Jan 30, 2012

New Release Round Up Part I

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It’s new release week at GoodLife, meaning new music and choreography in all Les Mills fitness classes. So far, I’ve done the latest releases for BodyPump, RPM and BodyCombat. Here are my reviews:

BodyPump 80

I love, love, love this release. Every song got me pumped up and ready to work (no easy feat at six in the morning). The warm up (“Resuscitate Me” by September) and squat tracks (Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory”) are fairly typical in terms of choreography, but the music gets things off to a fun start.

The chest track, set to “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” features a slower tempo than usual, making each rep a little longer. The back track (“The Tide” by Twilight) features a new move – the power clean and row, composed of three cleans and three rows (in case the name didn’t make that glaringly obvious). There are also lots of dead lifts and wide rows here, including the dreaded set of seven wide rows in the second and third rounds.

For triceps (Britney – “Till the World Ends”), we get two sets of extensions and presses with the bar, one set of tricep pushups and one set of tricep overhead extensions with a heavy plate. The biceps track is pretty awesome – it finally occurred to someone over at Les Mills International that “Eye of the Tiger” would make for a badass BodyPump track. If you’re a fan of the “stagger” tempo from past releases, you’ll love this one.

Next up, we get the infamous new lunge track, which BodyPump instructors everywhere have been warning us about for months. It starts with a set of weighted squats, then you lose the bar for some stationary lunges. At first, I was thinking, “Really? This is the killer lunge track everyone has been raving about?” It just felt too easy without the weight. But then we launched into the new move – the propulsion lunge – and my thoughts quickly became focused on the burning in my quads.

Ouch! It’s over quickly though and it’s actually kind of fun in a masochistic sort of way.

After, we get a much-needed break from leg work with the shoulder track, appropriately titled “Hands Up!” We get another new move here – the rotator overhead press. This is mixed with pushups and upright rows and overhead presses with the bar (two sets of each). I really didn’t think I was going to make it to the end of the last set, but I got through it. Finally, the abs track, which seems relatively easy compared to the tracks that came before it. You get some crunches, hovers and side planks – nothing too fancy.

Overall, this is one of my favourite recent BodyPump releases, with a perfect mix of motivational music and challenging choreography.

RPM 53

This release is way better than the last one, which was so blah that I pretty much stopped doing RPM for those four weeks. The warm up track (Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long”) is a lot of fun, as long as you’re cool with exercising to cheesy music (and if you’re not, what the heck is wrong with you?!?). Track 2 takes things up a notch with Britney’s “Till the World Ends.” It’s a standard Track 2 but for some reason got my heart rate up a lot higher than usual.

Track 3 features a song from an older Body Attack release (“Welcome to the Club”) and it’s a tough one – I was breathless by the end. Track 4 is a little different than usual; you spend less time racing and more time in a standing jog. This was a nice change of pace, as Track 4 can be a little tedious sometimes.

Tracks 5 and 6 are your standard interval and race tracks (i.e. really hard and really boring, respectively). I’m not sure what the deal is with Track 7 – it’s the same music (“Wherever You Will Go”) and choreography from RPM 52 (although on the Les Mills site, they have a different song listed for RPM 52, so maybe the instructor just screwed it up? Or maybe it’s different in Canada?). A lot of this track is spent in a seated climb, which is never fun, but always a good workout. I was pooped by the end of it and needed a mid-morning nap to recover.

BodyCombat 50

I’ve only done a few BodyCombat classes so I don’t have much to compare this release to. As with all of the other releases I’ve tried, the music provides a lot of the motivation and energy in this class. Some of the songs that stood out for me were remixes of Usher’s “More,” Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” Madonna’s “Frozen,” Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” (how did it take them so long to feature this song in a mixed-martial arts class?!?) and Pitbull’s “Pause.”

This release features a new move (or so I’m told ;) ) called the Advancing Side Kick. I still kind of suck at high kicks but felt pretty badass doing this move nonetheless. That was really the only choreography that stood out for me; the rest seemed pretty much the same as the other releases I’ve done – jabs, roundhouses, front, back and side kicks, upper cuts, etc. Good workout as usual!

