It's Official: I'm Unchained From the Scale!

Attention, please: We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming of All Crazy All The Time to bring you an important announcement. This is not a test, I repeat, not a test.

TA-DA!

Those, my friends, are the batteries out of my scale, a.k.a. my Weight Watchers branded silver shackles! At first I was going to do something dramatic like take a video of me smashing my scale to bits or tossing it out of my window but the former seemed too wasteful for a frugal girl like me and the latter was simply too dangerous with as many children as I have running around my house. Oh, I'm not worried about hitting them - they move fast - but rather that they'd see mommy chucking things out the window and think all the appliances are fair game for defenestration. You may recall these are the same children that literally swung from my chandelier and ripped it right out of the ceiling.

So, the dramatic options exhausted, I went with practical. I took the batteries out and threw them away*. That way, if I ever want to weigh myself again I'll have to drive all the way to the store first and hopefully the ten intervening minutes will be enough for me to regain my senses.

Yes, I emptied out my garbage can before I took the pic - couldn't let you see the plethora of q-tips I use to clean out my earwax. I know you're not supposed to but it just feels so good! My friend Kacy on Facebook calls it an "eargasm".

What it boils down to is this: You guys were right. And I knew going in to it, writing that post about finding my "best" weight, that the first thing everyone would say to me is to chuck the scale. You've told me to do it before. So has my sister - hundreds of times, bless her heart. But you know how sometimes you don't really hear people until you're ready for their advice? I'm ready now. I can't obsess over a number I don't know, right?

This morning I did not weigh myself. At first I had a panic attack - yes, seriously - but I managed to calm down with yogic breathing and after about 10 minutes I felt fine. I think I'm finally figuring out that "fat" has everything to do with the state of my mind and very little to do with the state of my thighs.

Some of you suggested that I make a separate Great Fitness Experiment about ditching the scale but I think it's best to just roll it in with November and December's Rachel Cosgrove Experiment because 1) Got to keep going with this inertia - if I think about it too much I probably won't go through with it and 2) Rachel actually tells you not to weigh yourself while on her program. Yeah I know, I kinda forgot to mention that part when I was explaining all the "rules." Rachel's point is that this program is designed to build muscle and often people will gain weight (or not lose as much weight as they think they should be) as they gain muscle. In the book she asks if you would rather weigh 50 pounds more but fit into your dream jeans or weigh your dream weight but not fit into your jeans. You'd think it would be a no-brainer but she says you'd be amazed at how many women choose the latter option, their number is that important to them. I'm choosing the muscle option. (And I'd better be building some serious muscle because hoo-boy am I SORE. My butt is threatening to go on strike if I make it do any more lunges.)

In order to measure my lean mass, I had my body fat percentage taken at the beginning of the Experiment and I'll have it repeated at the end. I also took measurements of various body parts which I'll repeat at the end. I know these are still numbers but for some reason I don't get as attached to - or as emotionally involved with - these numbers. Probably because my biceps measurement doesn't fluctuate on a daily basis. I also have my jeans that I feel good in and can use as reality check when I need one. (Rachel calls those "thermometer jeans" - I suppose so you can measure your "hotness" by them.)

So thank you thank you thank you for your advice and your amazing patience with me as I worked through the mental stuff. This feels like the final big step I needed to take with Intuitive Eating. I'm free from the tyranny of the scale. And it feels good! (At least for now, I do anticipate some panic in the future, especially at that time of the month but I'll take it day by day.)

Have you ever been unable to do something that you knew you needed to - until one day the moment just arrived and suddenly it was fine? Do you have thermometer jeans? How would you answer the muscle vs. weight question?

*Okay, first I threw them in the garbage but then I remembered you are never supposed to throw batteries away because that's reallllyyyy bad for the environment and the last thing I need is an angry polar bear showing up at my door although that would help keep the kidlets from destroying various expensive household items but Child Services probably wouldn't appreciate the Wild Animal school of discipline so anyhow I fished the batteries back out of the garbage and instead put them in my husband's pile of paint cans and whatnot to take to the recycling center and then wrote the longest run-on sentence in the history of humankind just to make sure everyone knows that I did not, actually, add batteries to our landfill. The end.

Your Top Fears About Exercise - Solved!

This will not surprise you: I spend a considerable amount of my life trying to convince people to try new things. It ranges from small things like trying to get a stranger at the grocery store to try the free yogurt sample with me (it's less gross if you do the fiber shots with a friend!) to big things like voting (you! Vote!!) to the gross things like convincing my three pre-men that peeing IN the toilet rather than just in its general direction will result in sunshine, puppies and a happy mother (not literally puppies of course, I cannot have another incontinent bladder in the house). But aside from literally having to mop down my walls - that's why we painted them high gloss Mr. Home Depot man! - the most common changes I champion are of the fitness variety.

So, naturally, I hear a lot of excuses (some refer to them as legitimate reasons but whatevs.) They are varied and occasionally creative but they usually distill down to some variation of the following:

Excuse: I might be bad at it.
My answer: Of course you will. If you expect to be the best at everything you try then you will never try anything. Just accept that it probably won't come naturally to you - if it did you would have figured it out by now and you'd be playing pro golf with Tiger - and move on. I'll let you in on a not-so-secret of mine: I suck at most things I try. Especially at first. That's why God invented giggling. Everyone is horrible at something but it doesn't mean you still can't enjoy it! Have we learned nothing from American Idol? Other variations of this theme include "I'm too uncoordinated" "I'm not a runner" and "I spaz like a three-legged chicken whenever anyone starts counting backwards."

Excuse: I might not like it.
My answer: True. I've done lots of things I hated. But I've always learned something from it so it's not a waste of time. I'm not asking you to pick out curtains with it; just try it twice. Try it once and you'll probably hate it but go a second time and guaranteed there will be someone newer than you there. It's amazing what feeling like a "regular" does for your confidence! And if you try it twice and still hate it? Cross it off your list. You'll get no grief from me.

Excuse: People will stare at me.
My answer: You lucky dog. I've been making desperate bids for attention practically my whole life and still rarely get a chuckle from a passerby. But seriously, I do realize that some people are not as exhibitionistic as I am and balk at getting checked out. This is especially true in a gym setting but can be true for any fitness endeavor. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that people really aren't watching you. They are. They might be ranking you on the hotness scale. They might be making fun of you. They might be wondering where you got those sexysexy yoga pants. They might be staring off into the distance in your general direction. But chances are, whatever they're thinking, unless you're Marissa Miller or David Beckham, you're not the main attraction. So if you just keep going about your business, then so will they. (Alternative option: if you are really brave/confrontational, stare right back at them. Ear wiggling optional.)

Excuse: I don't know what I'm doing.
My answer: Nobody does. At least not at first. There is nothing natural about the chest press or a roundhouse - they're learned skills. And thankfully most of us "regulars" (man I feel like I'm subliminally pimping fiber here - yay for poop!) remember what it was like to be a newbie. We'll help you if you ask! Or ask a friend you trust to show you around. Or one of those gym employees standing around looking bored. Asking questions doesn't make you look silly, it makes you look smart. Besides, teachers love it when you ask them questions. It's so much easier than trying to read your mind based solely on that squinched-up face you're making.

