Blog Archives
5 Surprising Fitness Tools You May Already Have
You don’t have to have expensive weight equipment to workout. There are many household items you can use for added resistance in a home workout routine. Here are 5 household items that can enhance your fitness program.
1. A Gallon of Water
One gallon of water weighs 8.33lbs. Pick up 2 gallons and you instantly have a set of eight-pound dumbbells. Exercising with two gallons of water not only adds 16lbs to your workout routine, but it also challenges your balance as the weight of the water shifts around with each you movement. Since you can pick up a gallon of water anywhere, getting familiar with working with water gallons can give you more options when on the road or away from the gym.
2. Stair Step
Athletes have used stair steps for cardio and conditioning training for years. Running stadium steps proved to tone the legs and glutes, burn a ton of calories and challenge the heart and lunges like no other exercise. Even if you don’t have a few flights of stairs available, you can do a lot with just a single step. Performing a Step up lunge on one leg, for 15-20 repetitions each, is great for toning the glutes and thighs.Box jumps can be performed on a stair step to increase power production, as well as READ MORE…
Leg & Butt Toning Circuit
You can do this workout with no weight, or with weight. Our boot campers did this workout with sandbags, but it would be great with dumbbells, kettlebells or a weighted bar.
INSTRUCTIONS: Take as little rest as possible (no rest is best for fat burning and toning). Go as deep as you can go on your squats and lunges – the deeper you go, the more inner thigh and glute action you will get, especially on the squats. If you can’t go deep with weight, then lighten your weight or use no weight at all. Use a mirror to watch how low you actually go. If you don’t have knee issues, try to get the same depth as the guy in the photo below – and feel the difference!!
LEG & BUTT CIRCUIT
3-Position Squat
- 10 Close Stance Squat
- 10 regular stance
- 10 Wide stance
60-Second Walking Lunges
60-Second Wall Sits
Repeat circuit with no rest for 3 rounds.
TRAINING TIPS: Notice his hips are BELOW parallel. If you want some serious buns, the deeper you go the better, as long as your knees don’t hurt and your form isn’t compromised. As soon as you feel that your back is bending, or your butt is tucking under (which we call “winking”), you know you’ve gone too deep, or you have range of motion limitations due to weak or tight muscles. The more you practice deep squats, the better your range of motion will be, simply from loosening up your hips, and getting more flexible and strong. 
Fitness Motivation: You Are Her Too
I wanted to share one of my quotes online the other day, so I just googled the one I needed so I could just grab it offline. I googled “I will beat her” and I was not prepared for what I saw. I saw a whole bunch of other women’s pictures with my words,
I Will Beat Her
I will train harder.
I will eat cleaner.
I know her weaknesses.
I know her strengths.
I’ve lost to her before, but not this time.
She is going down.
I have the advantage
because I know her well.
She is the old ME!
At first, I was a little annoyed by the people that didn’t give me credit, and then (after I put my pride aside and got off my “I work hard on my quotes” pity party), I realized the impact these words were making on these women.
Sure, I spend a lot of time trying to come up with motivational posts, but they are meaningless if no one is inspired or motivated by them. These women did exactly what I wanted them to do. They related, they connected with the message, and they realized that they too can “beat her”.
How often do we focus on what everyone else needs to do, instead of what we can just do better? How often do we compare ourselves to someone else when, if we were to compete with the old version of ourselves, we would have kicked that old person’s butt. We DO have the advantage. We DO know ourselves better than anybody else.
We know if keeping ice cream in the refrigerator will trip us up or not. We know if we go home between work and the gym, that we’ll be tempted to skip our workout. We know how and where we failed before, and we know what it takes for us to succeed. We know ourselves so well, there really is no excuse for us to fail. We have the knowledge we need to defeat our old self, and it’s up for us to apply that knowledge, to continue improving, getting stronger, learning from our failures and winning our own battles.
I was inspired by these people who applied these words to their own lives. I was encouraged by their drive to become the winner they know they are – and I hope you will also realize you too can “beat her”. She is You Too.
