Bootcamp and the Wanna Be Soccer Mom

Well my boot camp program started this weekend and the mixed group of athletes came ready to perform. Like true competitors the JFits wanted to challenge a group of women doing their boot camp, (looked like a group of moms to me) that were working out in the same park. I was thinking in my mind "good luck". The other group were definitely not doing advanced exercise like the athletes, but I know any mom would persevere until she dropped. Moms have been through the toughest workout on the market- LABOUR.

My daughter was my little helper at the boot camp, or more or less. She sat in the sled and drank Gatorade with the towels over her. I'll take it. We have signed her up for organized soccer and she freaked out with fear the first night and darted off after lashing out at the coach and players. Tonight she did not want to go. I will keep asking every week. Any advice needed, please??? I want to be a soccer mom. She didn't run away from Dora, damn that Dora the Explorer-she wins again.

One the weekend I performed a Tabata workout, yesterday I performed a circuit workout and today my busy mom fat loss workout was strength.
Today's Busy Mom Fitness program- full front barbell squat with front chop superset 2x, barbell cleans and push press superset. Then onto some traditional work- dumbbell bent over row with incline dumbbell press superset 2x, seated heavy shoulder press with lateral raise pullback superset. I ended my busy mom fitness routine with a core training circuit of ball rollout, mountain climbers off ball and elevated toe taps.

REAL MOMS, REAL RESULTS

So I have gotten some questions and feedback about the "FREE MOTHERS DAY" busy mom fitness program that many of you are following right now. Please read this email I received and I will methodically answer this moms questions regarding the "FREE MOTHERS DAY" busy mom fitness program. Please send in comments and questions, I will answer each of you individually, and chances are if you have a question about something another mom is thinking it as well. Help our growing community.

Denise writes:

Overall, the whole week was great. The descriptions with pictures were good.........there's really only one exercise that I'm not sure I'm doing right (the waiter's bow....how would I know if I was doing it correctly? How is it supposed to feel? After doing day 1 twice, I'm still not sure how it's supposed to feel) Other than that, everything else was clear.

Day 1 is probably the easiest day for me. I even did 3 reps instead of 2 this week because I just felt like I could. So either my muscles are starting to remember that I used to be strong, or I'm seeing results after one week already.

Day 2 I felt the best after. I like doing the 6 exercises without a rest, it really gets your heart pumping and works up a sweat. It's my favourite day.

I found day 3 and 4 the most challenging. I think that my stability ball might be the wrong size for me (how do you know what size is good? Does it go by height?) so maybe that's why I feel like this is harder. But even though I find these days the hardest, it feels like a real accomplishment when I finish.

I hope your kids are feeling better today.

ONE MORE THING
I forgot to say this in my last email, but I thought you would find it funny. Last week I couldn't find my step that I have to use for the steps ups in day 2 so I used what was handy.....Leah's potty! She has a potty that has a lid that flips down to make a stool for her to stand on. Only a mom would understand!

Wow Denise, great questions/comments. This is a mother with 2 young children at home who is taking action, with what ever she finds around the house. Keep it up.

The Waiters Bow- this is a traditional Romanian Deadlift exercise, the name has been momified as many people are not familiar with barbell training terms. Description of exercise- bend at your knees slightly and hinge forward at your hip joint while bracing your abdominals. You want to think of pushing your butt back as you bend forward until you feel a small stretch in your hamstrings (back of legs). Keep you collar bone high and do not round your upper back, slightly squeeze your shoulder blades together to prevent this. You should only have to bend to about 90 degrees to get a stretch in you hamstrings, remember to push back through your heels and into your buttocks this will help. When you feel the stretch extend at your hip joint fully, squeeze your buttocks at the top of the motion to ensure full hip extension.(rising out of your lift to standing)

The Waiters Bow exercise- you should feel a small stretch in your hamstrings. It is a strengthening exercise mainly for your hamstrings, then gluts and entire posterior chain. This motion is key for many mom fat burning exercises such as the front chop, weighted deadlift, 1 legged reach. Please master this motion.

