Thanksgiving Workout

Well, we are officially running off for the holidays! I am so excited about Thanksgiving FINALLY being here, I simply cannot wait. This year, my Mom will be staying with us and her room is just about ready for her. We had the guest bedroom all finished, but then, around 1:00 AM on Monday evening I decided to completely redesign it and move all the furniture around. Two days later and we have some really cute mirrors, floating shelfs, a new nightstand, new bedding, a simple and gorgeous pendant light the hubs installed (my hero), and we are down a dresser that there really was not enough room for anyway. I also found this awesome bed from Target and am waiting for Black Friday/Cyber Monday to order it. For now, Mom will make due on the bed she has :) 

Oh, and pictures will be on the blog when it is all done, promise!

Aaand, back to Thanksgiving, the rest of our family will be arriving today as well, but we will probably not see them until tomorrow. As for what we are cooking, I am doing this vegetarian stuffing, a quick and easy bread bowl of artichoke dip, Brussels sprouts, and a breakfast crustless quiche for our house in the morning! Ahh, it will be so fun! 

Of course, with all this massive, massive eating comes a workout or two. Yesterday I did a 1.5-mile uphill run-a-thon followed by a bum workout and today I am thinking P90X Plyometrics. The little workout guide above was on the Elf 4 Health Facebook page and I thought you would enjoy it as much as I did. Goodness, we could make a pretty fantastic workout with just following what we eat. Mine would include about 30 push-ups, 150 jumping jacks, a whole ton of squats (maybe mix in some Sumo and jumping ones), and more burpees and mountain climbers than I can comprehend. And that is just the first set. Seconds and thirds would be a sure thing. 

Happy Thanksgiving! What would your Thanksgiving workout look like? 

100 Burpee Challenge

Burpees are great. No matter how much we hate them, there is no denying that they work the legs, butt, core, arms, chest, and back while giving us a massive cardio burst. These guys are like a secret weapon for toning and tightening all those areas that are so hard to tone and tighten. Once, there was a time when the idea of doing a burpee sent my running (almost literally) away from a workout. That is, until, I realized this little secret... For what they do, they really are not that bad. Gasp!

Yes, they are ridiculously difficult. And yes, doing an hour of burpees could bring a full grown he-man to tears; but, who has ever done burpees and not felt the rewards of it in the following days? Me either. That is why I have a challenge for you on this fine day. The 100 burpee challenge, to be precise. Yes, 100 burpees. How long will it take you? Can you do it in 15-minutes or less?

This past weekend I went to my first ever Crossfit class with a friend. It was great and there will be more on that later this week. What made this class so different from usual though, was the 3,000 burpee challenge for charity they were doing all day. After every circuit we had to do a minute of burpees. Then, there was 5-minutes at the end of the hour class. The 5-minutes were split between your team so you only ended up doing 2.5-minutes total. It was still insane. I did 88 burpees, averaging 12 burpees per minute.

Although I loved the Crossfit class and plan on returning, the burpees may have been the most useful part of the whole deal. And that, my friends, is what inspired me to put out this little mid-week challenge. 100 burpees in 15-minutes or less. Can you do it?

In order to really do this challenge, be sure that you are doing a full burpee. Start with your front on the ground, arms bent and hands on either side of your chest. Lift off to plank position and jump feet between the hands- no stepping here! Then, jump up, lifting hands straight up overhead. Jump back to plank and lower back down to the ground. That is one. Now just repeat 99 times and you are there!

Let me know how long it took you!