Martini's & Muscles

Happy Friday!

I was actually looking forward to Thursday more than Friday this week because my Sister in Law Amanda was coming to visit for the night.  She came down and we took the girls to the book fair at Devin's school and then we went out for dinner & drinks.  We ended up going to a nearby Italian/Mediterranean Restaurant.  They have $7 martini's on Thursday nights & yummy grilled pizzas.  We ended up with a stuffed Portobello appetizer and we shared two grilled pizza halfs.  My fav of the two was the Pear & Prosciutto Grilled Pizza.  It was delicious! 

After dinner we grabbed a bottle of red wine & a couple chocolate bars.  We brought them back to my house and chatted all night while we had some vino and dessert.

                                        Shiraz, Sea Salt Almond & Coconut Dark Chocolate

I am so blessed to have Amanda as my sis in law.  She is absolutely amazing & super supportive.  (My brother Jack (her hubby) is also pretty great too.) :) She also is responsible for getting me into racing.  I don't know what I would do without her, she deserves her own entire separate post one of these days.

Now on to the muscles part of the post. A full body workout that I did yesterday (you know to burn off the drinks & pizza in advance).   I love total body workouts.  Even more I love total body workouts that incorporate jump training & keep your heart rate high the whole time.  This means you burn more calories in a shorter amount of time.  I am all about short bursts of high intensity work. 

This is a circuit workout, which means you will complete each move  as many times as you can during the interval (with good form) before moving on to the next.  You can do it 2-3x through for a 20-30 minute workout.  I did it 2x.  The intervals are 50 seconds of work with 10 seconds of rest. 

• 1 Leg Weighted Lunge (L)
• 1 Leg Weighted Lunge (R)
• Jump Lunges
• Incline Push-ups
• Burpees (Full)
• Plank Toe Touch
• Butterfly Sit-ups
• Jump Squats
• Weighted Sumo-Squat with knee to elbow
• Push-up to side plank

The best part about interval training is that it can be adjusted to you.  You aren't doing a certain amount of reps, you are doing as many reps as you can in the given time.  Interval workouts are a great way to gauge progress.  Keep track of how many reps you can complete.  Go back in a few weeks and perform the same workout again to see how much improvement you have made.  I am going to make a point of this over the next 30 days.  Since right now I'm (very) limited on my running, I am trying to get stronger.  I think this will be important during my next marathon training cycle.

The above workout can also be done without weight, it would still be a fantastic workout using your own body weight.  Just be sure to push harder to get as many reps as possible (with good form) done during each interval.

Do you keep track of your strength gains?  Whether it be in running, strength or flexibility, how do you keep track to make sure you are improving?