Denise as for your comment on muscle memory or results, this early in the game it is most likely muscle memory. You will feel results after about 2 weeks, and see results after about 6-8 weeks. You may go through a period of adjustment after about 6-10 weeks somewhere in there when you feel tired, this is normal and persevere. If it lasts more than 1 week you may just be exhausted, but you should snap out of it as your body is changing.

Day 2 was Denise's favourite and I will tell you why. This is a circuit day that gets your heart pumping. Women are built for cardio success, we have the ability to adapt to cardiovascular training quicker than men do because we do not have as much muscle tissue to pump blood to, also most women have probably done a tonne of cardio work before as well. You are always drawn to what you are most successful at. Onto the next point, Day 3 and 4 were difficult. One of these days is a stability day and moms abdominals have been compromised during pregnancy- time to get them back into shape with some hard work. The other one of these days is a strength day, women have to work extremely hard to build lean muscle tissue and are most likely not used to this type of training. Key points here- you need to do what you are not successful at. If you only have 3 days to commit to working out, pick the 3 hardest days for you personally from the program, don't just do your favourites.

Stability ball size. The majority of women are between 5"2-5"6 so you can use a 55cm ball, There is a guide on the side of the box. I use a 65cm ball as I am 5"8 and mostly legs. A great test is sit on your ball and your hip and knee joints should bend 90 degrees each. This being said the exercises in this program are not specific for any size ball, you can get away with using the standard 55 or 65 cm ball for these exercises. Inflation will obviously make the ball bigger and they can take a lot. If the ball is slightly deflated some on the exercises will be more challenging as this will provide more resistance.

I hope this response has helped Denise and any other mothers with questions.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline

BUSY MOM FITNESS-Week 4 Max Strength

Busy Mom Fat Loss Workout Monday 15 minutes- Circut #1 chops, pullups, ball pushups repeat 3x
Circut #2-4 clean and press each side, ball roll outs, full squat/press repeat 2x
I used the 20 second work/ 10 second rest busy mom fat loss principles.

Workout Tuesday- Mommy Core Exercise work today. Exercises were done continuous with a few small breaks. Prone stability ball jack knife, stability ball hip pull ins, mountain climbers and x mountain climbers with elbows on stability ball,ball hamstring curls, ball lying adductor squeeze, ball hip bridge, cork screw wood chop heavy and very dynamic 2 sets, standing lat pulldown, cable chop with push thru, wall shoulder press (stick ups 2 sets), hanging shoulder retraction, low trap stabilization using ball. After this I finished with 2 sets of barbell clean and press for speed.

I have been feeling good this week and decided to take the girls to the beach on Friday. It was a beautiful sunny day and only minus -7 degrees Celsius. Yes we are Totally Nuts. My dog went swimming and so the toddler followed. She came up to me with her wet pants and asked me to roll them up I thought because they were wet, but she wanted to go further into the lake. I tried to explain it was still winter, she had a quick tongue and answered "there is no snow". She doesn't feel the cold- maybe we don't have to heat our house- oh ya the baby.
Yes this is my dog with the CONE on her head and the girls. We had to get a soft CONE so she doesn't knock over the baby.



BUSY MOM FITNESS STRENGTH EXPERIMENT- Day 4
So here we go again, I was having a great week until last night. The baby got up at 11pm, 1am and 3:30am last night. She still has no teeth so I thought teething was the cause for the 1am waking and I gave her a dose of medicine. At 3:30am she was starving. I felt tired today for some reason, more than usual even after a poor night sleep. I started training a new client today which is always a little uncomfortable at first- will they show up, will we get along, will she like the exercises, will she complain? You never know-went well.

MY WORKOUT I warmed up and attempted my max cleans, I stayed the same as last week and felt a bit weaker while I was performing them. Something didn't feel right today, maybe I was tight and I was definitely slow on my hip extension. Onto the Burpie pullups- I improved I performed 7 of them, although my last pullup was an extreme struggle. I don't care-I did it.

