:
Oatmeal
Greek yogurts
Babybel cheese minis
Light string cheese
Organic grapes
Mandarin oranges
Balance bars
Nut mixes
Veggie chips from whole foods (like vegan cheddar kale chips)
Whole wheat bread
No added sodium turkey breast
Thin sliced provolone
Laughing cow wedges
100 cal multi grain English muffins
Natural peanut butter
Natural jelly
Microwaveable brown rice packs
Tuna packs
Salmon packs
Gallons of spring water

Working out
You can run on the beach, find a gym that’ll let you work out for the time you are there, get a hotel with a gym or simply work out in your room. Where I’m staying has a treadmill and a Bowflex. That’s it. So I improvised and used the treadmill for intervals of 30 sec sprints 30 sec jogs for a 10 minute mile. Then I went to my room to do bodyweight exercises! Here’s what I did:

Health is a choice. And its a lifestyle. Don’t stop just because you’re away from home. And you don’t have to deprive yourself of anything. Still stick to 80% whole foods 20% anything else.

Happy travels!

-a

Yoga for the Splits

Here are some great poses to get your hamstrings and inner thighs stretched out.

Top Left: Triangle pose is great to prepare for the deeper stretches. I always start my stretching and yoga practices on my feet, bending more in my hips and simply letting my upper body drop and focus on my breathing. Whether I start with a forward fold or triangle, it’s a great start. For this pose, separate your legs, one in front of the other. Bend your front leg, take your hand opposite of your front leg, place it on the mat next to your foot and breathe, looking up at your other hand that is straight in the air.

Top Middle: Go straight from triangle pose into warrior (or lunge) simply by changing your upper body position to straight up. Find the deepest lunge you can by bending yous front knee more, pushing your back leg as straight and far as you can without dropping your back leg at all. It should be straight, not bent.

Top Right: Bring your back knee down to the floor slowly from Warrior. From this lunge position, straighten your front leg and bring your booty back over your back knee only slightly, you should not look like your are sitting on your back leg at all. Lean your chest down towards your front leg, place your hands on either side of your foot, trying to even get your fingers past your toes by reaching out as far as you can. Breathe and try to get your nose to your knee.

Middle Left: Pigeon Pose. If I had to chose a favorite yoga pose, it’d be this one. It’s a hamstring and hip opened. I love it so much for so many reasons. I make my girls I coach do it often for many things. Simply bend your front leg, like a half Indian sit children do. Keep yous back leg straight. Try and push yourself further down deeply in your hamstrings. It hurts so good.

Middle Middle: In Pigeon, simply fold forward. Try to place your forehead on the ground, your arms straight out by your head. Reach far with your fingers. Feel the stretch from within your inner legs. Breathe deeply. Close your eyes and listen to your heart pumping.

Middle Right: Come up, and still in pigeon, bend your back leg and grab your foot. Be sure to keep your upper body straight with this, chest is up.

Bottom Right: Mermaid. From the bent leg pigeon pose as above, place your back foot in your elbow if you can, and clasp hands together behind you. This takes hamstring and back flexibility (don’t worry, you will fall over a few times in the beginning, I did too).

NOW SPLIT! The Bottom Middle and Bottom Left are me in my bad leg splits. One has me we chest up, trying to push myself down, and the other is being in a split and simply folding over your front leg, putting your chest on your leg if you can with hands reaching out in front by your head. To get into the split, get back into the lunge with bent front leg, then straighten it like in the pose in the Top Right pic, and simply try to slide down as far as you can!

Middle Split

For middle splits, there are a lot of poses to work on.

• Sit in pike (feet together, straight legs in front of you/like a forward fold but sitting) and bend over, trying to lay your chest on your legs, putting your nose to your knee, reaching your hands out in front, past your feet.
• Straddle your legs (separate out to the sides, still straight) and point your toes. You will bend to each side, going straight towards the leg and then also going to the side (side bend). When bending forward toward your leg, your chest is down, trying to get it on your leg, nose to knee, you can grab on to your foot or reach past it. Do on other leg. For going to the side, sit straight up in your straddle sit, arms up by your ears, now fold from your middle and bend towards that leg. Switch to the other leg.
• While still in straddle, sit straight up, arms straight up by your ears, now fold forward, trying to get your forehead/chest on the ground in front you. Walk your hands slowly out in front of you as far as you can. Be sure you keep your legs straight out, your knees facing up towards the sky.
• Bring your legs in from straddle, so that your legs are bent with knees out the side and your feet are together right in front of you. This is the butterfly sit you probably did in PE in school. Try to bring your feet in as close as you can, and push your knees down with your elbows. Hold. Breathe. Now push your feet out slightly and try to fold forward, trying to put your nose to your feet. Breathe.
• Get up onto your knees, separate your legs as far as you can while on all fours, push down, pushing your knees further and further away (like a middle split but with bent legs rather than straight). Drop your upper body to the ground and hold. We call this the frog sit/froggy in gymnastics/cheer. This helps to get that deep stretch you get in the middle split, minus the pain if you have not mastered the actual split yet. This also helps with healing injuries and soreness in the leg/hamstring/glute area. Try to do this stretch with your chest up, holding yourself up on your hands, trying to bring your booty down to get a deeper hamstring stretch.
• Now do for the actual split. Go down into it slowly. If you go into any of your splits very quickly and uncontrolled, you may pull something and won’t be able to stop yourself. Please be cautious.

