Never Compare to Others in the Gym

Never ever compare yourself to others in the gym. Heck, don’t compare yourself to others in other parts of life, too! I have always had trouble with this. I’m a competitive person and also a critical person. I’m very tough on myself and expect the best. This can be a deadly combination if you let your focus stray outside yourself. It can initiate a viscous self-hate cycle where you never achieve anything you want to and always harp on yourself for doing something wrong or being weak. Don’t do this.

Creep shot of Chris’ back from last night’s workout…spoiler: he’s not doing a back exercise

I typically workout with men…as in Chris and some of our friends. This makes it doubly important not to compare yourself to who you may be working out with. I’m not saying to not draw inspiration or motivation from others–that is most important! It is great to have a partner who works hard and keeps you working hard as well. However, if it comes to a point where you’re comparing your strength, body composition, or speed to that person, it can get rather unhealthy. Even past unhealthy–dangerous. If I tried to compete with Chris on any strength exercise, tried to match his squat, I’d be snapped like a twig from the weight.

Triceps shot from a recent workout

It’s important to understand your strengths and limitations before you barge into a workout. Are you ready for that heavy weight? Are you reaching too high? You need to re-evaluate why you’re working out and what you’re working out to. Write down your goals and write a healthy, safe way to get there. Sure, I want to get back into lifting heavy, but I’m not going to jump into huge weight right away. That’s a ticket to injury. I may be comparing myself to other strong-lifters and wanting to go farther faster, but I am me, and this is where I’m at right now. I’ve taken long steps to realizing this and saying this to myself. Understand who and where you are and understand how you can go forward.

Back shots, before and after

If I compared myself to all the expert climbers in Boulder, I’d feel absolutely down in the dumps, angry and disappointed. However, I’ve only been climbing for months compared to them. Why on Earth would I compare myself to them? If you let yourself get caught up in the emotion of envy and self-hate, you aren’t going anywhere with your fitness goals. I remember a time when several workouts have been ruined by my bad attitude of comparing to others and my mood goes to the sharks.

Leg shot from a workout a little bit ago

Learn from this. Don’t compare to others around you. Compare to yourself. What did you do yesterday? What can you do today? Challenge yourself. Work hard. Train with a purpose and never, ever give up. Stay focused on yourself to stay hungry and fit!

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BONUS KITTY PIC

double head kitty pic

Aug192013

Warrior Dash at Copper Mountain…DESTROYED!

This past Saturday, a team of my clients and Chris went to the Colorado Warrior Dash at Copper Mountain and killed it! I run an Obstacle Course Race Training Group and these girls were prepared for the worst! After the race, they admitted that our training sessions were harder than the actual race, which is good! You always want to over-prepare than under-prepare. Beyond physical effort, it was a lot of fun, especially in a 5-person group.

Before the race

Our heat wasn’t until 4:30pm (it was the only time left to sign up for!), which was a bummer, but we were excited anyhow. We all piled in one of the girl’s van and went on our way from Boulder to Copper Mountain. It didn’t take long, maybe 1.5 hours tops–I didn’t really notice as I was enjoying company and conversation. We stopped at Big Daddy Bagels on the way for some carb-loading and traveled through the mountains. When we got there, the partying was already full-blown as many heats had already gone by. Us girls were all dressed as Wonder Woman and Chris, of course, wore only a batman mask and tutu. That’s it! He by far got the most attention and had plenty of photo ops. It was great. He totally played it up during the race as well, throwing me on his back and doing some squats for the crowd.

Chris & I

Crazy busy

Beautiful views!

AWESOME Batman-in-a-tutu human flag

After changing, wandering around, dancing with the huge crowd, and taking lots of fan pictures, we were ready to go. Sick of waiting! Even though our heat wasn’t until 4:30, I believe we started somewhere around 3:55, closer to 4. All we had to do was jump into the starting line with all others and go! The start is a little slow because everyone is rushing out, but we got to a point for a steady pace. After all, we weren’t being competitive–we did this to have fun! And we certainly did. We all did fairly well with the running, but 3 out of the 5 of us were recovering from colds so we all had a little congestion. But that didn’t stop us!

