Running & Strength Training Circuits

Hey!

How is Tuesday morning treatin’ ya?  Other than the “s” key sticking on my laptop, things are going well here.  The boys are out mowing and weed eating the yard, and Katie is propped up in my bed all princess-like watching “A Bug’s Life.”  No, she’s not sick.  She just really gets into her whole only-girl role around here.  Boy oh boy…what have we done?

I am in a terrible routine of waking up butt crack of dawn early since VBS last week.  I was getting up around 530 to start my whole morning routine (read Bible, coffee, social media catch-up, workout) so I would be ready to leave the house by 830 without having to rush rush rush.  It all went well, except for the fact that I am STILL waking up around 530-6 and CANNOT go back to sleep!  Ugh.  I AM more productive in the morning so it’s not all bad, but DANG…I’m ready to crash by 830pm.  ----> hello mid-30s <----

Anyway, as for workouts lately, in the effort to not run my legs off [read: aggravate healing injuries] I have started to incorporate much more DVD strength training and other forms of cardio into my workout routine.  Sometimes it works, sometimes I just want to run and run and run and never pick up a dumbbell.  BUT, I know I need to, especially being thrust into menopause in my early 30s.  It is SO IMPORTANT for all of us to build muscle as we age because if not we lose some of it every year!  So I lift to prevent muscle loss AND osteoporosis-which I am also at high-risk for due to the young age of menopause and the aromatase inhibitor that I take to help prevent breast cancer recurrence. 

With that in mind, I put together a running and strength training circuit that I am really loving right now.  I’ve done this routine twice in the past week and it definitely hits the best of both worlds for me: the sweat and “high” I feel from running and the muscle burn I get from doing strength training.  Score!  Here’s what I do:

And the cool thing is that once you get bored with your circuits, you can change it up-adding different types of moves or whatever you like.  You don’t even have to run of course…walk for 10 minutes or whatever, maybe do inclines if you’re on a treadmill.  The options are endless.   I love it.

As for the ab work, I’ve been doing a lot of planks lately.  I have worked up to 1 min. 30 sec. planks, but I learned something on Gina’s blog the other day about planks, that they are more effective when they are held for 10 seconds followed by 3 seconds of rest then repeating that several times.  Holding a plank for longer than the 10 seconds can make your form suffer and therefore requires your body to use other muscles to pick up the slack – namely shoulders.  So the past couple of days I have been doing the interval planks.  I created a timer on Gymboss (an iPhone app) just for my planks:

I set it to do 12 rounds of planks and was definitely feeling it by the last one! 

*As with anything, remember to consult your doctor before starting a fitness routine.  I am not a certified fitness instructor and these are simply my own routines not recommendations to replace what your doctor has said!

Later gators!

Remember to do your breast self exams, ladies!  Check yourselves and be your own advocate.

xoxo