Saturday, January 4, 2014

HardCORE!

     Yes, winter break has started and I'll just be completely honest with you guys. I haven't run in like FOREVER. I am so deeply ashamed of myself but gosh darn I've been incredibly lazy. Granted I had the flu for a while and could barely get out of bed, I still should've probably done some core work. So training starts NOW! Even though there's only two more days of winter break... No better time than the present right?

     An important lesson I just learned is to never put things off. Back on the first few days of break, I thought to myself, "Oh yeah! I have tons of time left to workout I'll do it later." Well, that never happened. I just kept indulging in more and more holiday food. But hey, what's done is done. I'm just begging all of you to never be like me, so start going out and jogging or at least core work!

     I actually really like core because I could do it inside where I won't freeze off my limbs. It's also really fun to mix up all the workouts and junk. Now I'm just going to share some of my lovely workouts with the rest of you.

    First major thing to do is crunches! Woo-hoo! These are relatively simple because you just lay on the ground with your knees bent like you would do a sit-up but instead you just lift your shoulder blades off the ground. I usually do 30 regular crunches, 20 crunches with your legs laying down sideways to work your obliques, and 10 with your legs up at a 90 degree angle. Around 4 sets of these and you're all set.

     Next, are planks! If you don't know what a plank is then it's basically being in a push up position but on your elbows and staying like that. For these, I either do 45 second repetitions or I challenge myself and see how long I could stay up for. The longest I've hit so far was 8 minutes I believe and after that you sort of drain yourself of any ambition you had left. You could do back-planks, front-planks, side-planks, or front-planks!


     Even though everyone hates them, push-ups are good for you. I'll admit, I can barely do five without having my arms begin to shake uncontrollably, but that won't stop me from trying! I do at least 5 push-ups in between every repetition for crunches. Therefore, I'm doing them, but they're not so concentrated that I end up breaking both my arms.


     Finally, lunges! These are really good for your legs, but I find them extremely difficult. At cross country, our coach made up this thing called the "lunge-matrix." It consists of eight forward lunges, eight side lunges, 8 back lunges, and eight more side lunges. The numbers are interchangeable but that's our basic routine. I think it's a pretty good workout and I recommend you guys to try it!

I'll definitely be doing more core-work blog posts, but for now it's goodbye! I wish you all the best!

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