Musclesss

The obstacles were easier than compared to the one Chris and I did a few years back in Windham, New York. But it was still a lot of fun. We killed the tires and the crawling (the girls are used to that), and the mud pit was great. They threw the mud pit at us a lot earlier than expected so that we were heavy with mud for the rest of the weight, adding at least 5 pounds to each of us. We went through different obstacles, some involved ropes, others tunnels, and barbed wire. Probably the most dangerous ones were when we had to climb up to the top of this wooden-planked type structure and then walk/slide down it. One of them went up about 15-20 feet, and it was the most dangerous because we and the structure were both very muddy and wet, making it easy for someone to slip off. However, none of us sustained any injuries!

“After” pic of Batman & Wonder Woman

We made it!!

Close-up

The showers…they were actually WARM!

Tutu death pile

Everyone there was very supportive and it was an all-around good time. I’m very proud of the ladies for kicking butt all the way through and Chris for actually making it the whole way with his tutu (after it gained ten pounds of mud). It was a great experience with great people and we’re sure to do it again. Afterwards, a few of us enjoyed Beaujo’s (a gourmet pizza joint that’s also in Boulder), where we were too exhausted to really talk until we got some food in us. Catch us next month at the Devil Dash in Lyons, Colorado! Enter in an adventure race to stay hungry and fit!

Beaujo’s pizza as per Chris’ instagram

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Jul122013

21-Day Shred Time

So it’s the last three weeks of prepping for my contest, and it’s time to shred! I’ve been doing really well eating and exercising, working hard (except for my little ice cream vacation). It just so happened that at this time, I saw that celebrity trainer, Ashley Conrad, had a 21-day “Clutch Cut” program. Perfect. With my main coach, Chris (aka Hungry), giving me the thumbs up to do this program, I was excited to get started. Click on that link and you’ll see the program. It’s a lot of high-intensity stuff, cardio, lifting, and nutrition. You need all three to make a difference.

Building up my back and shoulders

I just finished Day 3 which was a rest day. I’m not a huge proponent of rest days for myself during this contest, especially on week days, but I did the best I could. All I did on Day 3 was run a mile and do some core. No lifting. Day 1 was an intense circuit with 15 minutes of HIIT (high-intensity interval training) on the treadmill. All in all it was probably a little over an hour for the workout. And it was good. I would love to do this with my clients. I would recommend it to anyone who’s trying to build muscle and burn fat. Here it is:

Clean and press
Overhead med ball throws
DB rear lunge
Pushups
Bench dips
Sprint in place
Bodyweight squat
Lat pull down
Med ball jumping jacks
Incline pushup
DB curl
Lateral raise
1 arm row

For pictures and instructions, check out the link above. For this circuit, you are supposed to do 4-6 sets (I only had time for 4, but got a killer workout) with 30 sec rest in between (I didn’t take the rest to increase cardio). It was great and hit all parts of my body. Two days later, my hamstrings are still sore and those are sometimes hard to hit for me so yay! There was also a core circuit at the end you can check out.

Day 2 was a killer cardio workout. I used the treadmill (she says you can use treadmill, stairmaster, bike, or whatever). It was 25 minutes of intervals:

60 second walk
30 second jog
60 second sprint

It was important to put your all into this and I did. I did so much so that I had a headache for the rest of the day and was exhausted (oops for working out early). It really worked me hard, and that’s what HIIT does, which is why I LOVE it.

For the nutrition part, I’m just doing what I have been, eating clean: lean protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats. Keeping me strong and healthy. She says to go gluten-free, but I don’t completely do that. I’ve followed my plan and it’s working well this program. If you’re looking to build muscle and cut fat, do this program! I’d love to have someone to do it with anyone for the next 3 weeks–the more the merrier! Use this Fit-approved program to stay hungry and fit!

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