PS: I want to thank all the people that shared this quote (and others), as well as the people who may have redone the quote with their photo, but credited me. I really do appreciate it and hope it encourages more and more people. <3
Feel free to share any of my quote, use my photos, and put your blog or name on my images too (as long as you keep name/blog info on there as well.
Strong Muscles, Weak Faith
The only way to get our muscles to grow is to USE them. It requires effort. If we want to gain muscle mass it requires us lifting HEAVIER things, working HARDER than we currently are. Over time, the things that once seemed impossible & challenging are much easier.
The same goes with our faith. Whether it’s faith in people or faith in God, faith is like a muscle. It only grows if we use it. Once we use it, test it, challenge it and grow it, daily struggles, questions, stress, doubt, all the heavy weights in our life, feel light because of our ever-growing stronger faith.
Weak Faith
Today I write on faith, because faith is an important part of our spiritual health. Before you tune me out, continue to read and take what you want from this. Even if you apply it in everyday life with your loved ones. I think there is a message here for anyone – whether you believe in God or not.
Think about it, how healthy can we be if we are fit on the outside, but broken down, insecure and weak on the inside. Even people who don’t believe in God, have a deep desire to have faith in something or someone. They may put their faith in money, a job, a diploma, a spouse, a friend, science, teachers, bosses, politicians or their own physical abilities or taent, but humans are born to want to have faith in something.
Think of it this way. How often have we said “once I just graduate, or when we can get everything paid off, everything will be much better” That’s faith, faith those things will improve your life. So much so, you will continue to go to school even if it kills you, and you will try to paid down those bills even when you are dying to spend more money. You also have faith your car will stop when you apply the breaks. You trust your debit card will work when you swipe it through the card reader. Why do you have faith in such things? Because you practice it, you’ve tested it over and over again. So, you practice faith already, but it’s time for you to pick up the Big Boy faith weights.
The same way a client thinks “there is NO WAY I can lift that” and then they lift it anyway, if we want our faith to get stronger, we have to start trusting God with bigger things. We need to constantly challenge our faith muscles like we do our skeletal muscles. Why does it matter? Many studies have proven people who have faith are healthier. Part of that is a no-brainer. I mean, people who are trying to improve their spiritual life are less likely to destroy their body with drugs or stupidity. They are (should be) more obedient citizens and they are more disciplined. I also believe a lot of the added health benefits is from having more faith.
More faith means less stress. For instance, have you ever had a boyfriend you couldn’t trust? How unhealthy was that relationship for you? I bet you were more stressed, insecure, tired, full of constant doubt, skeptical, thinking the worst all the time, and maybe even downright depressed. However, take the same you in a different relationship where you trust your boyfriend. You feel loved, confident and stress-free….you are relaxed, healthy, rested and at peace.
What is Faith?
Faith is not a religion. Faith is an action based on what you believe. Faith is defined as “confidence or trust in a person or thing. Complete trust.”
We have faith in the people who we get to know and love – and that know and love us back. We don’t put much faith in strangers, so how can anyone expect to trust God if He is a stranger to them. A simple fix is to spend more time getting to know our God, and give him the opportunity to prove He is trustworthy – which is proven over time. (God says “…test me in this, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.” Malacai 3:10)
As a man in love desires to prove his love to his bride, God desires to show how much he loves us and He can’t do that if we don’t give him a chance and trust Him or get to know him. Once He has won our heart, we will trust Him more – and the more we trust Him (and build those faith muscles), the more our faith will continue to grow stronger.
Doubt, the Faith Killer
Believe me, we all have our moments of doubt. I know I do, and we do the same things with our loved ones too. We can easily let a window of doubt slip into our thoughts where we wonder if they are trustworthy, or we wonder if they will let us down. That’s normal because we are human. Yet, the only way to truly find out is to continue to trust them and get to know them better.