 

 

Happy Stretching!

 

-a

Move of the Day- Leg Raises

Being a gymnastics/cheerleading coach, I have to get creative with workouts and to target certain areas with little to no equipment. This means I create workouts that you can benefit at home. Get in shape without the gym membership!

This is the leg raise. You can do single, or with both legs together. I have strong legs, so I also add ankles weights (I attached to my calf) and do them.

To do single leg raise, sit on the floor in a straddle with legs straight out, toes pointed. Place your hands on the floor on either side of the leg you will be working first. With a straight leg and keeping the toe pointed, lift your leg as high and quickly as you can without bending your knee. Lift your leg straight from your hip. You should feel the burn in your thigh.

You can also do this move with both legs together. Sit in a pike on the floor (legs are pressed together, straight out in front of you) and with toes pointed again, put your hands on either side of your legs and raise your legs up from your hips. This is really important. Don’t just lift your legs by lifting your feet or knee in the air. Using the hip flexors causes you to use your upper leg muscles. This will burn quickly.

Do a quick set of 5, try to do it 5 times for each leg, and then try it together!

 

Happy Saturday, fitties!

 

–a

 

Importance of Stretching-Even if you don’t workout

The latest craze in the world, especially in the female population, has been yoga. And there is a good reason why! Yoga gets your body moving, it helps you escape from your stressful daily life, it moves your body when you have been sitting at a desk all week, for 40 hours or more. It helps you get a break from studying for school. It helps you get the blood pumping, release energy, actually even build muscle slowly over time. Stretching has so many benefits, whether you are suffering from insomnia, stress, feeling bloated or tired, having the usual back pain from sitting too long, or to prevent/heal injuries. Stretching has so many amazing benefits, you would have to be a fool not to get into it!

Yoga, stretching, whatever you want to call it

You don’t even have to necessarily do ‘yoga’. You don’t have to know those crazy poses and moves. I can barely pronounce them myself, so you don’t need to know them either. I just want you to understand even bending down and touching your toes (forward fold) and breathing deeply for a couple of minutes to escape and gain some sanity back during a hectic work day. By doing this daily, you will eventually be able to completely fold over, touching your nose to your knees with your legs straight, reaching your hands behind your feet. And you will feel alive and awesome.

Start small-it’ll make a difference

If you are already working out, you can probably handle more advanced things, but still, be careful. Don’t go jumping into a full on split too quick and rip a hammy (pulling a hamstring hurts- I am still recovering from an injury 6 years ago in my show-off cheerleading days. This injury is what got me into yoga and stretching daily). Start with downward dog, deep lunging, warrior poses, table pose, and simple things. I started with simply typing in ‘Yoga for Beginners’ and following some yoga people on Instagram (yogagirl, beachyogagirl, and ellefit are some of my personal faves). Don’t EVER think to do good at yoga you have to be able to hold a handstand for 8 hours and do fancy stuff like that. Just trying it, even if the most advanced you get is wheel pose (a back bend or bridge to normal people), you are doing the best you can and that’s amazing.

‘But I already work out’

Yeah, so do I. And I get a good workout even at work. But guess what? Yoga and stretching should be done even more by people who work out a lot. The more flexible your muscles are, the more work you can do, the more movement you can do and the less likely you are to pull something or become injured. Stretching after working out also prevents some soreness, and injuries. Even if you are a strong Hulk, you can benefit tremendously from stretching.

Prevents joint pain, arthritis, back pain, spinal problems, lowering heart attack risk,help reduce depression/anxiety/stress

With all of these benefits, why wouldn’t you want to pick up the habit of stretching, even if it’s only for 5-10 minutes a day? Working out does wonders. If you stretch in the morning, you can get some energy to make it through the day ahead and feel lighter on your feet. If you stretch after eating a big meal, you can help prevent stomach aches and bloating. If you stretch before bed you can help your body go into relax mode and drift right off to sleep.

