As some of you may or may not know, I just spend over a week on the road. I went to a couple of conferences in sunny California. I actually had the pleasure of speaking at two of the events.
I thought I’d give you a recap of my week and follow it up with two awesome workouts…
I love to travel to cool places and meet up with all the coolest of peeps in the fitness industry. I have friends all over the world now and I have access to the best in the biz.
A few highlights for me was that I got to hang with Roman (John Romaniello) and party with Joel Marion and Craig Ballantyne.
Up and comers like my good friend Mike Whitfield and I hung out. This was after Mike’s awesome presentation on Workout Finishers, which, by the way, if you don’t already have you need to get.
And who isn’t jealous that I’d spend the whole weekend with ‘the twins’? Personal Trainers of the Year, Stephen and Mark Gray.
Big Ronnie Coleman was there and I got to feel pretty miniscule beside him.
Life was hard this past week…;)
I’ll have some extra cool stuff coming your way as a result of hob-knobbing with these dudes.
The week started with the Fit Body Boot Camp World conference. A highlight of this event was Alwyn Cosgrove’s presentation on fat loss. Remarkably I spoke an hour before him and some of my facts and my picture (from my presentation) were in his presentation. (Don’t ask me how he managed that!)
Wow, it was pretty cool to be recognized by THE leading expert in fitness and fat loss. I’ll be quoting some of the cutting edge studies he brought to light in future blog posts.
Prior to both Alwyn and me taking the stage, I got to hang out with Alwyn at lunch and just shoot the breeze. You couldn’t meet a nicer person. I love his Scottish accent and sense of humor.
Another highlight of this conference was being presented with the Fit Body Boot Camp Award of Excellence and Achievement. This award recognized my boot camp as a premier training hot spot in Calgary, Canada, the only boot camp awarded in Canada, by the way. The award was based on results achieved in my boot camp, quality of service and the impact in my community. That was definitely a feel good day.
Following this event was what’s called ‘Fitness Business Summit’. This is an event that brings fitness folk from as far away as Dubai, London England, New Zealand, Australia, China….get the picture? Pretty much a room full of 400+ people passionate about helping others. What a cool energy that was. We had world-renowned speakers present, including Jay Abraham.
I was on a woman’s panel on the second day of the Summit whereby we were on a hot seat. Members of the audience grilled us on how to best meet the needs of our clients, best practices etc. It was awesome to be able to help lots of new trainers with their questions.
As you know, I love a challenge. The developers of TRX were on hand showcasing their products.
They had a challenge workout for anyone willing to give it a go. You’ll see more about this in an upcoming post. Suffice it to say I was THE only woman to complete the challenge with only five other men in the whole group of over 400 trainers. Def a memorable moment. My pal, Travis Stoetzel and I went head to head. Stay tuned for that one. (PS. If you want to get super strong, check out my program and you’ll be well on your way!)
After all the excitement, I got to hang with a few friends and chill out a bit. Southern California is brilliant for that.
Of course I never missed a workout.
I was a little pressed for time one day and needed to do a quick workout. I don’t much like to rest in my workouts, but I need some kind of active recovery. I figured my calves could take a beating, so here’s what I did:
10 burpee pull ups
30 calf raises
9 burpee pull ups
30 calf raises
8 burpee pull ups
30 calf raises…..
Count down to:
1 burpee pull up
30 calf raises
I got started with the workout and realized that it was pretty brutal, no rest, just continuous. This is the sort of thing I often do.
I’ll make the plan, get started and think, ‘Holy poo! What was I thinking?’
But since I’m stubborn as an ox, I make myself continue with the plan.
Another cool workout I did was this morning….I was pressed for time (do you sense a theme here? I like to get my workout in about 40 minutes so I always feel a little pressed for time…)
I wanted to train legs, but I needed to add my daily push ups/pull ups and burpees in.
So, this was the set that I repeated four times:
One minute of:
- Jump rope with high knees
- 135 lb squats (10 reps minimum – I get my first set and then force myself to hold the reps the same for subsequent sets)
- 25 push ups followed directly with 10 pull ups (with in the one minute)
I gave myself 15 seconds between sets, which I thought was plenty.
Turned out, not so much…I was toasted!
I finished with three sets of leg extensions followed directly with 10 explosive burpees.
My legs were a little wobbly afterward.
Feel free to use these workouts when you’re traveling (or at home). I’m sure I’ll repeat them when I’m at home cuz they were clearly smothered in ‘awesome sauce’ (as my buddy Mike Whitfield would say).
You know your comments are always welcome…don’t make me feel like I’m writing to myself here…