Excuse: I might get hurt.
My answer: This one's a certainty. You will get hurt. But think how cool the battle scar will be to show off to all your buddies! I know, I know, some people have legitimate health issues but seeing as my paraplegic friend spanks me in basketball, surely you can find something that won't exacerbate your bursitis. Besides, exercise provides a huge range of health benefits so that scraped shin or rolled ankle will be totally worth it in the end! And if you tell someone you're really sore from weight lifting/yoga/recumbent hand biking then you might even get a free massage out of it. (Just don't tell them your butt is sore. I once had someone at the gym ask me to massage their butt for them because they had a big ol' knot in it. That led to one of the longest awkward silences I've ever participated in. Just... no.)

Excuse: I might get bored.
My answer: Then you're doing it wrong.

This list is by no means exhaustive so fill me in: what are you afraid of? What holds you back from exercising? You have some good advice to relieve people's fears? Has anyone ever asked you to massage a strange body part for them?

Normal Push-Ups Getting Boring? Try These Today!

If there's one move that you will find in every workout from Jillian Michael's to CrossFit to Bootcamp to Prison, it's the lowly push-up. (Pushup? Push up? Whatever.) For good reason too, they work your shoulders, back, chest and even your core. But let's be honest, push-ups have their drawbacks. They can be hard on your wrists. They can give you neck or back pain. They can be too difficult. Or they can be too easy, depending on your skill level. But for me the real downside is how boring regular push-ups get. So today the Gym Buddies and I take you into our gym to show you 33 variations on the push-up (and one mammoth fail!). Try one today!

To get a taste of what the Gym Buddies have to put up with from me on a daily basis, here is me demo'ing a gorilla push-up (I voted for calling it a "guerilla" push-up but apparently I'm not tough enough to pull that off). I went into it absolutely sure I couldn't do one and then surprised myself so much by doing one (for reals!!!) that I screamed a very unladylike scream and then hit the floor. Enjoy (12 seconds):



And because everyone's favorite part are the Gym Bloopers, I've left all our mistakes in the full video! (Look for cursing, falling, geometry confusion and one very awesome Mary Katherine lunge - these girls crack me up every single day.) But here is, hands down, my favorite mistake, wherein I crush poor Allison like a cockroach (7 seconds):



Without further adieu, enjoy our Ode to Weird Push-Ups! (It's 4 minutes but totally worth it! At least watch our attempt at sketch comedy in the intro!):

If you get this through e-mail or a feed reader, please click through to the site to see the videos. Thanks!

What is your favorite push-up? Think of any we missed? What exercise do you find realllllyyyy boring??

High Intensity Bootcamp Report! [War Wounds]

When our trainer said he was going to use the TRX to whip us into shape, I didn't think he meant literally:

What I love about this picture:
1. ATTACK OF THE HUGE HAND! Run! Hide the children!

2. The fact that I am concentrating so hard - as evidenced by my durn-all-these-new-fangled-contraptions-and-their-tiny-buttons facial expression - and yet I still forgot to move the camera strap. Or suck in my stomach. You'd think I'd never used a digital camera before.

3. My awesome shower curtain. It's cleanliness and an education, all in one! Only downside is if my kids wander into the bathroom (as they are wont to do - privacy, whaaaa?) then I have to hide strategically. Thank goodness this is a Mercator projection map so South America is overly large!

4. Oh yeah - and my war wounds! First day of HIIT bootcamp and our trainer had us doing these squat-jump-swing things on the TRX. (Okay technically there's not supposed to be any swinging with the squat-jumping - I just can't help myself, it's too fun!) The TRX schooled me good and then slapped me around a bit for getting smart with it. Yes, there's a matching set of scrapes and bruises on the other side!

What do you think - is leaving marks the mark of a good workout? Do you have any battle scars from the gym you're particularly proud of? You've seen lots of my shower curtain - what does yours look like?

PS> If you are looking for more to read today, check out Leslie's article in Ladies Home Journal - she interviewed me on slide #8!

How to Get Rid of Unwanted Muscle

The best part is the guy on the right's face. "Dude, the salesman told me they were out of the XL banana hammocks!!" I'm sure that's what he's thinking.

What I'm about to tell you is going to make me very unpopular*. (Never mind that I spent so much time being unpopular in high school that it is pretty much my natural state of being.) You know that old weight lifting trope "Don't fear the heavy weights; women don't have enough testosterone to get bulky." ? I don't buy it. (Shun! Shun the non-believer! Shuuuunnnnnn!) While I do absolutely believe that heaving some iron is great for men, women and everyone in between, I also think that women can put on more muscle than we'd like. Sure we'll never be this guy:

Um, sir? You are having enough nip slippage to make Tara Reid jealous.

But we can get bulkier than we like to be. As material evidence, I kindly submit to the jury my favorite little black dress. Every girl has one - it's the dress that you can accessorize with anything and makes you look like a million bucks even when you're post-popcorn and pre-period bloated. My particular LBD is a retro Audrey Hepburn inspired black sheath dress that nips in at just the right spot on my waist and has a neckline so flattering that half the time I don't even bother with the jewelry. I'd post a pic of me wearing it so we could all ooh and ahh together except: IT WON'T ZIP UP ANYMORE. The trouble spot? Not my usual problem areas - it slips right up over my hips and thighs. It catches on my lats. Of all the stupid spots to have a dress not fit, I cannot think of a less desirable place to gain inches than across my bat-wing territory. For those of you unfamiliar with bodybuilding parlance, your latissimus dorsi are your armpit muscles. Running down the sides of your back, they're often called the swimmer's muscle. You can see why:

While they are obviously very functional on Katie Hoff here, I am not an Olympic swimmer and therefore prefer my dress fitting to armpit muscles. I know that this will get some lady lifters all in a tizzy but I never claimed not to be a ridiculous human being.

Continuing on with bodybuilding lore, there are three types of people in this world: Ectomorphs or people who are naturally thin and have a hard time putting on muscle (party like an emo rock star! Or a catwalk model!), Mesomorphs or people who are well balanced with fat and muscle (also known as the type everyone wishes they were, what up Mr. and Miss Universe?), and the poor Endomorphs or people who put on muscle easily but put on fat even more easily (Holla all you rom-com sidekicks!). (Funny aside: the site linked above lists "stalkiness" as an attribute of endomorphs. That might be the awesomest abuse of the English language I've seen since my ex-boyfriend e-mailed me that he'd gotten a job as a "night stalker" at the local grocery store. Sadly that turned out to be more true than any of us ever anticipated but hey it kept the local police on their toes. Although in our culture I'm not sure which is the more offensive adjective: stocky or stalky. Perhaps one would rather be stalky.) ANYHOW. I'm pretty darn sure I'm not an ectomorph but whichever the remaining two I am, I don't like it. And not just because it makes my armpits crazy hard to shave.

