Raise your hand if you are a cardio junkie. (My hand is raised!)
For many women (sorry guys if you are reading!), cardio is the go-to.
For me — for years — all I cared about was getting in my cardio. I thought 90 minutes of cardio was better than 45 minutes of strength training any day.
People said I was wrong but I couldn’t stop the burn burn burn.
Then, I discovered Crossfit. It changed my fitness world — for the better.
At first I was put off by the fact that Crossfit classes were only 45 minutes. That seemed soooo short, especially with warm ups and teaching time.
If you do Crossfit 5 days a week and keep your diet in sync, 45 minutes is plenty. It’s just a matter of perspective and hard work within those 45 minutes.
Plus…strength training easily turns into cardio with WOD’s (workout of the day) like the one I created above. If you aren’t breathing hard mid-way through round one, you’re doing it wrong. Another one if you are at a park or something:
While I am always tempted to just say screw it and just run my little butt off. I know that’s not helping me in a total body fitness kind of way. You know…muscle burns fat longer and strength training improves your overall fitness, blah blah blah. Well, it’s true and it doesn’t have to be difficult.
When I discontinued my Crossfit classes, I didn’t want to discontinue the fitness. I discovered tons of at-home WODs I could easily translate into my life. While I miss my barbell cleans, jerks and snatches, I can do many things with a set of 10 pound dumbbells. Truth be told, just your body weight is often enough. Love this:
I just wanted to send a message to all you cardio junkies out there — give it up a little bit and get back so much more by incorporating strength and crosstraining (aka crossfit) into your weekly workout schedule.
Start by doing just one day a week, push it HARD during the circuit and you’ll start to see a WOD is just as good as a hardcore cardio session.
In Marathon World…
Four days until marathon #7 and I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’ve decided to go with music this time around and see how the beat moves me.
I’m off to Boston tomorrow night for the Reebok Crossfit Workshop (also super excited to be wearing all my new Reebok gear):
I arrive back home Friday night and then Rick and I are up and out early to drive to Philadelphia! We’ll spend most of the day being tourists and checking out the marathon expo.
I’m a little worried because I don’t want to spend hours walking around the day before a marathon so I’ll have to be careful. I also told him I’ll have to wait until after the marathon to get a Philly Cheesesteak or I might realllly regret it on Sunday morning.
The marathon starts at 7:30am and I’m just praying it’s not too cold. Right now, the forecast is 50s and cloudy which is pretty doable. For this week, I’m back to healthy eating as much as possible, which means veggie juice galore!!
Last night I have an awesome meal of chili seasoned salmon with avocado and sweet potato slices with brown sugar. Sooo good! If eating healthy means sweet potatoes and avocados, I’m in!
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| Awesome dinner last night (descrip above!), daily super green juice, bagel w/ pumpkin cream cheese! |
I have no clue how these legs are going to hold up come mile 18+ but I’m gonna find out and dig in hard! I’m so excited that Rick will be there to see me cross the finish line 🙂
