Constant Climber, Renegade Rows....Great Weight Intervals

Yesterday was intervals and weights with Cristina.  I usually workout with Cristina on Thursdays but had to change because of a lunch meeting this week.  In the session I hit the ground running....literally.  After quick warm up it was into sprints.  These are 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off at 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5, 9, 9.5, 10, 10.5, and 11mph.  I was really pumped that I only did 30 second rest before the 11mph sprint.  Sometime I'll take 40-45 second before that one.

I didn't get much of a break before hitting the Constant Climber machine to do oblique pull downs for 40 seconds on each side.  These were paired with 10 box squats on each leg.

Then to renegade rows and what I'll call weighted side hops.  The second one is actually to help me with form.  With lunges I tend to turn my toes in slightly instead of pointing toes straight ahead, so these hops are suppose to help hip flexors fire better so I don't turn in.  Those rows are tough to do with weights that roll!  I did 20 renegade rows (alternating 10 on each side) and 10 weighted side hops on each leg.

One other set was biceps and triceps.  As Cristina said when I did a drop set to exhaustion on biceps, "Your biceps need a little love"....in other words they need a lot of work to be ripped!  Those alternated with overhead tricep push downs, which I actually went up on weight with each set.  Got to do 12 of each for the three sets, until the last set of biceps when Cristina dropped the weight and made me keep going with bicep curls to exhaustion.

With the exercise pairs, you do both exercises for 3 sets with minimal rest between sets.

Here's a quick look at how to do the exercises.  Have fun!

Mad Abs & Dirty 30

Today was one of those days that half the battle is getting to gym.  Well I made it and pushed it hard for an hour with Mad Abs and Dirty 30 classes at Pura Vida Club.  Sarah started her 30 minute Mad Abs class with a plank series.  In the class we used the Bosu ball, body bar, and gliders for full body movements that focus on the core.

After than I went straight into Tim's Dirty 30.  It's 30 minutes of doing cycles of a exercise series.  This class is tough!  Today Tim had us do a series of five moves starting with 10 reps each then repeating the cycle with 9 reps, 8 reps all the way down to 1 rep of each move.

Here are the moves in a cycle:
Bent Over Plate Row - bend over at waist with 25 or 45 weight plate (or use two), arms extended, then pull elbows back in a row movement.

Push Ups - on toes, military style.

Forward Lunges each leg - Tim gave me a great tip.  If you do these in place then lean forward slightly.  You'll feel it in your abs more and save your back.

Burpees - Plank, jump feet to hands, then jump up reaching hands to ceiling, returning back to plank

Turkish Get Ups (TGUs) - I did these with 3 pound weights.  Start on your back with one arm up to ceiling with weight in hand.  Use the other hand to help you sit up, then stand up, all while keeping the weight high reaching up to the ceiling, then go back to start position in the reverse of how you got up.

You can do the moves in any order but do them in same order for each cycle.  If you are short on time and need to blast it out this will do it!