You don’t need a class, you don’t even technically need to go out and buy a yoga mat

Yeah, they’re cute and all. But do you actually need a yoga mat? No. If you have carpet or rugs, you are totally fine. The yoga mats are more useful for hard wood/tile floors or stretching outside. Save money and just use your carpet in the bedroom as your stretching area.

Build up to the advanced moves

I was a gymnast and cheerleader for a long time. Now I coach. I could handle jumping right into head/forearm/hand stands with no problem. I can also do back bends all day. You may never have done a sport in your life. And that is totally fine. Start with trying to do head stands against the wall if you feel comfortable, but please read up on proper form, possibly ask an instructor to guide you some one on one (try to find a cheap beginner class at the local rec center or YMCA and ask to get extra help after class) or at least make sure you have another person to help spot you and hold your legs if needed to ensure you put your weight on your hands (or elbows depending on your position you choose to execute the head stand) and not on your neck or any other bad area. The easiest way to get into a headstand is to lace your fingers together in front of you, place your hands on the floor and place the top of your skull into your palms. Straighten your legs with your toes pointed and still on the ground. Try and test putting your weight on your elbows that are bent and on the ground (your forearms are on the ground as well as you are still clasping your head). Now jump your legs into a tuck position (knees bent, feet off of the ground). Make sure you are sucking in your belly, keeping your spine and neck straight, supporting your balance in your forearm and elbows. Now straighten your legs with your toes to the sky. Squeeze your booty and stay tight. If you are using the wall a lot for support in the beginning, that’s okay. Stay in this position as long as you can to try and get the feel for it as well as trying to gain the muscles needed to be able to hold this without the wall one day. Eventually, you can start trying to get your legs off of the wall slowly to find your balance and hold the position without support for as long as you can. Then you will be able to try it away from the wall completely.

 

 

Here are some basic stretching moves you can try anywhere and at any level!

 

Happy Stretching 🙂

 

 

–a

Move of the Day- Squat Lunges!

With or without dumbbells, this is a simple move that will raise your heart rate in no time and can target a lot of muscle groups if executed properly.

Start with feet shoulder width apart, toes pointed out slightly (don’t have them facing directly forwards) and think about raising your toes slightly to put your weight on you heals to engage your hamstrings and glutes properly when you squat.

Bend at your knee, while pushing your booty back, like you are looking for a chair behind you.

IMPORTANT: Try to keep your knees behind your toes. Don’t let them go past them in squats! If they do drastically, you need to push your booty back further. If you are struggling with this and keeping your chest up, work on squats right against the wall (facing the wall). Be about only 6 inches from the wall and squat down. If you touch the wall, correct your posture.

Also! Don’t drop your chest! Squats aren’t just touching the ground, I have seen a couple of people think squatting is folding over and never bending their legs…goodness no.

Stand up from your squat, and immediately step one leg back into a lunge (knee almost touches the ground, but not quite). Bring feet back together and squat again. When you come back up, immediately bring the opposite leg back to a back lunge as well.

Repeat for 4 sets of 10 for a good burn as well as a great leg/bum workout!

 

Here is the move with & without weights! If you add weights, it’ll give an extra workout for your legs as well as a bonus arm workout! I also have it from different angles to ensure you get to proper form.

Let me know if you try this!

Enjoy the burn 😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working Out-On a Budget

Think you need a gym membership to get fit? Think you need a personal trainer for $90/hour? Think you have to spend thousands to get a decent set up for a home gym?

Think again.

You can work out at home- with little to no equipment. Body weight exercises, yoga, all types of things! I will break down proper form on these in later posts, if you don’t know what any of these are (or you can ask me!).

• Squats/squat jumps
• Lunges (walking, forward, back, side, pulses)
• Jumping Jacks
• Push ups (push up rows, incline, decline, on your knees, wide, narrow, regular)
• Mountain climbers (slow or fast)
• Burpees (beginner style or advanced)
• Squat then raise one knee to elbow, squat, repeat with other side
• Tuck jumps (stand still, jump and bring your knees forward and up towards your chest)
• High knees in place
• Booty kicks in place (lift feet back towards your booty)
• Plank tucks (in plank position, jump knees to chest together, jump legs back into plan)
• Plank holds
• Plank arm switches (go from on hands down to elbow one arm first, then the other, then one at a time get back on your hands while engaging your abs and squeezing your booty)
• Tuck Straddles (sitting on your booty with knees to chest, lean back some, lifting your feet off the ground with knees still bent, lift hands off the grounds and go from tuck position into a straddle-straight legs out-and return back to tuck position still not touching the ground nor your legs with your hands)
• Superman lifts
• Handstands and Handstand Push Ups against the wall (please work up to this, I will post working up to handstands and inversions soon)
• V ups (laying flat on your back, with arms straight by your head, engaging your core lift both shoulders and legs off the ground, reaching hands towards your toes then come back flat down and repeat)
• Penguins (laying on your back, feet on the ground, legs bent, knees in the air, you will go side to side touching the side of your hand to the side of your ankle on that side, repeat as quickly as you can, with shoulders lifted off of the ground)