I still need to try the new releases for BodyAttack, BodyFlow, CXWORX and BodyStep. I’m planning to do Attack tomorrow night and the rest will have to wait until next week. Stay tuned!

Have you tried any of the new Les Mills releases? What did you think?

Filed Under: Cardio, Strength Training · Tagged: , ,
Jan 28, 2012

Meal Cycling

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I considered naming this post “How to Eat Leftovers All Week Without Wanting to Kill Yourself” but felt “Meal Cycling” was somewhat more appropriate.

My schedule has been pretty busy lately (although that’s about to change since I’ve cut back significantly on my part-time hours… more on that later) so I haven’t had much time to cook mid-week. My solution to this over the past few months has been to cook two large meals and live off the leftovers. To keep things from getting monotonous, I stock up on frozen meals and ingredients for quick recipes so I can mix it up without spending hours preparing food. For example, here’s what last week looked like:

Sunday Night

Cooked One-Pot Lentils and Chicken for me and my mom. Ate the leftovers for lunch on Monday and dinner on Thursday.

Monday Night

Monday’s schedule was jam-packed so I had a frozen falafel sandwich for dinner and the same thing for lunch on Tuesday.

Tuesday Night

Cooked Pork Chop and Rice One-Pot Supper for me and my mom. Ate the leftovers for lunch on Wednesday and Friday.

 Wednesday Night

I was pretty tired by mid-week so I made a quick and easy Ricotta & Spinach Frittata for dinner, which took about 15 minutes. I ate half of it for dinner and the other half for lunch on Thursday.

In summary:

Day Lunch Dinner
Sunday Grilled chicken sandwich from SUBWAY Lentils and chicken
Monday Lentils and chicken Falafel pita
Tuesday Falafel pita Pork chop supper
Wednesday Pork chop supper Ricotta and spinach frittata
Thursday Ricotta and spinach frittata Lentils and chicken
Friday Pork chop supper Chicken souvlaki pita from a restaurant

 

Total time spent in the kitchen = less than two hours. Not bad for a full week of meals!

The Week in Fitness

Sunday Body Pump Express + CXWORX
Monday Rest
Tuesday RPM
Wednesday Body Pump
Thursday Body Combat
Friday Free weights
Saturday Rest

 

Lots of variety this week. It’s really hard for me to make Body Combat – it’s only offered at 6:30 in the evening and I hate going to the gym straight from work because I always end up arriving about 20 minutes too early. Some people use that time to lift weights or run on the treadmill but I like to save my energy for the actual workout. Luckily, there’s a Chapters in the same plaza so my new favourite way to kill time is to go there and browse through books until class starts. Wandering around Chapters is the best filler activity ever.

Despite its inconvenient timing, I really love Body Combat and try to make it when I can. On Thursday, we did the new release – Body Combat 50. Since I’m still a noob, pretty much every release is new to me so it wasn’t quite as exciting as most release classes. Still, it was a fun and challenging workout and I hope to do it again.

On Friday, I repeated my free weights workout from last Wednesday (taken from New Rules of Lifting for Women, Stage 3, Workout A) and managed to add 5 pounds for each exercise (with the exception of YTWL). I also did the back extension instead of the prone cobra from last week:

Squats 3 x 6 @ 75 lbs
Romanian deadlift to row 3 x 6 @ 45 lbs
Lat pull downs 3 x 6 @ 55 lbs
Back extensions 3 x 6 @ 10 lbs
YTWL 3 x 6 @ 3 lbs
Stability ball crunch 3 x 10 @ 10 lbs
Reverse crunch 3 x 10
Oblique crunch 3 x 10 per side

 

My squat PR is 85 pounds so I’m looking to top that within a month or two. I’m also quite proud of the fact that I pulled off rows with the Olympic bar. Back in the day, I could barely lift that thing out of the squat rack!

