Week 2 at CoreStrong

With another week and a half under my belt for my March challenge at CoreStrong, I gained  a good idea of how attending a studio of this caliber everyday can be more effective than planning out your own workout for the week.  Stephanie is very hands on with her workout planning to make sure every class has a different focus, since a number of her clients come several times a week and need to benefit from a variety of different strength and cardio routines.  To avoid overtraining, this variety is key for a studio like this.  I want to highlight three of my workouts from this past week and a half that stand out to me. Boxing- With our gloves on and a punching bag, we worked intensly for 45 minutes punching, kickboxing and adding strength, cardio and abs, all incorporating the punching bag.  And I was reminded how quickly I work up a sweat with a good boxing routine.  We rotated between upper and lower body work, from jabs and uppercuts to lunges with bag kicks, push ups and squat-kicks.  We ended the routine with ab exercises incorporating the punching bag- side planks with a punch and sit ups with bag punches to name a few.

The "I should've stayed home in bed" Friday workout. ( I did not name that one.)  We may have felt that way to begin with, but once we got going, it was one of my favorites.  We had 10 sets, each set started with 10 Burpees, then some cardio (usually hopping on the rower), an arm and a leg target routine, followed by a run to the park and back.  I'm a big fan of "checking things off of a list" and if you work this way mentally you might really enjoy a numbers-focused workout like this.  And you have the added bonus of saying you completed 100 burpees in a workout!

Continuing with the numbers theme, Stephanie created a "Lucky 7" routine on St. Patrick's Day.  7 sets- 200m sprints on the rower, 7 running sprints, 7 burpees, 7 push-ups, 7 heavy kettlebell swings, 7 squat jumps, a run to the park, and an ab exercise, usually with 40 reps.  All 7 sets were completed in around 45 minutes, causing some serious calorie torching.  I think I burned at least 100 extra calories than in a normal CoreStrong class.

I rounded out this busy week with some running time and yoga.  Thank you CoreStrong, for another successful week of training!

Share some of your workouts with me- what is pushing you to the next level?