I want the bat muscles gone and my dress back. Operation: Lose Muscle.

Gym Buddy Megan - who also hates her bat muscles so see, I'm not the only girl with a dominant vanity gene - and I pinpointed the emergence of our rogue muscles on the P90X Experiment. All those variations on the pull-up had us working our lats like never before. And August's Swimming Experiment didn't help either. So what to do?

According to several very authoritative (i.e. Yahoo's ask-a-question) websites, these are my options listed in order of best to worst:

1. Get the body part set in a cast. This was universally the method of choice for muscle atrophy, after all have you ever seen someone get a cast off their leg? Clearly this works. Also clear: if I think being unable to zip up my dress is embarrassing, I will not be able to handle the public mockery that would ensue if I showed up with armpit casts. Out.

2. Cut your calories to below 800 a day so that your body will go into starvation mode and burn muscle for fuel. Downside: You might die. Also out.

3. Stop working that muscle. Now we're getting closer. I already use this strategy with my calves. What? I love my calves exactly the way they are and toe raises are tedious. The difference between calves and lats however is that the latter is connected to other very important muscles like, oh, your whole upper body. Kinda out, for reasons of practicality.

4. Lift lighter and increase your reps. Whoooaaa... isn't this what all the experts tell you not to do? Which means it might just work. Not great, but probably my best option.

What kind of -morph are you? Do you have a muscle you wish would go away? Do you avoid working it to keep it from getting bigger? Or is your philosophy that a girl can never have too much metabolism-firing muscle? Any advice for me? Should I just get the dress altered and be done with it?

*There has been some confusion in the comments I wanted to address. When I wrote this post I meant it to be a tongue-in-cheek light-hearted look-what-us-girls-go-through-for-fashion humorous kind of post but apparently I shouldn't be blogging late at night 'cause clearly it didn't come across that way. Just to be clear: I'm not going to do any of the above. While it's true I don't love my lats, I do love having muscle and I'm not going to quit weight lifting. Nor was this meant to be a judgment on any woman who is trying to get bigger muscles. To any of you whom I have offended, I am very sorry! To all of you whom I confused, sorry again. To everyone else-Thanks for allowing me to make mistakes sometimes:)

Help, I'm Having a Metabolic Reaction! [Send Jelly Beans, Stat.]

Today I experienced one of those weird occurrences that have baffled me ever since I seriously got into fitness - call it the Bermuda Triangle of Exercise, if you will. Just like Amelia Earhart - but less heroic and revolutionary and without the rubber helmet (just what exactly was that supposed to protect you from anyhow?) - today I awoke to a morning just like every other morning, not knowing that by the end of the day I'd be in the grip of a natural phenomenon that science is at a loss to describe. CrossFitters, with their characteristic understatement, have taken to calling what happened to me today "a metabolic reaction."

So there I was, dreaming blissfully of gym underwear that won't wedgify, when I awoke to a toddler shoving a balloon in my lips and commanding me to "fix it." The balloon, like all toys in their natural state at my house, was broken. This is awesome in two respects: a) every mother knows that popped balloons are Public Enemy Number 1 as they are the worst choking hazard known to humankind - not even the best EMT can dislodge the nefarious party good from a tiny windpipe, thereby requiring me to forcibly seize said balloon pieces, leading to b) an argument with a tiny person whose reasoning skills can best be described as "on the fritz." It was an inauspicious start to my day. Needless to say, I missed out on my first a.m. meditation.

The gym started out mellow with Gym Buddy Allison and I running laps and catching up on our weekends. We then moved on to the Monkey Bar Gym workout for the day and amused all the men on the weight floor by attempting plyo pushups alternated with "gorilla ups" - a plyo pull-up with a chest slap (hence the gorilla) at the top. As we were finishing up, we noticed Gym Buddy Krista in one of the studios. At first we were confused as to why she wasn't working out with us and then I realized with a bolt of panic that I had signed all the Gym Buddies up for a kettlebell tutorial immediately followed by a Pilates Reformer class. Today. Allison and I ran in sweaty and disoriented.

So after getting a good burn from the MBG and sweating buckets in the kettlebell class, we started on the Reformer already a bit shaky. I'm not used to an hour and a half of straight no-rest strength training and so by the end was a gooey quivering mess of flesh. All good workouts - don't get me wrong, I enjoyed them! - but I was hammered. By the time I got home I knew I was going to have a "metabolic reaction."

Knowing what was coming, I did my best to prepare. I fed the kids lunch, settled the baby for a nap and the preschooler with a movie and tried to get some work done before it hit. And hit it did. The first time I had a MR, I ended up passed out on the wood kitchen floor, asleep for a solid 30 minutes while my children ran circles around me. And when I say asleep, I don't mean cat-napping. I mean o-u-t. Tornado sirens would not wake me. So today as soon as I started to feel tingly and woozy, I ran upstairs to my bed. I didn't wake up until the first grader got home off the bus. And then I continued to feel unwell - spacey, tingly, fragile and with a ferocious and insatiable craving for simple sugary carbs - for the rest of the evening. I'd be in bed again now except I still have to grade the cursed SATs tonight.

This isn't the first time I've had a MR. Normally it happens when I try a new and particularly challenging workout. I'm not alone in this. Gym Buddy Allison has experienced a MR and it's also well documented on the CrossFit forums. But I haven't been able to predict exactly what circumstances will trigger a MR. What causes it? How do I prevent it? And what is it exactly? It's not just a function of too much exercise - I've gone hours longer than what I did today with no ill effects. It's also not like "bonking" in an endurance race (I've done that too and while it feels awful, it's awful in an entirely different way.)

Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? Anyone else ever have a metabolic reaction to exercise? What did you do? Anybody figured out a way to prevent them?

I'd really like to get to figure it out because I really can't be doing this when I have a houseful of little kids with a predilection for playing with popped balloons.

PS> This post is a rerun from February 2009 but I am putting it up again because a few days ago I had - oh yes - a metabolic reaction. And it throws me EVERY TIME. So please, yes to any advice/explanations/science-y stuff/commiseration.

Mini-Experiment: The Circus Workout is the Most Fun I've Ever Had

I'm running away to join the circus. You will forgive my impending abuse of hyperbolic punctuation, then: OHMYGOSH YOU GUYS I HAD SOOOOO MUCH FUN!!!!!!

Last night was my first - and definitely not last - circus class at Gleason's Gymnastics (for any of you locals looking for a fun time). For some reason nobody else signed up for my class so I got a two-hour private lesson with Shannon and Sam who are competitive circus performers. (Side note: would you not love to see a circus competition? I picture a lot of backstage nose tweaking and fake-flower water squirting.)

Circus jokes aside, this stuff is a serious workout. You should see Shannon and Sam; they are two of the buffest people I have ever met. We started off "warming up" on the trampoline where I'm impressed everyone with my mad seat-drop skillz. And my ability to carpet-burn my elbows on every single trick. The gym was unconditioned and with the heat index here in Minneapolis being about 100 degrees F, within 20 minutes I sweating so much I could barely see and I smelled like a monkey post-feces fight. Bikram Circus class!

