Increasers (Home Workout)

Posted by admin on Mar 22, 2020 in Uncategorized, Workouts | 2 comments

Equipment Required: Dumbbells (Optional), Timer
Time: ~30-40 minutes
Warm-up: 5-10 Minutes dynamic stretching

You’re gonna need a stopwatch app, or any time app that allows you to see or hear when one minute has gone by for all of these.

Drill #1: Jump Burpees & Push-ups
Target Number: Beg(30), Int(40), Adv(50)
Instructions: Start the stopwatch and start doing jump burpees that include 1 push-up at the bottom of each. As you work towards your target number of burpees, the number of push-ups owed each burpee goes up by one. So after minute one, you owe *two* push-ups on each jump burpee, and so on. This makes it very important that you don’t start slowly! Remember, you’re not counting the push-ups whci will be increasing each minute, you’re counting the jump burpees.

Drill #2: Stairs/Hills & Lunges
Target Number: Beg(10), Int(15), Adv(20)
Instructions: Setup at the bottom of your stairs or a comparable hill if available. This time you will be counting your hill runs towards your target number, but must increase the lunges you do each minute. Start with two lunges in minute one (one per leg) and increase by two every minute.

Drill #3: Shuttle Runs & Sit-ups
Target Number: Beg(10), Int(15), Adv(20)
Instructions: Setup anywhere with room to run out ~10-15m and back. This time you will be counting your runs towards your target number, but must increase the sit-ups you do each minute. Start with only one sit-up in minute one and increase by one every minute.

Drill #4: Weighted Burpees & Curl Press
Target Number: Beg(30), Int(40), Adv(50)
Instructions: Start the stopwatch and start doing weighted burpees (no jump) that include 1 curl-press at the top of each. As you work towards your target number of burpees, the number of curl-presses owed each burpee goes up by one.

Anyone wanna share your times below?

Don’t Put Down Those Weights! (Home Workout)

Posted by admin on Sep 30, 2019 in Uncategorized, Workouts | 1 comment

Equipment Required: Dumbbells
Time: 45-60 Minutes
Warm-up: 5-10 Minutes dynamic stretching

Your goal is to finish the following large sets of exercises in order, but the trick here is that every time you put your weights down to stop you have to do either 3 jump burpees or 6 pushups. A moderate pace is your friend for this workout! Here are your sets:

1. 100 Dumbbell Squats
2. 100 Curls
3. 100 Weighted Situps
4. 100 Dumbbell Thrusters

That’s it!

How to Lose Body Fat

Posted by admin on Sep 10, 2014 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

So you want to lower your body fat percentage? Here’s your guide, broken down into 3 categories: Diet, Exercise, and Sleep.

DIET

It is commonly accepted that about 70% of your weight/fat loss results are determined by your diet, if not more. Too many people think that because they work out, they can eat whatever they want. For almost every adult, that is not the case. Here’s some of the best strategies you can adopt to clean up your diet and really see that body fat fall off.  The more of these you adopt, the more body fat you will ultimately lose:

• Cut out all added sugars.  Ditch the soda, stop the pop! Look for products that tout “No Added Sugar”.  Read food ingredient labels and avoid any foods with “sugar”, “syrup”, “agave”, and any word that ends in “ose” (like “sucrose”).
• Go Grain-Free.  Cut all grains and flours from the diet, and most people will tend to lose weight AND feel better.  Again, you will need to carefully read your labels.
• Lower Your Carbs. Try to keep your daily carb total under 100-150 grams.  If you’re very active you will need more, but generally this is a good range for most people.  You can use an app like MyFitnessPal to track your intake to help you.
• Eat Whole, Real Foods.  If it comes in a package, or if the list of ingredients has more than one ingredient, odds are that it’s not a whole real food, and you would do better without it.
• Go Paleo.  If you’ve come this far, go the rest of the way!  Also known as the hunter-gatherer diet, paleo (as in paleolithic era) means eating only lean meats and seafood, eggs, nuts and berries, some fruit, and a ton of greens and veggies.  No sugar, grains, dairy, or legumes (sorry peanuts).  Here’s a great site to help you get started on your paleo journey.
• Meal Replacement.  Some of the above choices involve major changes to your diet.  If you’re not quite ready for that, but still want an effective fat-fighting tool and want to get healthier, try a meal replacement system.  Our favorite is Shakeology.
• Join a support group.  Sharing ideas, recipes, and getting feedback from others is a great way to stay on track.  You’re always welcome to join our healthy eating Facebook Group.
• Intermittent Fasting (IF).  A preferred choice here at GroupFit, IF entails going long periods without eating.  More and more research is revealing that when we eat, can be as important as what we eat.  Here’s a great guide to get you started.  The easiest method is to simply eat all your day’s food in a 6-7 hour window that starts around noon or 1pm.

EXERCISE

Exercise has too many benefits to list, including helping to strengthen your heart, improving bone density, increasing your mood, and more.  Here’s some strategies for being active:

• Get vigorous activity 3-4 times a week for at least 30 minutes.  If you’re a regularly attending boot camp member you’ve already nailed this one.
• Try some home workouts.  Great for your off-days.  We send them out free daily.  Get them here.
• Walk more.  Walking is an almost forgotten past-time with many health benefits, including to your mental health, so grab Fido and hit the road.  Try to walk 30 minutes a day.  You just might find it’s the best part of your day.