 

 

 

 

Equipment on a Budget

There are so many ways to get some equipment when you want to be more hard core than just body weight moves.

When I graduated with my business degree, I was given $500 as gifts from family. I took that and went sale/yard sale/craigslist shopping on the hunt for some great deals on workout equipment. Even if you just get dumbbells in different weights, you can do a lot.

 

I started with just the dumbbell set where you can add or take off the weights as you desire or need. But then I went and got the 10 lb, then 20 lb and then a 30 lb (yes, I can actually curl that 30 lb one because ARMS OF STEEL). You can find dumbbells at Walmart or Target as well as people who bought them and let them collect dust for months for pretty cheap.

Having a stability ball is great for abs, arms, and all kinds of things. I love this stupid thing. Next I wish to get a bosu ball, which is just half of a ball and is really great for getting all areas of your abs with different moves.

This bench set came with the weights, the barbell and the bench. I found it on sale for $150.00 at Walmart. No joke. It was the last one. I see them online, especially Craigslist often too. Check everywhere. Price check on Amazon as well, especially if you have a Prime membership. I recently bought another barbell and 100 lbs of extra weights to be able to add more weight to my squats.

I got this for FREE. A family member had it and used it for like a month. He heard I am a fitness junkie and that I jokingly wanted a punching bag to tape my old manager’s face (from my desk job) to it and go at it. He took me up on that joke and I found this at my house in the bed of a truck the next week. Ask around. People buy or receive workout stuff over time and if they aren’t using it, you can!

Craigslist. $125. No lie. Keep your eye out. Set an alert from the app available on the smart phones for certain items when they are posted. This is how I found this baby. It had been bought by a husband to his wife after she had baby number one. She hardly used it, and just had baby number two and just wanted to sell her fitness stuff for extra money for the family. It was a win/win situation. I got a great working treadmill for my HIIT sprints and she gained extra money for feeding her two children.

I know as odd as it seems, ankle weights are a cheap must have. As a former gymnast and gymnastics coach, you can do so much with these babies. Walk with them on the ankles, put them on your wrists while you walk to gain some muscle work as your do cardio. Put them on the ankles as you do your jumping jacks. Do leg raises with them on. Put them on your calf and do straddle seated leg raises with toes pointed. Hurts sooooo good for the thighs.

Another cheap but great item. Jump rope is great cardio. Change your cardio up to keep your body guessing and your metabolism through the roof. Do 30 sec of jump rope as fast as you can (feet together) and then a 30 sec rest 20 times. Good burn!

Not only is the pull up bar ($20 at Walmart/Target/pharmacies) great, but you can even add the bands either for assistance with pull ups (if you are new, you probably need the bands to put your foot in to help until you are stronger) or as I show on the right, you can do pull downs for arms with the bands. See? No need for a gym membership here.

Another way to use your bar and $5 pack of bands, leg day! Put your bar on the ground in the doorway for support, place a foot in the band loop, kick that leg straight back as far as you can while keeping your upper body remains straight with your chest up. Repeat on the other leg! You can also stand facing the other way and kick forward, or try to kick side to side.

You will not miss doing the equivalent of this move in the gym, the hip abductor machine. (lol) This helps with saddle bags and the sides of your booty. Tie a band into a loop, put legs in, raise one leg as high as you can. Then the other leg. You will feel the burn. If not, tie the band tighter and/or add the ankle weights for extra work!

Another good idea is trying out YouTube videos! Look up fitness or home workouts and you can find videos similar to programs like Insanity or P90X.

See? Working out doesn’t have to break the bank. If you do things right, you can create a home gym on a budget, for less than it would usually cost for a gym membership for 6 months. You save gas. You save time. And you can workout in your underwear (or naked) with your own music blasting (unless it’s 3 am and your neighbors aren’t cool with that). It’s much more fun.

Happy exercising!

–a