Unfortunately, this is where we go wrong with God. As soon as we have doubts, we quit. We not only quit trusting Him, but we quit the whole relationship. Can you imagine how crappy our marriages and friendships were if we quit every time we had a doubt or fear? Well, we’d have no friends or marriage for one, but life would also be very lonely and hopeless.
I challenge you to start training your faith muscles. If you lack faith or don’t believe in God, maybe it’s because God is a stranger. No one can expect you to trust and believe in the unknown. Take time to get to know Him and trust him more – and watch your faith muscles begin to bulge! You will not only benefit spiritually, but your body will thank you too!
Faith Workout
Today Joyce Meyer talked about when she first started working out with what she called little “dog-bone” 3lb weights, and how heavy they felt (this is a pic from her video of her making fun of herself struggling). Yet, now, she lifts 20-25lbs dumbbells (GO JOYCE!) and laughs at how hard those lighter weights once were.
As our faith grows, things in life that were once difficult to have faith through are like those dog-bone weights. You will be able to carry heavy loads in life with ease and enjoy the victory of experiencing strength in the Lord. CLICK HERE to watch her awesome teaching on faith.
“I can do all things in Christ who STRENGTHENS me.” Philippians 4:13
Don’t you want to be STRONGER – inside AND out? I know I do!
Today’s matching motivational image:
Workout Motivation: It Gets Better
People often ask us in BCx Boot Camp if it gets any easier. My answer is NO – it gets better, but not easier. The stronger you get, the harder you work. You jump higher, squat deeper, lift heavier. That’s why 20 different people, all at different fitness levels, can all leave completely exhausted and have an equally great workout.
Just remember, it does get better. The better part is from you experiencing improved strength and stamina. It gets better because it’s a lot more fun to put yourself through a brutal workout when your waist is getting smaller and the numbers are dropping on the scale. It gets better as you learn to improve each exercise and gain confidence with each workout. It gets better because you are rarely ever as sore as that first week of boot camp. Your body learns to heal faster and recover faster. And the more you do it, and do it well, the more fun you have because people have more fun when they are getting better.
So, while it really may not ever get any easier, it really does get better!
Fitness Motivation: It’s Time to Take Action
This week’s topic has been all about getting past how you feel and showing up to do the work – with or without feeling like it. With or without motivation. With or without the energy. With or without the doubts, fears, success, insecurities, and everything else that we LET get in our way. (Key word: LET)
We will never be able to change our body if we let our feelings control our body and not our actions. We will never get fit by feeling like it. We get fit by working on it. Today, I just want you to focus on remembering it’s what we DO that greatly determines how we feel.
If you feel fat and crappy, go for a run, a walk or a workout. That is the only thing that can change how you feel.
If you feel tired, workout and you will notice a boost of energy – and if nothing else, you will sleep better and have more energy the next day. People who skip workouts typically don’t sleep as well, and just wake up tired the next day too.
If you feel discouraged, remember there is nothing more discouraging than not improving and staying in the same yucky spot you don’t want to be in. Not working out means staying where you are – and if you don’t like where you are, then you will continue to stay discouraged.
All in all, just remember it’s our actions that make a difference, not our feelings. We can ignore our feelings for the moment and, eventually, our actions will change the way we feel.
#LiveWithFire
Fitness Motivation: Don’t Run From What You Need Most
How often do we let our feelings get in the way of what we do? Answer: WAY TOO MUCH!
If I had a nickel for every time I heard:
“I want to lose weight before I join a gym”
“I don’t feel comfortable working out around guys”
“I’m just not a gym person”
“People will laugh at me”
“It’s too late for someone like me”
“I just want to get to a better place first”
“I’m too fat to do that”
“I’ve tried that, but it didn’t work”
These are mental road blocks that interfere with success. Ironically, none of these things will likely get better unless you start going to the gym. Let’s take a closer look.