Next up was the apparatus (apparati? apparatuses?). I did the aerial silks (pictured above and probably my favorite), the trapeze (also my favorite), the straps (would have been my favorite had it not left really angry red welts all over my arms), the tightrope (my favorite because I walked across it without falling on my very first try and was even able to kneel down and stand back up again which made me proud like Tina Turner even though the rope was only about a foot off the ground thereby saving me from crotching myself but whatever I'm done having kids anyhow), and the balance board thingy (not my favorite - there is no flying involved). We ran out of time to do the hammock, the aerial hoop and the juggling but they promised me I could try them next time I come.

Because all of the stunts are very upper body intensive, it is a killer workout for your arms, shoulders, back and lats. Nothing is more motivating to keep pushing than the knowledge that if you do let go you will plummet 35 feet to the mats below. Gives a whole new meaning to "muscle failure" - no way to cheat your sets when you're swinging upside down from a trapeze! Combined with swimming laps yesterday morning for August's Great Fitness Experiment I don't know if I've ever worked my upper body so hard. (Confession: I am going to rename this month's GFE to the Great Humility Experiment because great googley-moogely, swimming is hard. We went in to swim a half mile thinking it would be a piece of cake and 30 minutes of clawing our way through the water trying not to kick anyone in the head we finally did. Technically only Gym Buddies Allison and Megan did. I was 3 laps short and still thought I was going to die. Know what happens when you are sucking wind in the pool? You drown. All of you guys that told me I'd be sore in places I didn't know I had were so very very right. Unfortunately for me, Allison and Megan looooved it so I see a lot of lap swimming in my future. Good thing I love these girls.)

My conclusion: Not only is a circus class a fantastic workout both for cardio and strength but it is hands-down the most fun Experiment I have ever done. And I have loved me a lot of different workouts. This one truly felt like I was just having fun - I got to fly like in my dreams! - and the exercise was incidental. There was not a single moment where I felt like I had to just gut through it. Plus Shannon and Sam told me I was the best first-time student they've ever had (I climbed to the top of the silks and rang the bell on my first try!) so it appears that after being just so-so (I'm all heart but not much athletic ability, 'tis true) at most athletic endeavors, I might have found something that I have a natural aptitude for. Look for me in a circus near you! Except I refuse to eat circus peanuts; those are the nastiest candy ever created, like packing peanuts but grosser.

So tell me, what kind of workout just feels like FUN to you? Any of you love that feeling of flying through the air or are you afraid of heights? Which candy gets your vote for most disgusting?

How To Get Toilet Sore: The Pistol Squat

Toilet sore - the kind of sore where you have to lower yourself with both hands onto the toilet and then fall the last few inches because your quads are in so much pain - is actually a much coveted condition among the Gym Buddies and I. Mostly because we like to yell "I'm toilet sore" across a crowded gym but also because we like having worked so hard that we are that sore. It is a debate for another day as to whether you should seek muscle soreness as a workout goal but for today I will tell you my favorite way to get Toilet Sore.

Behold, the Pistol Squat: (Click through to site to see video)



(My capris provided by Marika's new Miracles shapers line - these babies boosted my butt and wrangled my mummy tummy!)

My three favorite things about this video:
1. We START with the blooper reel
2. For some inexplicable reason we turn the camera sideways for one scene (and I don't know how to rotate it back).
3. Gym Buddy Krista SNORTING while she laughs filming us.
3.5. That I don't know the difference between surfing and water skiing.

The Girly Side of Weight Lifting (Giveaway!)

Who says eating healthy and staying fit has to hurt? Crossfit does, that's who. Today's workout of the day had the Gym Buddies and I power snatching 75 times. Oh yes, you read that right - 75 reps of this:



We were supposed to be snatching 75 pounds. Krista managed to snatch that twice while the rest of us watched in awe and then we finished the WOD on 45 pounds which sounds all hot stuff until you consider that is just the weight of the bar. Yeah we're awesome. Also, my arms want to fall off now.

Nothing like a sweaty session throwing around - literally, in our case today - the iron to make you crave some creature comforts. To see how I girlified Crossfit and to win some Shabby Apple clothing, click through to my giveaway site for all the details!

How do you feel about working out in a skirt? What's your favorite workout clothing item? Anyone else have more workout clothes than regular clothes? Were any of you able to do all 75 power snatches with the 75-lb bar??

What Do You Think About While You're Exercising?

Bloody rampages can really get the blood pumping - in more ways than one. The hottest new fitness trend coming out of Japan (where else do all slightly demented yet meteoric trends come from these days?) is Samurai Training. The aerobics class, which is open to both genders but is almost exclusively dominated by women - and if that doesn't tell you something about modern Japanese culture then I don't know what does - promises to give you a good sweat while you cut a swath through the bad guys with your katana, the traditional weapon of choice for Japanese Samurai. Including Tom Cruise. I mean, he's even got one in the movie poster and everyone knows movie posters are 100% historically accurate. (We'll discuss later how I learned all my important historical facts from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and thereby humiliated myself during a family game of Trivial Pursuit by mispronouncing the famous philosopher as "So-crates.")

A group fit class where you get a sword? Sign me up! Okay, so the sword is plastic but according to devotees of the new sport the emotion is so sharp that even Hello Kitty temporarily sprouts a mouth just so she can snarl while delivering "40 disemboweling thrusts" in rapid succession. Practitioners of the ancient-cum-strip mall sport not only get to disembowel imaginary foes but also get to behead them, stab them through the heart and hack off limbs (presumably the imaginary foes then cry, "Come back, I'll bite your legs off!"). Samurai classes are not for wimps: "The sessions follow Mr Takafuji’s original, punishing take on kenbu — a macabre sword dance that he said was historically performed by samurai around the remains of their recently cleaved opponents."

I want to try this class so bad that I might need to seek comfort in the styrofoam lap of my Japanese legs pillow to calm myself. Anyhow, while I'm waiting for this trend to hop the ocean, it got me thinking about, well, all the things I think about while I'm working out intensely. I don't normally picture "recently cleaved opponents" - although perhaps now I'll try and work that in to my next Turbokick class - but I do have some pretty violent fantasies. Indeed, working out my violent thoughts was one of the initial and very powerful draws of both kickboxing and Karate for me. When Turbo Jennie yells for us to grab someone's head and pull it into our knee, I'm totally picturing it. My favorite is when we do a backhanded punch thingy - I can feel a nose cracking under my knuckles. I used to think this predilection was just me working out my sordid past but after reading this article, apparently I am not alone. Samurai girls don't just kick butt, they slice it off and hand it to you on a platter.

