Weekly Workout Recap #3: Hiking Season Begins!

Week 3 is among us! So far so good, I would have to say that! This week is going to be trying to find some more of the groove. I’d have to say that the first month of establishing the workout routine is probably the most tiring and a lot of juggling around with other commitments. Once the schedule and routine solidifies, its a lot easier to work with it. Of course, that is to say that, I do diverge away from the TIU Bikini Series routine every once in a while for things that I’m working on that day. For myself, I think its fine. If I can, I’ll do the whole thing, if not, at least I’m using it as the body weights and weight training portion since that is the portion I struggle to figure out a routine most of the time.

Week 3

Monday

The First Hike of 2018
Mont Megantic National Park – Le Mont Megantic Trail – full loop 10.7 kms (Recap)

With my husband’s schedule going back to normal, we are determined to go hiking much more frequently then previous years. Our first hike, after much debate, was to Mont Megantic. Its a pretty cool spot. We ended up doing the intermediate trail Le Mont-Megantic but I’d say we did about 10 kms total as we didn’t go up the final slope to the observatory but rather only the first viewpoint. It was a pretty tough trail to start the season though. However, the view is gorgeous and it would be a lovely experience to go during its observatory festival about space and such. The trail is lined with streams on both sides and the path is quite rugged. We actually still had snow for parts of the trail. Anyways, I’ll have a post for it going up.

Tuesday
Booty
5 Toning Moves (2 rounds of 15 reps)

Booty Band Shuffles (30 seconds)
Curtsy Lunge + Leg Lift (each side)
Booty Kickback (each side)
Single-Leg Bridge (each side)
Bridge Openers

This was supposed to be 3 rounds of 15 reps however the hike yesterday was pretty tough so I cut one round.

Wednesday

15 minutes walk/run scheduled = pushed to Thursday

Total Body
2 rounds of 15 reps (supposed to be 3 rounds; cut the last round as my knees were having some weird pain)

Squat + Press
Reverse Lunge + Curl (each side)
Single Leg Deadlift + Row (each side)
Bikini Walkout + Plank Jack
Shoulder Tap (each side)

Thursday

15 mins walk today in the form of an after work errand that I had to run.
Had a few other errands to run so ended up running out time to do a workout. Planning to combine it with Friday’s 5 moves to do a super-sized workout.

Friday

[Thursday’s workout] Cardio + Abs (2 rounds of 15 reps)

Squat Jacks
High Knees (30 seconds)
Mountain Climbers (each side)
Down Dog + Spiderwoman (each side)
Bicycles (each side)

Saturday

With heading out of town to Ottawa and having to come back to do some bits of catch-up on my to-do list, I didn’t end up getting a workout done.

Sunday

[Saturday’s workout] Abs (2 rounds of 15 reps)

V-Sit Crunch
Toe Touch
Plank Up Down
Side Plank Hip Dip (each side)
Rock the Boat (each side)

Cardio HIIT (3 rounds of 15 reps)

Skaters (each side)
Booty Kicks (each side)
Jump Squat
Burpee/Pushup (mod to first round of burpees and second round of pushups)
Plank Jack

Overall…

This week has been a tough one! The hiking on Monday wiped me out quite a bit and the recuperation took some time. I ended up not actually doing the 3 rounds of 15 reps at all. I didn’t end up running either. It was slightly disappointing but through all the fatigue from the hike, I still pushed myself to do at least 2/3 of the workout as much as I could, and if I didn’t, I did a lot of extra walking for whatever errands and such. Its not great but it was going to happen. Next week, I’ll be back on track, I promise!

That’s it for this week’s workout recap!

Weekly Workout Recap: Week 2

Hello everyone! Week 2 is here! I’m actually updating as I go along every day so its becoming a really nice journal log that you all get to see at the end of the week when I finish the Sunday workout during cooldown. A pretty nice cool down (after stretches), I’d say. Its been only one week and maybe its the mindset that I’m being more active than I had been so its putting me in a much more positive mood about everything.

If you didn’t catch my first week for this segment revival, you can find it here.

Tone It Up Bikini Series goes on for 8 weeks from what I remember so we are heading into Week 2. As I do these workouts, I’m also making sure to start building up the routine for next month so that I won’t stop although I’m debating whether to stick with a regular month of Tone It Up for fun and see how that goes. Less rambling this time and let’s start Week 2!

Bikini Series – Week 2

Monday
Booty (2 rounds of 25 reps/move)

Bridge Openers
Down Dog Booty Lifts (each side)
Squat Up-Downs (each side)
Booty Band Shuffle (each side)
Standing Booty Lifts (each side)

Tuesday
Arms & Abs  Rest Day

2.3 km walk at lunch

I know how this routine is supposed to be a hardcore 8 weeks thing but seeing as I haven’t worked out a ton and my wrist was starting to hurt from either gardening or some exercise thing, I decided to take the Arms day off just to recuperate and prevent any possible injuries, because that would just make everything worse.

Wednesday

Run: 23:53 mins for 3.97km
I did a little longer run. Ended up skipping the 5 toning moves.

Thursday
Abs (2 round of 25 reps)

Ball Rollout Equipment issues, changed to Push-ups
Mountain Climbers
Ball Pike Equipment issues, changed to Oblique Twists
V-Sit Crunch
Toe Touch

Friday
Total Body HIIT (2 rounds of 25 reps)

Single Leg Deadlift + Row (each side)
Squat Jacks (30 seconds)
Bridge + Chest Press
Bikini Walkout + Tummy Toners
Jump Rope (30 seconds)

Saturday
Cardio Abs + Arms (2 rounds of 25 reps)

Plank Jack
Bicycles
Knee to Elbow Crunch (each side)
Bicep Curls
Forward to Lateral Raise

Sunday

Rest day! (kind of…)
No 5K run/walk due to resting up for tomorrow’s hiking day trip.
No 5 moves as well as did 4 hours of gardening (gardening update tomorrow).