8 Excuse Busters
“I want to lose some weight before I join a gym”
That’s like saying you want to get smart before you go to school. A gym offers the support, guidance and accountability you need to help you reach your goals. People have a greater chance of getting results when doing it in a group setting, like a gym, than they do attempting fitness and weight loss on their own.
“I don’t feel comfortable working out around guys”
I think many people picture big musclehead bodybuilder types like Jay Cutler (who, by the way, would intimidate anyone), when they think “gym” or lifting weights, but they are a rare find. I found, most guys are trying to lose weight and get fit too – not get huge. Those kind of guys are a small niche, the minority. Men and women have more in common than ever before. Most people want to be fit and trim, and get more cut. However, you will never feel comfortable working out around guys, no matter who they are, if you never workout around guys. It’s all about learning to be comfortable in new surroundings, and getting to know the members. The more you go, the more you will realize you have more in common with each other than you thought! Before you know it, it’s like gaining a bunch of brothers and sisters, and you are one big gym family – but you won’t feel comfortable with any family if you don’t spend time with them.
“I’m just not a gym person”
If you never go to the gym, or don’t find the RIGHT gym, you’ll never be a gym person. You will always feel like a fish out of water. Gym people go to the gym on a regular basis. While you don’t need to be a gym person to be a fit person – gyms are dedicated to getting people fit and are incredibly helpful to people who need help. I’m not a school person, but I NEEDED school to learn. As I learned, I learned to like it – and I learned what I enjoyed learning and what I didn’t. However, if all I took was math and history, I would have hated school, gotten discouraged, and dropped out in a heartbeat. Luckily, I loved other classes, like writing, humanities, music and art (not to mention liking the boys) – and they kept me wanting to show up. The same goes for fitness. The more “classes” (activities, workouts, etc) you try and friends you make, the better – and if you go for the eye candy single people, it wouldn’t be the first time! lol :)
“People will laugh at me”
I have never personally seen anyone laugh at someone trying to get fit. I have seen, however, people laugh at some of the things people wear (and shouldn’t be wearing), or do, while they are working out. So, as long as you don’t go in your tighy-whities (yes, it’s happened and I’m still washing my eyes out), or you don’t run and dance on the treadmill with your clown suit on from your Birthday Party gig (yep, seen that too), then it is very unlikely people will laugh. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Most people are inspired when they see people working hard to lose weight and change their lives. Often times, I’ve seen someone twice my size do something I don’t want to do and thought “Come on Bonnie, if they can do it, I can!” You may laugh at yourself because you are clumsy in class or you can’t believe how weak you are on the weight floor (been there), but no one else is laughing. You will get better and stronger with practice, and trade those insecurities for excitement and feeling proud!
“It’s too late for someone like me”
It’s never too late to make improvements. Yes, if you are 70 years old, it might be too late to become a marathon runner (and it might not depending on your health). What I mean is, it may be too late for some things due to deteriorated health, BUT it’s never too late to get healthier – and you never know how much damage you can reverse if you never attempt to get fit. I am constantly amazed of how much fitness changes lives – at every age, every size, every situation.
“I just want to get to a better place first”…
This happens in church a lot. Often times, people don’t want to go to church until they get their life right – but that’s what church is for. Church is there to help you get your life right. Whether you need to clean up your act spiritually or physically, you can’t always wait to get in a better place before you start working on things. The truth is, things will typically get worse, not better, without help. If you need help, go to a place where helping is their business. Gyms are not there for the fit to show off their muscles. Gyms are for people to work on themselves, to make improvements, to change, and to be healthy – no matter where they are in their life.
“I’m too fat to do that”
I hear this a lot. People say “I can’t do that, are you kidding me?!” Just recently, I was working with some girls who had been doing modified side planks. By modified, I mean REALLY modified. They were on their elbows, instead of their hands. They used their other hand to support their weight, and had their weight on their knee instead of their foot. After they were done going through a round of planks, I said “Ok, before we leave today, EVERYONE is going to do a regular side plank – even if you can only hold it for a second”. Well, they looked at me like I was an alien, but they reluctantly agreed. Don’t you know they completely ROCKED the side plank? They had NO clue they could do it. They were so convinced they couldn’t do it that they hadn’t even tried doing it without the modifications. Many times we don’t do stuff because we don’t think we can – not because we tried and couldn’t.