While rolling heads and crushed bones are pretty much the exclusive purview of my martial arts classes, I do have quite the active imaginary life in all my athletic endeavors. When I'm running on a treadmill I'm imagining myself... running outside. Sigh. But when I'm running outside I imagine all kinds of scenarios: that I'm the last person alive running from a village under siege to warn the next village over (this one is particularly awesome for trail runs), that I'm a time traveler running to make my jump back into my own dimension so I can reunite with my lost love, that I'm running to a planet where pee-soaked playlands don't exist and Chuck E. Cheese only exists in nightmares. You know, whatever it takes to get me up that hill. Sometimes I even like to imagine I'm on TV (yes it would be the most boring channel ever but it's my fantasy so get your own cable station) with judges critiquing my form. "Look at that bicep curl! She's so controlled and steady! Can she eke out one more rep? I dunno Bob, I see a bead of sweat... oh there she goes! I was wrong! What a feat! Can you hear the crowd? This is one for the history books!!" Like I said, active imagination.

So what do you think about when you work out? Anyone else fantasize about killing people during kickboxing? Running away from the Nazis during your jog through suburbia? Would you try the Samurai aerobics class with me??

Weight Lifting Injuries on the Rise - I Blame The Jersey Shore

Be afraid, be very afraid: There is a silent killer lurking in your gym. Oh you may think your daily sweat fests are protecting you from injury and disease but in reality those free weights are a ticking time bomb with your number on it. And not just because the last person to use them pooped and didn't wash their hands before picking up that dumbbell. (Although that does happen too. That's another downside of having the bathrooms right on the track at my Y. When you're running by you can totally see if there is no pause between the toilet flushing and the door opening.) Nope, the weight floor is dangerous for an entirely different reason: You are an idiot.

According to an analysis of recent data, weight lifting injuries are on the rise, increasing 50% over the course of the study. In 2007 alone there were over 970,000 hospital visits attributed to pumping the iron. The worst offender? The free weights.

I will 'fess up: I've totally dropped weights on myself. The worst time was when I bounced a thirty-pound dumbbell off my shoulder while trying to bench press two of them. The shoulder hit was actually a good thing because the other 'bell was heading straight for my lady bits, had I not rolled sideways off the bench. I ended up sideways on the floor with a dumbbell crashing down on top of me and a very concerned fellow weight lifter who refused to let me do anything without a spot for the rest of my foolhardy workout. In addition to that I've stubbed toes tripping over weights left on the floor, popped an olympic bar off my collar bone while doing cleans (nothing says hardcore like an Olympic bar-shaped bruise across your pecs), and strained innumerable muscles and joints because I was too busy telling the Gym Buddies about Jennifer Aniston's baby food diet (ridic!) to watch my form.


My favorite weight-induced injury however was one day Gym Buddy Krista and I were using the cable machine to do assisted pistol squats (if you have never done a pistol squat then you do not know the meaning of Toilet Sore - you will excrete green pain, you will be that sore). On this particular day Krista set the resistance too light and upon trying to stand up out of the squat found herself tipping. So she did what any good weight lifter would do: instead of merely setting her other foot on the ground, she fell over backwards landing flat on her back. The best part was thanks to the cable machine, she did it all slo-mo, Matrix style. It probably took her a whole 20 seconds to complete her protracted fall. And did I run to help her? Sadly I couldn't thanks to being crippled by my child-weakened bladder. Nothing says Great Workout like peeing your pants.

According to the study, Krista and I are anomalies as the vast majority of injuries happen to young (ages 13-24) men. And if you can't immediately understand why this is true then you have never watched The Jersey Shore.

Now, if I were a responsible blogger, I'd give you a whole list of tips on how to lift safely. I'd say stuff like maintain good form, ask for a spot, have a trainer show you how to do new moves, don't increase your weight too quickly, don't show off and for the love of little green apples don't think that just because the gym is piping Eye of the Tiger over the PA that that gives you license to punch random stationary objects. But I'm not and I'm tired. So I'll leave you with this: Don't be dumb, dude.


And now you will be haunted by this image for the rest of the day. You're welcome.

So what's your story? Have you ever hurt yourself weight lifting? What's the best/worst fitness injury you've ever seen? If you saw someone coming out of the bathroom who obviously hadn't washed their hands, would you say something??

Beauty is Pain, Even in the Gym

Beauty is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. I realize that die-hard Princess Bride fans are firing up their e-mails at this very second to correct my misquote but I still think it applies here.

Beauty is a highly prized commodity in our society and therefore we will go to great lengths to own It or be It or even just be in the general vicinity of It. I'm not talking about plastic surgery or leg-extending or even Botox here, just the ordinary things we do so often they become de rigeur. You know, like poking yourself in the eye with a mascara wand. Do you realize that if everyone simultaneously stopped wearing mascara then all of our lashes would shrink proportionately and we'd end up at about the same place we started. But no, we must paint the hair attached to our eye lids. Future generations will cluck derisively. As they get surgical eyelash implants. Don't even get me started on lipstick, a.k.a. tubes of lead paint that you put on the things you use to eat.

Aside to the Men
Before you men get all uppity, I have one thing to say to you: chest press. The one piece of gym equipment that is always in use on the weight floor is the chest press. And it's not the ladies trying to fill out their sweaters (oh, if only that worked!). For some reason this is the manliest of all exercises, often to the exclusion of working one's back or legs giving them the classic big-on-top-small-everywhere-else look. We women do not find the Quasimodo look attractive so don't tell me you guys do it to impress us. Plus? Nose hair trimmers. Egads.

And Back to the Women
Although I will admit that women probably have a longer list of things we suffer for beauty: waxing, plucking, shaving, thong underwear and of course, stilettos top the list. High heels are a double edged sword. On one hand they shorten your Achilles tendon, cause painful bunions and keep you from running away if the situation warrants. On the other hand apparently they help build your pelvic floor muscles which are so important for many kegel-related reasons. (In the interest of full disclosure, I totally love my high heels. And I own so many and of such great height that any reasonable woman would be ashamed. Thankfully I am not reasonable.)

Even in the Gym
I've seen people suffer for their vanity in the gym in two main ways: inappropriate clothing choices and incorrect form. The former can remedied by reading this and adding, "invest in a good sports bra." (It may even save your life as this quick-thinking marathoner discovered!) The latter is much more complicated as offenses range from lifting too heavy, to working out with an injury, to the classic-yet-wrong No Pain No Gain mantra professed by so many gym-a-holics.

Admit it, we've all done something we knew was wrong because we wanted to look purty or impressive. My list is too long to enumerate but let's just say I've had more than my fair share of wardrobe malfunctions AND that trying exercises that are too difficult for me (and refusing to back down even when in over my head) is kind of my signature move.

So what's your sacrifice for beauty? Have you ever tried an exercise that's too hard for you?

How to Do a Pull Up (Video!)

In my first episode of Fitness Moves You Think You Can't Do But Totally Can, I got all crazy and tried to convince you that handstand push-ups are a great workout, fun and an awesome party trick to boot. A few of you tried them. Many of you laughed. This time I'm hoping to up the ante, both with the trying and the laughing. Today we're tackling pull ups!

Since the Y frowns upon me bringing my camera onto the weight floor, Gym Buddy Megan and her husband Sensei Don kindly offered up their basement. Hilarity - as it always does with us - ensues. Even if you don't care about pull-ups or my ugly shirt, you MUST see the last 30 seconds. I laughed so hard I peed a little. And yeah, my incontinence made the video too.