SLEEP

• Sleep 7-8 hours.  Too little or too much sleep can impact your health in many different ways, including your cognition and mood.
• Stick to a schedule.  Having a set sleep and wake time helps your body get into a routine.
• Create the mood.  Keep your bedroom dark and quiet around bed time.  Consider heavy curtains, shades, blinders, and even “white noise” machines.
• Get your exercise.  Those who exercise regularly sleep better.  See section 2 above.
• Avoid naps.  Tempting though they are, napping can take you out of your sleep schedule.
• Invest in your bed.  You spend 1/3 of your life in bed…it’s worth the investment.

Have some strategies of your own you’d like to share? Comment below…

Home Workout: Deck of Destiny!

Posted by admin on Jan 16, 2013 in Uncategorized, Workouts | 0 comments

You may have seen this on The Biggest Loser this week…but we did it first!  All you need is a deck of cards!

The Rules:

Shuffle up a deck of cards.  Flip over the first card.  The suit you pick corresponds to a specific exercise you must perform:

Spades– Pushups (advanced: double the pushups)

Clubs– Squats (advanced: Squat Jumps)

Diamonds– Crunches (advanced: V-Ups)

Hearts– Standard Burpees (advanced: forward/backward burpees!)

Whatever number is on the card is how many reps you need to do.  So the 8 of Spades requires you to do 8 push-ups.  Face-cards count as 10.  Aces count as 11 – just like Black Jack.

Goal: Complete the entire deck in under 30 minutes!

Shuffle Up!

Tabata Core Blast

Posted by admin on Dec 14, 2012 in Uncategorized, Workouts | 0 comments

Here is a quick ab blaster you can do in only 20 minutes with no equipment.

It is 3 separate Tabata circuits, done with 1 minute of rest between each.  If you don’t know what a Tabata is by now then you haven’t been coming to class enough!  A tabata is a 4 Minute High-Intensity Interval Training method that consists of 20 seconds of hard exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. This is repeated for a total of 8 rounds, totalling 4 minutes.  You can use a watch or phone app (there are many free apps if you search for “Tabata” or “Interval Timer”.

Warm-up 5 Minutes

Jumping jacks, high knees, butt kicks, leg swings, etc…

Tabata 1:

Alternating rounds of Flutter Kicks and Coffins (hands behind head).

Rest 1 minute, then right into:

Tabata 2:

Alternating rounds of Cross-Body Mountain Climbers and Plank “Knee-to-Elbow” alternating sides

Rest 1 minute, then right into:

Tabata 3:

Alternating rounds of Sit-up Twists and Russian Twists (you can put a weight in your hands or not).

You’re done!

6 Minute Bodyweight Circuit Workout

Posted by admin on Sep 27, 2012 in Uncategorized, Workouts | 0 comments

Home Free-Weight Workout

Posted by admin on Dec 27, 2011 in Uncategorized, Workouts | 1 comment

Difficulty: Moderate
Target Time: 45-55 Minutes
Kick it Up: Do 20 reps each for part 2 and 3

Home Workouts

Posted by admin on Sep 18, 2011 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

OK, campers. You asked and you shall receive! Here are a few boot camp workouts you can do on your own while at home. (Note to those with FitDecks, you can do your FitDeck workout in place of or in addition to the following workouts).

Also, we all know we need to do benchmarks on Monday, so I expect everyone to have those done and to email me the results so I can put them in our sheet. If you’re foggy on how to do them, you can review that HERE.

All workouts are to be started with 10-20 minutes of cardio (jogging, elliptical, etc…) followed by 5-10 minutes of active and static stretching. Choose from the following choices you should be familiar with from class:

• Arm Circles
• Leg Swings
• Grasshoppers
• Inchworms
• Runners’ T-Stretch
• Ankle Circles
• Neck Rolls

Workout # 1
Perform the following exercises in a row with 15 seconds of rest for a total of 3 sets. Advanced campers, add 10 reps to each:

1. 20 Pushups
2. 20 Squats
3. 15 Alternating Lunges (double count)
4. 20 Up & Downs (aka Pushup to plank)
5. 10 Star Jumps

Amazing Anabolic Asparagus

Posted by admin on May 12, 2011 in Healthy Tips | 0 comments

So add this to the growing list of reasons you should be eating green leafy vegetables at the rate of a crack-addled rabbit. According to a new study released in the February issue of Cell Metabolism, foods high in inorganic nitrates, as most leafy green vegetables are, have been found to help us consume less oxygen when we work out (http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/retrieve/pii/S1550413111000052).  Apparently, these inorganic nitrates help increase the efficiency of our mitochondria, which as you might remember from high school biology, are the “power house” of the cell.

We already knew that a diet rich in fruits and green, leafy vegetables helps protect against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and a host of other major disorders.  Until now though, very few tests had proven the specific benefits of individual nutrients, such as nitrate.  Well, now we can chalk up another one for asparagus!

Boot Camper of the Day Wins…Lasting Hydration!

Posted by admin on Apr 10, 2011 in Boot Camp News | 0 comments

Starting this week we will be choosing one camper from each session as the Boot Camper of the Day.