“I’ve tried that, but it didn’t work”
This one probably bothers me the most. Not all fitness is created equal. You can easily HATE one class, one gym, one training style or one trainer – and LOVE another class, another gym, another training style or another trainer. Listen people, if fitness didn’t work for you before, that does NOT mean nothing will. Keep exploring and keep discovering what works, and what doesn’t. Fitness is like church, it comes in all kinds of packages with all kinds of people and styles. Keep fitness shopping until you find the fitness that fits you!
You Body Can’t Afford to Wait On Your Mind
How often do you hear people say “I’m just not motivated” or “I just don’t feel like it”. Listen, if we always did what we felt like doing, we probably wouldn’t get very far in life. We’d never keep a job. We’d probably have a hard time keeping a boyfriend, much less a husband. Think of all the important events we wouldn’t go to, that we should have – just because we “didn’t feel like it”. Think of the things we’d say that should never come out of our mouth. Seriously, think of the friends we’d lose! Doing what our body WANTS to do is rarely a good thing – and while we use some control in many parts of our lives, we treat our body differently and break all the rules.
When it comes to workouts, I rarely want to do it – but, like many other things in life, I do what I need to do whether I feel like it or not because it’s the right thing to do. Why should I treat my body any differently than my job, my spouse or my friend. I’d like to keep it for a while right? Then I need to treat it right – whether I feel like it or not.
This week’s commitment:
Decide today to quit making decisions based on feelings. Your workout is an important job that needs to be done – and it pays really well.
Show Up.
Do It.
Be Proud.
Enjoy the Reward
It’s that Simple.
Fitness Motivation: Remember How Hard It Was To Start
If you can’t seem to motivate yourself to get to the gym, or do what you know you need to be doing, then think of this: Starting over is way harder than just sticking with it.
We all get tempted to skip workouts, to cheat on our diet and to get lazy – especially in the summer, when families are vacationing and rules are lax. Giving in and giving up is easy. Showing up when you don’t feel like it is always tough – but starting BACK up after you’ve taken a break (or quit for a while) is even harder.
We are often embarrassed that we “let ourself go”. Our pride is crushed because we can’t do what we used to do, and we don’t like how we look and feel (which is tough when you are in a gym full of fit people who are constant reminders of how far you would have come if you didn’t stop).
If you think showing up is hard when you actually look and feel good, think of how hard it is to show up when you are working out even though you are still fat, still weak and still lacking energy. Now THAT’s hard!
So, next time you find your being tempted to quit (even if it’s just for a few days, or a few weeks), remember you are making it much harder for you later.
The Joker Workout: It’s All in the Cards
Grab a deck of cards and get ready for an awesome workout! Whether it’s just you and a workout buddy or a class – playing with a deck of cards is a great way to work up a sweat.
Workout Description: Shuffle the deck and split the deck in half. If you are working out with a group, split the group in 2 teams, Team A & Team B (or just split the cards between workout partners, Partner A & Partner B). A draws first and completes the appropriate exercise based on the card type. While A rests, B draws a card. Continue until you run out of cards.
Turn it into a game. Each Team/Partner gets their equal set of cards and begins drawing cards at the same time. The person to run out of cards first, wins. Loser gets 25 penalty burpees.
Reps:
- Number cards represent reps, 1 (Ace) -10 repetitions
- Face Cards Represent 15 repetitions
- Joker Card represents REST for the team pulling the card, & 15 Burpees for the OPPOSING Team
Exercises (click on link to view exercise)
- Diamonds: Tuck Jumps
- Hearts: Mountain Climbers
- Clubs: Sit Ups
- Spades: Burpees
Here are a few pics of our class doing this workout…
FitFluential LLC compensated me for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