PS> This may possibly be the least flattering workout shirt ever. Forgive me; I have no idea how to dress myself. (Seriously, it looks like it's tucked into the back of my leggings - it's NOT. I swear that's how the shirt was sewn!)


Click through to see the video

Can you do an unassisted pull-up? Which variation - chair, resistance band, negative, 90 degree - is your favorite? Anyone else consistently dress themselves in things that seem like a good idea... until you leave the house? Anyone else think Bob is kinda hot??

Pilates: May's Great Fitness Experiment Plus Experiment Results

Admit it: Larry King is living out your dream right here.

Larry King is my fitness muse. (There's 6 words I bet you never thought you'd read.) This month found me breaking up with my cute new workout and before the ink was even dry on the gym schedule I already had my eye on a new young thing. Why? Because when you've been married 7 times - or tried 70 different workouts - what's one more? Life's too short for bad workouts. Plus, while I've never actually tested out this theory, I think I would totally rock a bow tie.

April's Great Fitness Experiment Results
There just isn't a delicate way to say it so I'm just going to come out with it: Core Performance for Women was a pain in the arse. Both literally and figuratively. The former pain in said butt cheeks was the upside of the month. The latter pain meant that it was pretty much the only upside. This workout was boring, repetitive, too easy, unbalanced and oddly non-sweaty. The only way I can reconcile Mr. Vestergren's credentials with our Experiment is to think that it would have been different had he been instructing us. Maybe we were just doing it wrong?

Several theories were bandied about over the course of the month - there was an awful lot of time for theory bandying as the workouts never left us breathless - including the printer accidentally omitting pages from the book, it being a type of physical therapy/injury rehab or the workout actually being meant as a supplement to a real workout. This was disappointing as when I first read the book I was very excited about his theories and the program. Unfortunately the workouts did not live up to the hype. I find it really hard to believe that the athletes he is paid to train, like the U.S. women's soccer team, actually do what is described in the book.

Enough negativity though - the bright spot was that there were some novel moves and the few that worked really worked. Especially in our butts. He has a warrior-three-to-standing-row-using-a-band move that will have your butt, hamstrings and back screaming for mercy. And his curtsy lunges on the slider made Gym Buddy Krista's inner thighs so sore that she called Suzanne Sommers to brag. His theory, that movements need to be driven by our gluteal muscles rather than pulled by our quads, seems solid as Gym Buddy Megan and I decided that we really could feel a difference in our running form when we focused on contracting our butts. (I'll leave it to your imagination as to exactly what we looked like running around the track clenching our heinies.)

As for results, well, there were none. Nobody made any fitness gains or lost any weight or body fat. In fact, we all felt like we lost some muscle this month because there were so many body parts he never works. Like, oh, your biceps and triceps. (Do soccer players not need their arms? I know they can't use their hands but surely arms would come in handy - at the very least for grabbing an opposing chick by her ponytail and throwing her to the ground.) It didn't help that the workouts were so repetitive, weird and boring that after 3 weeks on the most advanced level we decided we couldn't take one more week of it and switched to CrossFit for the last seven days of April. I think we made more progress in that one week than we did in the previous three.

May's Great Fitness Experiment: Pilates
My failed fling with Core Performance sent me running into the arms of a more staid, more reliable workout - and one that oddly enough I have never done an Experiment on in all my years of Experimenting. Everyone say hello to my new workout Pilates! I know it's a little awkward for those of you who were friends with my old workouts but I'm not asking you to choose sides or anything, just give the new one a chance and she'll wow you with her toned core and balletic posture.

Joseph Pilates, the inventor of the eponymous program, famously said "In ten sessions you will feel the difference, in twenty you will see the difference and in thirty you will have a whole new body." He originally invented Pilates as a way to keep fit with the limited resources allowed him as a prisoner of war in World War I. His program was so successful that he taught it to his fellow prisoners and is credited with saving his camp from the influenza outbreak of 1918. (Random history fact: The flu pandemic of 1918 killed more people worldwide than any other natural or manmade disaster in history.) After the war he developed his techniques in to the hugely popular mat program that most of us know today thanks to Daisy Fuentes, who used to be an actress or something but now is only known for hawking billions of Windsor Pilates DVDs on late night infomercials. (Full disclosure: I bought the entire Windsor Pilates set one late late night after my first son was born. I am SUCH a sucker for a good infomercial. My favorite aisle ever is the "As Seen on TV aisle" at the grocery store and I don't even watch TV!)

Pilates is also associated with the Reformer, a machine that looks like a cross between a torture rack and a hospital bed in a psych ward. During our Experiment this month we will be trying both mat and reformer workouts. Of the two, according to Pilates himself, the mat workout is the gold standard and the Reformer is for people who can't handle the mat - a fact I find very interesting considering how crazy expensive Reformer lessons are.

For this month, in an effort to do the best Pilates Experiment I can, I will be doing only Pilates and no other strength training. I'm going to do at least 20 workouts (I'd better "see the difference"!) and am hoping to get close to 30 as I'd really like that "whole new body" behind door number 3. I'm hoping it's Kate Beckinsale's. Two of the Gym Buddies are not down with giving up weight lifting - they're already feeling weak thanks to last month's wussy workout - so they will be our control group. We will be keeping all our cardio (dance, turbo kick, running etc.) the same.

Any of you do Pilates regularly? Do you think it can take the place of a good weights workout? (Incidentally, for those of you who will suggest we do both, the book I am using says that this is a mistake because traditional weight workouts create "bulky stiff muscles" that constrain healthy bodies.) Have you seen big results from this program? Anyone else want in on this one with me??

PS> For those of you following along at home, we are using "The Pilates Body" by Brooke Siler as our primer and we will be attending 3 Pilates classes a week in our gym.

How to do a Handstand Push Up (Video!)

Weight lifting can be intimidating. While pretty much everyone can do a bicep curl or squat, things start to get tetchy when you depart from the standard five safe exercises - especially if you are doing something with a high potential for embarrassment. Fortunately, those are my very favorite moves to try. It's a win-win all around: onlookers get some good entertainment and I get to try something new.

This is the first video, courtesy of The Great Fitness Experiment Gym Buddies, in a series of Fitness Moves You Think You Can't Do (But You Really Can!). (My next tutorial will be on how to write really long awkward titles with random capitalization. I'm a pro.)

On the agenda today: Handstand Push Ups!


click through to the site to see the video

Note: The Gym Buddies would like me to tell you that they do not normally tuck their shirts into their pants a la Steve Urkel. I gave them zero warning we were doing this and they were great sports about it!

Do any of you love handstands like I do? Any newbies willing to try it out? What's your favorite weird-o fitness move? Also, what do you think of me adding the occasional video post like this one? Should I keep the videos or stick to text only?

PS> Thanks to FitJerk for convincing me to do a video post (not that it took a lot of convincing...)

Core Performance: April's Great Fitness Experiment and March's Results (Giveaway Post!!)

