In our hustle and bustle world, it’s easy to get down. It’s not always easy to get out of these feelings, so you get stuck in a negative bubble. Maybe you had a rough day at work, maybe you and your partner aren’t getting along, or maybe you’re just in some kind of funk. You may be working hard and getting nowhere, but staying in that foxhole of negativity is NOT going to help you in any part of your life. Try this meditation to keep your head up and your mind clear of negative distractions.
For some of you, running outdoors at the moment could be a serious hazard to your life (who doesn’t love running on ice)? For some of you, it’s actually too hot to “comfortably” (when have I ever felt comfortable running) to run outdoors? And then many people simply dread the treadmill. Who wants to just run in one place at the same pace staring ahead? Not always the most fun. That’s why we have interval training to spice things up and make the time fly!
What is a treadmill interval workout, you ask? Basically, it’s intervals of different speed. And because we’re doing a beginner to intermediate session, the intervals will be a little longer. Let’s get started:
This post is brought by our friends at RunHundred.com. Get those jams pumping to staying hungry and fit!
February’s top picks play more like summer workout mix than a winter one—thanks to a wealth of pop and dance favorites. On the pop side of things, you’ll find the latest from Taylor Swift and Jason Derulo. On the dance side, you’ll find a new solo single from LMFAO’s Redfoo and Robin Schulz’s re-working of Baby Bash’s 2003 hit “Suga Suga.”
While club music might dominate the month’s proceedings, there were a couple of notable exceptions: a crossover hit from the Zac Brown Band and a collaboration between Fall Out Boy and Demi Lovato. As ever, it doesn’t matter with which track you start your workout. It only matters that you start.
There is a plethora of workout types out there. I mean there is a ton. From muscle workouts to crosstraining to cardio workouts and then more types within each type! It can be exhausting and, quite frankly, intimidating to even know where to start. That’s what we’re here for! We want to offer up different kinds of workouts so that you can feel familiar with them as you decide what you want to do.
So what is a “pull” workout? Think of “pull” very literally. Think of what muscles you use when you pull on something. Typically, you’ll use your upper back (lats), your biceps, and the backs of your shoulders and traps. This provides us a great area to work out! Back, biceps, and certain parts of the shoulders! Next time you hit the gym, try a few of the exercises laid out below:
For the back…
1. Reverse lat pull-down. Try 3-4 sets of a weight that’s right for you. Do your reps in a slow, controlled manner, bringing the bar down.
A month or so ago, we lost power to the house. There was absolutely no electricity and at 40 degrees Fahrenheit, it was one of the coldest days you’ll find in LA. The fur-babies are used to adapting from the Boulder sub-zero climate but our cold-blooded python would have had a hard time surviving without his heat lamp. As a result, I got to enjoy a challenging but rewarding family experience. Without access to really anything except water and our library of books, I stayed in and let our snake hang out on my head all day. So what did I end up doing?
While I love supporting local businesses, I think that there is a growing divide between those who are handy and those who are not. DIYers are always willing to take risks and break something in the process while the vast majority of the population will call the maintenance man to change a lightbulb. I’m stuck somewhere between the two but on this day, I decided to go all out repairman. While it was nice to get a ton of chores done and leave the house in the best shape it has ever been in, I remembered something important.
The American Swimming Coaches Association sent all of their coaches an email recently in an effort to try to fill some vacancies for Swim Outlet’s Fitter and Fast Tour. This project is top-notch and travels across the country to provide the highest quality clinics of swim instruction to anyone interested. It’s a huge benefit for experienced swimmers and beginners, and while it focuses on youth, coaches and whole community benefit from its presence.
Back in August, I saw that the American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) was launching a new course to become a Certified Summer Swim Coach. For those of you who are unaware, summer swim teams can be so much different from your standard club or high school teams. The competitors can often be those who face one another in other more competitive seasons. They use this format to bridge the summer gap and stay in shape while working on and developing new skills.
For many, the level of commitment and attendance is insignificant in comparison to their other teams and as a result, the coach is faced with endless new challenges. Since swimming is such a competitive sport, you’re faced with going into meets with a fraction of your team. Often, that small group are your least experienced and skilled swimmers, but you have to make due because swim meet scoring can be tremendously one-sided, and that looks bad to say the least.
A great hike
With the growing popularity of MMA and its personalities like Ronda Rousey, there have been more and more comparisons between it and other martial arts. Wrestling has been compared to boxing and someone always has to come out on top. Like in a contest, there has to be a winner in the eyes of the public. When Holly Holm defeated Ronda, it wasn’t really Holly vs Ronda in the eyes of many. They saw it as boxing vs MMA, but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. In fact, it was Holly vs Ronda.
If you wanted to really break it down, it would be judo vs boxing, but Holly would be the first person to tell you that she’s a mixed martial artist now. While Ronda competed in the Olympics in judo, she also knows that one discipline is not enough to be champion nowadays so she also is a mixed martial artist. While the two have a strong background in one discipline, using that last fight as support in an argument between which is superior just isn’t enough.
With the amount of competition in the world, especially our capitalist society, a single bad or good experience can make or break your opinion about something. When there are a hundred dog food brands, a thousand protein powders, and dozens of car brands, the tiniest things can impact your decisions. However, it’s easy to avoid developing negative feelings for many of those brands since their employees often aren’t selling you the products. You won’t be upset with Purina if the cashier at Petco has an attitude, although it could still give you a negative association with the brand.
A brand we haven’t had bad customer service with