In other news, as mentioned above, I’ve cut back big time on my part-time hours. After six months of juggling my full-time job with my tutoring job, I was feeling pretty run down and miserable. The money was great but I was literally never home and constantly exhausted. I’m still tutoring but I gave half of my students to a friend of mine who also tutors and only kept the students who live nearby. So, instead of tutoring Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday (and the occasional extra day if a student had a test or an assignment mid-week), I’ll now only be tutoring Sundays and Mondays. I’m really looking forward to having more time to relax.

That’s it for me! Have a wonderful weekend! :)

Filed Under: Daily Eats, Recipes, Strength Training · Tagged: , ,
Jan 26, 2012

Dedicated vs. Obsessed

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An interesting debate popped up on Carrots ‘N’ Cake the other day about how much exercise is too much and what constitutes exercise addiction. The debate arose in response to Jillian Michaels telling Self magazine that anybody who exercises for more than six hours a week “definitely may have an exercise addiction.”

Things got a little heated, with some commenters turning it into a personal attack on the blogger’s lifestyle. Personal attacks aside, it made for an interesting read and really got me thinking about what distinguishes the dedicated exerciser from the addict.  

Generally speaking, I agree with Jillian that anyone who exercises for more than six hours a week is likely overdoing it. I realize there are some people – professional or recreational athletes, marathoners or fitness professionals, for example - who often work out for over an hour a day but I’m talking about the average person who works out to look good and stay healthy. I just don’t see how anyone with a full-time job and/or a family to raise could find time to work out for more than six hours a week, even if they genuinely wanted to, without neglecting other areas of their lives.

Back when I was living the dream of part-time employment, I occasionally worked out twice a day but that was because I literally had nothing better to do. Now that I work full-time, getting an hour of physical activity most days a week takes a lot of planning and commitment.

Which brings me to an interesting comparison that came up a few times in the discussion – if exercise is really just an enjoyable hobby like some fitness enthusiasts claim, why are people waking up at the crack of dawn to do it? With most hobbies, you find time to do them, you don’t plan your life around them.

Personally, I think this is an invalid argument because unlike knitting or reading, exercise is necessary for your health and physical appearance, which is what distinguishes it from other hobbies. I enjoy working out but would I do it six days a week if it didn’t have so many physical benefits? Probably not. There are days when I don’t feel like going to the gym but I go anyway because I know it’s good for me after sitting in a chair for eight hours. On those days, it sucks but it’s only an hour and I usually feel good once I get started.

But exercise differs from other hobbies in another important way – too much of it can harm your body. This is another reason why I can’t fathom doing much more than six hours a week. Your body needs rest to recover and, for me, that just wouldn’t be possible without a rest day or two.

Despite these distinctions, exercise does have one thing in common with other hobbies – it can turn into an unhealthy obsession if it gets in the way of other aspects of your life. Are you bailing on friends so you can get in a workout? Do you avoid making plans at specific times because that’s when you usually go to the gym? Exercise is important, but it shouldn’t be the number one priority in your life. I’m pretty dedicated to sticking to my scheduled workouts, but I’ll cancel or re-schedule a workout to hang with a friend I haven’t seen in awhile or if other, more important responsibilities get in the way.

Which brings me to my final point – how do you feel when you miss a workout? I think this is the best way to determine whether you fall into the “dedicated” or “obsessed” camp. If missing a workout fills you with great anxiety or guilt, you’re probably veering towards the crazy side of the spectrum. If you work out either for fun or for health, or some combination of the two, then a missed workout should be mildly disappointing, not life shattering. You’ll get to do it the next day, after all.

That being said, I do think there are those who are too lazy or lack the commitment to work out regularly who will cast aspersions on the habitual exerciser to make themselves feel better.

If you exercise regularly, you’ve likely encountered this type – they’ll call you obsessed or imply that you don’t have a life because of how often you work out. But as long as you know you’re not overtraining or neglecting other areas of your life for the sake of fitness, I say ignore these people and keep doing you.

So those are my two cents. What do you think?

What distinguishes the dedicated exerciser from the addict? Barring special circumstances, is someone who works out for more than six hours a week overdoing it?

Filed Under: Moderation · Tagged:
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