Embarrassment: My armpits are hairy. Part of it is because I am porcelain pale (that's the nice person way of saying my friends call me Casper) with raven hair and while that sounds like a winning combo in romance novels, it's more about 5 o'clock shadows - on my legs - in real life. But me and my trusty razor have usually been able to keep my hirsuteness in check. That is, until P90X. That's right, people. P90X made my armpits hairier. Okay, to be precise P90X didn't increase my actual hair but thanks to my newly muscular shoulders, my pits are really difficult to shave! (Shout out to Jen Sinkler of Survival of the Fittest who also noticed this phenomenon in her curvier pits.)

Hairy pits aside - and I will extend my apologies now to all my Gym Buddies, Turbo friends and everyone else who has to see me in a tank top these days - let's get right to the results of P90X. The program is written to be done for 90 days (hence the "90" in the title) but if you are good at counting you'll notice we only did it for 60.

In the Gym
Complaint 1: We got bored. The first month you rotate through 6 different workouts. The second month they sub in two new workouts but you keep 4 the same. The third month is just all 8 workouts repeated. These workouts were definitely challenging - the Core Synergystics one made me so Toilet Sore that I almost had to install a handicapped bar in my bathroom - but the same 8 workouts for 90 straight days? Boring. And in our world where a new fun workout comes out every week, there simply is no reason in my mind to repeat the same thing over and over.

Complaint 2: Very little cardio. Some of you will see this as a plus but Tony and the gang don't seem to think much of cardio. I'm not saying I want endless treadmill runs but the Kenpo (stylized kick boxing) routine was the only actual cardio workout and that's done once a week. The plyometrics workout got our heart rates up but our leg muscles failed long before our lungs did.

Complaint 3: Oh my aching wrists! Between all the pull-ups and push-ups, my already computer-compromised wrists are toast. Other Gym Buddies complained of knee pain from all the lunges.

Complaint 4: I expect to get nailed for this one in the comments but Gym Buddy Megan and I agreed: it made our shoulders too bulky. I love to be strong (LOVE it) but I also like fitting in my shirts. P90X almost made me have an Incredible Hulk-esque wardrobe malfunction. In church. Surely there is a way to get the nice definition and the strength without the bulk? (And because I know you are all curious now, you can flash back to this post to see what my shoulders look like right now. They're not huge huge. They just make my shirts tight.)

Compliments: I loved the new weight lifting moves. Tony has some seriously creative juices because he has 6 different moves to work your biceps alone. We will definitely be incorporating some of these into future routines. I also loved my new strength. I started the program able to kinda eke out one pull up. I can now do two pull-ups and two chin-ups! This thrills me. Unabashedly.

Conclusions
P90X made no difference at all in my weight. I lost 1 pound last month and regained it this month. Of course this is not the fault of the workout. Like I said in my one-month review, 90% of my weight loss happens in the kitchen and I can't hardly expect to be losing weight while I'm snarfing down cinnamon rolls. Totally my bad and I know it. Yes, I still have 5 pounds to go to get to my "nursing weight" and yes I'm still really depressed about that. Feel free to chide me - or enlighten me - in the comments. I really really need to let this weight thing go. It's making me nuts. (Side note: This is further evidence that eating vegan does not automatically translate to weight loss. There's plenty of fattening (yet delish!) vegan desserts out there!)

On the dietary front - because if you'll recall, March's GFE was actually the Okinawa Program - things went a little better. It turns out I really enjoy eating like the Okinawans. I find the food delicious and I love their emphasis on whole grains. I feel really good eating this way and it meshes quite well with my baby-imposed dairy restrictions. The problem was my old nemesis Mr. Satan, er, Sugar. The Okinawan Program recommends 1-3 servings of sweets per week. I did that per day. Sigh.

April's Great Fitness Experiment
Back in January I reviewed a book called Core Performance Women by Mark Verstegen and Peter Williams. Basically this is a workout centered around making amorous advances on a foam roller - what's not to love about that? Actually, the reason I'm excited to try out this program is because it is written by a seasoned professional athletic trainer (Verstegen) for women athletes. Verstegen has both a dietary and exercise component but as the former is rather uninspired (though very solid) - think the 100s of articles you've read this month alone about lean protein, healthy fat and whole carbs - we'll be focusing mostly on the workouts. For those of you who don't own a copy of the book, the Core Performance website has a TON of free exercises, fitness videos and recipes so while you won't be able to play along with the Gym Buddies and I exactly, you can certainly try out his techniques. Just be sure to sterilize the foam roller when you're finished. (P.S. Men are not left out! While this particular book is written for women, his previous ones were written for men and his main site has plenty of info for the dudes as well as the chicks.)

Giveaway!
One of the comments I get most often on my Great Fitness Experiments is "Well that's all fine and dandy for you already fit folk but I'm just starting out! I can't keep up with that!" While I think that most Experiments can be scaled down for beginners, I do understand how intimidating health and fitness can be when you are starting from ground zero. GFE reader and certified Beachbody coach Elizabeth Demeusey has stepped in with a very generous offer specifically for all of you just getting into fitness. Beachbody's Slim in Six (you may have seen the omnipresent infomercials?) program is designed to help people get started on the path to better health. With Elizabeth's coaching and the Slim in Six program, you'll have a great transition into fitness.

Since Elizabeth wanted to specifically offer this product to fitness newbies, instead of using the random number generator to pick the winner (like I usually do), she would like you to leave a short comment explaining why you need this and I will select the winner based on need. So tell us: What goals are you looking to accomplish? Are you looking to lose weight? Improve your blood pressure or cholesterol? Avoid the family curse of diabetes? Elizabeth adds, " I would like to encourage only people to enter who really, really need to get serious about their health and not just people who are curious about watching the DVD." The winner will get to choose between the Slim in Six package or, if they'd prefer, Kathy Ireland's program for people battling type 2 diabetes.

Your Turn
Any other thoughts to add about P90X? Anybody try the Okinawan Program? And, Who's in with me for April's Core Performance for Women? Be sure to leave a comment telling me why you need a health transformation to enter the giveaway!

Anybody else notice the more muscular they get, the harder their pits are to shave?

Blast Your Booty: 5 Moves to a Bodacious Backside

Gym Buddy Krista's face says it all, I think. There was pain (like two nails driven into my butt cheeks, not to mention serious ham and quad soreness) but there was also much laughter.

After FitJerk shredded our abs, you'd think I'd be leery of handing our delicate lady behinds over to him but you know me and a good challenge. Besides, this is our "rest week" on P90X and we needed a little variety to spice up our Core Synergistics (the least restful workout ever, Tony Horton!!) and Yoga (of which the Gym Buddies are boycotting). So Monday found us kicking, lifting, squatting and - heaven help us - thrusting our butts to high heaven. All in the middle of a very crowded weight floor. Mondays are the day the staff reserve to give the elderly folks the tour of the fitness floor. We got a ton of stares and quite a few comments. Thankfully dollar bills were not involved.