Overall…

This was a pretty good week. I kept up with a lot of the daily workouts and pushed through the more tired days, which helped to give myself a lot more energy. The running was also really good since I did a good pace that I was happy with. I’m starting to eat healthier as well. Definitely a great second week. I’ll check back next week with another update!

Body Fat Percentage?!?!?

Last week, I told you all that I was going to get hardcore with those workouts and stick to it.  On Monday night, my boyfriend was staying over at my place and introduced me to a new thing that came with his stuff he orders online.  Protein powder or whatnot.  So he showed me these body fat callipers and I knew it would be downhill.  We calculated it all and I came to some mega revelations of how my body fat percentage is a nice few percent above where I should be.  I joked about it all week, but between seeming like it really bothered me, it was working great to be a motivator to eat (even) better and work out hard hard hard! I’d have to say that it did work pretty well 🙂 I said NO! to those Brown Sugar Pop Tarts that were on special at the grocery store…

Monday

Don’t you hate Mondays? I know I do…I’m always extremely tired after this day.  There was two workouts for Tone it up’s Monday.  The first was called Sandcastle Workout.  It was 5 exercises and the whole routine over 3 times.  What I love about Tone it up is that it covers the total body workout.   They ended this one with this ridiculous exercise combining tummy tuck with kickbacks, where first 10 is tummy tuck to the same side of the body and last 5 was doing this tuck to the opposite arm instead.  By end of the 3rd time of this routine, it started hurting.  Of course it doesn’t end there and we have another workout targeting the core called Itty Bitty Bikini. This workout routine actually works well with Friday’s release of Spring Breakers (especially after reading Dan The Man’s review).  I’m guessing in order to look like any of those chicks in that movie, I’d have to do this workout everyday..haha! Those ones had one which made me realize that one side of my core was stronger than the other, since I paddle in dragonboat mostly on my left, my right was way weak when I had to do the Side Plank Lift  (aka Love Handle toner).

Tuesday

Last week I loved their new cardio circuit workout.  This week was supposed to be similar so I was really looking forward to it.  This week, I employed the help of my boyfriend.  Granted, he didn’t do some of the exercises with me as he already worked out earlier in the day, he helped me with this fun workout called Grab a Friend n Go Workout.  Sometimes, these are days I wish I had a sister or I lived with my best friends.  Makes me reminisce those days when my gym buddy was my best friend in university.  Only issue I had was that they put those Hee Haws two days in a row and my quads were in massive pain the next day (and the day after)…Plus, I can’t wait for the weather to get better and I can dig up the skipping rope and do it outside.

Wednesday

After two days of doing these crazy workouts and dragonboat practice on Thursday, I decided to take a break and do some baking instead.  Turns out carrot cake was awesome delicious and a fine treat for rewarding myself for keeping up with the working out 🙂

Thursday

I was so happy to get back into the paddling pool with the team to do some crazy paddling. I decided to work on my right side as a result of Monday’s workout revelation.  I’m that person who fills in on the left and right during the summer paddling season so I felt that it was time to work in some practice on the right side anyways.   I did realize that when I do the right side, I tend to be more flexible in twisting my core than my left.  Still need to get back into the groove of things though, I had to work double hard to catch up with the team’s pace or find the pace again at the minimum…and it felt like I started shortening my strokes.  Does that sound like gibberish? Point is, I need a lot of practices to get better…

Friday

As I decided to paddle on the right instead of the left side, my ass was hurting on the right because it wasn’t used to it.  Imagine sitting…that was painful.  Still, I came home and did the Tone it Up Workout at a freakishly late hour.  My boyfriend kept making fun of the workout name because its called Under the Sea Workout which is oddly separated into two parts so here it is PART 1 & PART 2. But then, he gets to, as he was watching Top Gear Special Challenge : Africa Part 2  while I was working out and obstructing his view here and there.   Some parts of this one was super intense but it was pretty fun to do, imitating sea animals.  I just wonder how people are so creative with these names.  Its really amazing!

Saturday

Unlike last week, I took Saturday off.  One was because I had to go renew my driver’s license (which is so important).  I call it a sick joke, because its the annual fee you need to pay and due to expire on your birthday. So I have to dish out around $90 CAD on top of acknowledging that I’m getting older.  After running some errands and doing some much needed shopping, I came home and by the time my boyfriend got back from work, we realized that we had to head out earlier than expected to his sister’s birthday gathering with family.  Left me with almost no time to actually workout.  Plus, I started feeling sick, so I drank some chinese meds, and did a show and tell of it yesterday and went to rest.

Sunday

I only managed to squeeze in a workout at 10:30 pm.  I did a crazy amount of baking and cooking and even whipped up something special for Saint Patrick’s Day (will be up soon).  By the time everything was done, I also thought it would be nice to switch it up and ended up doing the 16 minute HIIT workout from Pumps and Iron.  It was so fun, even though I didn’t have my medicine ball upstairs so I just balanced on my kettle bell.  I also need to get a slightly heavier kettle bell since I only have a 5lbs and thats pretty light for that exercise.

This week I also managed to get into 5 days of workout.  Still on track with what I want and I feel my muscles tightening up.  My eating habits are slowly changing as I’m choosing healthier options for snacks in particular.  Meals itself are usually already quite nutritious.  This week’s workout highlights have to be Grab a Friend n Go Workout and 16 Minute HIIT workout.

For next week, I should start doing a weight check-in (which I should’ve done in the beginning) and hope to see if it’ll actually drop after this new lifestyle routine.  I also need to find time to get a new bike.  Any bike experts would like to offer me some advice?

Happy Monday!