Merry Christmas…Sending A Ho Ho Ho-Lotta Love

Hey Friends!

Quickly dropping in to wish you an amazing Christmas and I hope you have tons of fun, laughter and good times with your loved ones. I will certainly be enjoying my time today as my parents and I host Christmas for my Dad’s side of the famjam. For now, I’m off to wake up the parentals and the poochie so we can start our morning with pressies before getting a motor’in on our busy day ahead.

Before I go though, I wanted to post this lil numba I made up for those who perhaps have a second and want to work up a good sweat.

This is a reps for time type of circuit meaning that you are looking to do each round as quickly as you can while still maintaining proper form (no cheating guys!). There is a lot of traveling/movement in this one which is why I called it the reindeer circuit. Those guys have quite the distance to go on Christmas Eve so lets join them on their journey, even if it’s not around the world.

For those stairs I want full sets of stairs (if you are in a bungalow and only have 1/2 flights, double the numba I put there), where each round includes both up and down a flight. You can run, jog or walk it’s up to you, but push yourself and see how fast you can do them…just no tripping up the stairs and breaking something. Christmas is for celebration not hospital visits. Mmmkay?

For the pushups, do as many full as you can, then drop to the knees for the rest. Take breaks as you need to but do the full 20 before moving on. For the lunges, 1 rep would include a lunge with both legs and I want those back legs to get LOW. No half lunges here my friends. For the mountain climbers, ensure those knees are being brought right into the chest but ensure to keep that butt down. Lastly, for the wall sits, make sure your quads are parallel to the ground (meaning that your legs should make a perfect right angle with the wall and the floor). No resting your hands on your legs as that makes it easier and just remember to breathe.

Have some fun with it, play some Christmas music and let me know if anyone tries it out!

Have an amazing Christmas friends and remember, EAT! Do not starve yourselves all day for your dinner or you will binge. Eat normally and choose your indulgences at dinner. You don’t need to go ham on the food. Balance is key.

-Chelsea

Fitness Fri….err opps

Hey Friends 😀

Well this is embarrassing. It’s only my third week of Fitness Friday’s and…well…I forgot to make a post! I hope you can forgive me. Anyways, this will be short and sweet because it’s a lil late, so here are my workouts from the week of May 26-June 1

Chest was done on Monday as per usual and this time I decided to do all calves as my secondary muscle

Warmup: Decline weighted (35) situps + reverse crunches on decline bench x 3 sets = Superset

My next goal here is to bump those 35lb dumbbells up to 40’s for my decline bench press. I think I could do it right now with a spotter but I just have to get past the psychological barrier first. Oh that mind is a powerful thing.

Shoulders and Triceps was done on Wednesday

Warmup: Decline weighted (30) oblique situps + hanging leg raises x 3 sets = Superset

I switched it up a lil bit this week by starting off with overhead press rather than dumbbell press. I do this every couple weeks to see if that helps me to lift the 30’s better for seated shoulder dumbbell press. This particular exercise has been one of the hardest for me to bump my weights up, so I try to confuse my muscles to see if that helps me get stronger. I also did single arm dumbbell shoulder presses which are great for gaining symmetry, strength and working your stabilizer muscles.

Legs got pushed to up to Thursday as I was working an open shift on Friday

Warmup: Decline weighted (40) situps + cable rope crunches (47.5) x 3 sets = Superset

Again this workout was a very sweaty one for me. Working in a sauna is not my idea of fun, but you gotta get’er done right? My legs were pretty shaky after the barbell squats and I definitely felt it during my walking lunges. One great thing was I didn’t feel any knee pain this time! Wahoo! 😀 I was getting a lil worried about that. Other than still feeling sore today (days of DOMS = 3 and counting) I felt good overall in terms of energy. Thank you raisins in my pre-workout oatmeal! 😉 I tried weighted planks (used 25lbs) today (elevated feet still) and they were tough! I got just over a minute for most of them and was surprised when I couldn’t make it to my normal 1:30. Try them out!

Back and Biceps was Saturday’s workout

Warmup: Decline weighted (30) oblique situps + leg raises and knee ups on captains chair x 3 sets = Superset

I managed to do one set of 4 weighted pullups with a slightly higher weight (12.5lb vs. 10lb) due to peer pressure 😉 Oh well, it was good to try it out. I also managed to bump up my single arm dumbbell rows to 40lbs! Back is gettin stronger! With my bicep work that day I decided to try and superset my two exercises together and man was that tiring. Made my arms swell right up! Lastly, I also have been wanting to try weighted side planks for a long time as no matter what variation I have been doing (note that I don’t want to be holding it for like 5 minutes), side planks are just too easy for me. So, I balanced a 10lb dumbbell on my side as I was doing them and I definitely felt it. If you try it out, just place the dumbbell’s bar on your waist (perpendicular to your body) and if it’s shaky, than place your hand on top of it like you would if you were resting your hand on your waist.

Just one other lil piece of exciting news, if you follow me on instagram you would have noticed that I got featured for my workouts in the #mayfitmonth challenge being run by Kim over at The Coconut Diaries and Alina at Cleanlovin. I just wanted to thank these two ladies so much for the feature and their kind words as it brought a lot more people to my page to check out my workouts for inspiration! If you haven’t found their websites or instagram accounts you definitely should take a peek at their sites as they have some amazingly delicious recipe ideas.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend 🙂

-Chelsea

Good habits are as addicting as bad habits but much more rewarding