But, (or butt! hee!) let's get to the workout. I'll let Fit Jerk explain it to you. He even went to the effort of drawing you cute little illustrations. The Gym Buddies and I will interpret:

This workout has been a while in the making… I mean just ask Charlotte. I told her about it like a month a go and after some trial runs I finally got everything up to speed and we have a workout that will quite literally spank you silly.

Charlotte's note: My butt hurts. A lot. No spanking necessary, thank you.

The making: A while back I challenged Charlotte to try my insane ab workout and to my surprise she got a bunch of her friends together and put them through sweet agony. Nothing says friendship like “hey, come feel the massive burn of lactic acid with me!” – I should know, I put my good friend and training partner through this 3 times a week. Sometimes 4, then he hates me. So I figured, why not throw up a new challenge for her? So I picked a body part I get asked about a lot, and made a workout to help make it spectacular.

Alright let’s get on with it.

The Booty Blast: Working Out Your Behind So You Can Move Forward in Life

Golden Rule: Rest 90 seconds between each exercise and 60 seconds between each set.

R = Reps
S = Sets
mx = Maximum Reps (Till failure)
/ = Divides the # of reps you need to do per set

Exercise 1: Standing Kickbacks
S = 3 (per leg)
R = 20/20/mx

First of all, I should mention that you can do this while standing OR on the floor by going on all fours (hands and knees). Do whatever works for you. The concept is simple: Pick a leg and bring the knee up into a 90 degree bend. Flex your toes upward and kick your legs back while simultaneously driving you heels into a non-existent target. If someone was standing behind you while doing a kick back, they should get impaled by the heel of your foot. It’s like a mule kick. YEEEHANWWW! TO make it challenging, you can always kick higher but to REALLY feel it in the bum, try holding your leg for a second or two once extended, then bring it back.

Strangely no one wanted to volunteer to stand behind Allison to get kicked. Yeah, I know she smiles all cute but girlfriend kicks like a donkey.

Workout 2: Deep Hack Squat
S = 3
R = 15/20/mx

You will need some kind of machine for this since I don’t want most of you doing the traditional barbell hack squat. The thing with the hack squat is that your legs are out in front of you… so as you go down into the squat it will look as if you’re sitting in a chair. Think of doing a wall sit… its a similar position, but you go deeper. If your gym does not have a hack squat machine, you can use the leg press machine and just keep your feet in front as much possible. Having your heels under your knees is a good way to think of it. Also, don’t rush it… slow and controlled. For those that know how to read tempo, do 212.

Fit Jerk didn't give me a cute little drawing for this one so you get my best attempt at good form. Yes, it feels as weird as it looks but trust me - with your feet out that far you really really feel it in your tush.

See those red marks across my shoulders? The sign of a really heavy hack squat! I love a good weight-lifting war wound!

Workout 3: Assisted Roundhouse Kick
S = 3 (per leg)
R = 15/20/mx

This exercise is my secret weapon to a great backside, I’m not tooting my horn here… it's feedback from plenty of women, so you know… it’s gotta be all true. I've been doing karate since I was 15 years old and I always noticed the great burn feeling in my butt after my Sensei put us through this drill every class. By the time we finished it felt like I had sat down butt naked on a hot stove. We don’t need to go that crazy, but this is a great exercise. To do this, stand against a wall and make sure your supporting leg (non kicking leg) has its toes pointed TO the wall. This means your heels will face the target. Next, bring up the knee of the kicking leg as high as possible and bend it so that your heels are almost touching your butt cheek. Hold on to this leg. Now while staying in this position, fire the kicking leg (point your toes) and then bring it back. Every rep should be done as fast and as furiously as possible.

Note: Once you start the kicking, DO NOT hold the leg every rep, this defeats the purpose. You’ll notice that your knees start to dip as you get tired… you need to FIGHT this urge because that’s where a lot of the results come form.

Assisted kicks are for wusses! We don't need no stinking wall!

Workout 4: Hip Abductions
S = 3 (per leg)
R = mx/mx/mx

Most gyms have cable machines and have a crap load of different attachments that you can use. One of these attachments is for your ankles. But if you don’t go to the gym and/or your gym does not have the adequate equipment, you can do this with a pair of resistance bands which cost like $30 for a full set! So you have no excuse. If you’re REALLY dead broke and/or walking itself gives your rear a burn then you can do this without any resistance.

I don’t think much explanation is needed. Keep your hips perpendicular to the direction you’ll be kicking. Keep the kicking leg as straight as possible and raise sideways as high as you can. Dipping your upper body down a little bit will help get your leg up higher. Oh and holding onto something for balance is generally a very good idea.

The beginning of the move.

The end of the move - isn't Allison the most adorable fitness model ever?

Gratuitous backside shot (this is what happens when Krista gives us immature girls the camera to hold)!

Workout 5: Barbell Butt Bridge (Or hump the ceiling)
S = 4
R = 20/30/mx/mx

Grab a normal 45lbs barbell and place it along your hips. The thing I like about this exercise is that you can keep adding weight according to your experience level… but don’t let your ego get carried away. To do the 30 reps during the second set, I doubt you’ll be able to get away with much weight so take an educated guess. You may also use dumbbells by placing them on your thighs and holding on to them.

As you lie down, bring your knees up and keep your feet flat on the floor. Then raise your butt and lower back off the floor (hump the ceiling), hold it for a second and then lower yourself back to starting position. You should really focus on squeezing your bum as you do this… not only will it let you lift a heavier load, you will get the desired effect needed.

Nope, no picture from us on this one! This was embarrassing (hee!) enough without photographic evidence. But I want to point out that we totally DID use the 45 pound bar! It was even the curl bar so it hurt in two different ways - so take THAT Mr. Jerk!

Workout 6: Eat Smart!
S = unlimited
R = forever

One final thing I want you to realize is that just like abs, a great butt will be hiding behind a layer of fat… unless you get rid of it. Doing this workout will surely give you a powerful bum, and will give it the “tightness” it needs to stay firm… but if you really wanna “show it off” then you need to realize that your eating habits are just as crucial. Unleash your spectacular rear view by eating right AND doing my workouts… and expect to be complimented and stalked – Every girls dream.

Stalking is every girl's dream? And in other news, next week I will be guest posting, on Fit Jerk's blog about new wave feminism in a gym environment.

Cheers.

No, cheers to you my abtastic friend! Thanks for another great challenge!

- FitJerk

Author Bio: While he has a passion for writing and oozes the entrepreneurial spirit, FJ is a Fitness Expert first, and focuses on impeccably accurate advice that is delivered it in a straight forward, No-BS style. Check out his book or for personal attention, look into E-Training!

See ya on the backside!

Overall this was a kick-butt routine - in both senses! All of us were sore the next day which was good since our derrieres are not something we choose to work very often. Kinda like calves for me - I will never willingly work my calf muscles. I hate calf exercises. Do you have a body part you hate to work? Any of you try this workout with us this last weekend??

Written By Charlotte Hilton Andersen for http://thegreatfitnessexperiment.blogspot.com only! Not to be re-published without permission.