Off to sign my daughter up for the local soccer league tonight, we cannot wait until this starts. The first year she is eligible to play-she squeaked in by a month.
Follow along for some busy mom meals in the recipes group at BABY BUMP RECIPES

BUSY MOM FITNESS-Strength Experiment Day 3 and Berpie Pullup Video

Today I performed my workout and attempted my max lifts on the barbell Clean and total number of Berpie Pullups. This is the third week of my 6 week mini experiment. I have 2 control athletes that have been posting at http://babybumpfitness.ning.com and I am the test subject.

My conditions for the past few days have been brutal at best. This week my husband is away travelling so I have no relief after a day of training clients that begins at 5am. I did a small Tabata busy mom fat loss workout on Monday that took 15 minutes. On Tuesday I performed a day of just core training. My nutrition has been good this week so far and I feel well. My sleep has been BRUTAL. Monday night I was disturbed by the baby at 1:45am, I was up at 5am for work and went to bed at 9pm last night. I woke again last night to a screaming toddler at 10:45pm, she came into my bed for a cuddle and sleep as her nose was stuffy, she sleeps sideways. She woke periodically during the night and the baby woke me at 2:30am so I had to get up and comfort her as well. We were up at 7am this morning as I start work later.

FITNESS MOM Max Strength Experiment Week 3- my workout today after brutal sleeps. Dynamic warmup including thoracic mobilization moves, arm and leg swing, inchworm and lunges. I performed 2 sets of berpie pullups. I was able to improve and complete a 6 this week-I cut myself off after this as my right shoulder has been nagging me. I performed barbell Clean warmups and my weight increased by 5 lb for a 2 rep max. So there you go - good nutrition, bad sleep and med-high emotional stress still yielded a small improvement this week in my max strength experiment.

Here is a small video of a berpie pullup-I don't know what happened to my camera woman- too much wine maybe. I have been posting my workouts since I started this blog a few months post partum. You can track the progressions to get to an exercise like this. Any questions please ask- I would be glad to help. It doesn't matter where you start- it's where you end up that COUNTS. You will notice there are some root moves such as the front plank from the furious 5 in the berpie pullup exercise.

Sleep Deprivation and Max Strength- my experiment day 2

Another tid bit of information regarding sleep. Over the past 3 nights my baby has been sick so I was averaging about 3 hours sleep per night and completing a course through the day (so not napping). WOW, has this ever affected my maximum strength. I did have a good night sleep last night but, I was only able to complete 4 berpie pullups in total today (last week 5 then 4- 2 sets) and dropped 20 pounds on my near max cleans (3 reps)(barbell pulling motion). I know factors like nutrition come into play as well, but I feel my accumulation of sleep deprivation was the kicker. I am putting myself through a little challenge where I am trying to improve on these 2 exercises every Tuesday. I will let you know my conditions (sleep and diet) and my improvements. So the question is, can a new mom dramatically improve her strength results? With constant set backs like the flu, lack of sleep and emotional stress, what is realistic? You can loose fat with the quick Tababta style fat loss workouts and being organized with your diet, I am living proof of that. Now the question is how and when will I regain my pre-pregnancy strength- if ever. My busy mom fitness strength workout today- dynamic warmup, standing lat pulldowns, lunge press, shoulder rotations, elevated prone plank with knee ins, 4 Berpie pullups 1 set, 2 sets of narrow grip pullups each 4 reps, circuit of front squat-pushpress-bulgarian split squat 2 sets. Now it is time to try cleans, warmup goes well so I add 20lb and able to complete, I add 10 more pounds to complete 5x but not maxed out so I add another 20lb to try for my 3 rep max- NO DICE. I could not complete this complex lift today. I altered my lift to a high pull 5x, then backed off on the weight to complete 5 more lifts. I proceeded with post rehab hamstring and glut medius exercises. I will be reporting on this every Tuesday for the next month and let you know how far I have come and under what conditions, I will perform these 2 exercises at the same point in my workout each week. I know strength training may not be your goal, but there are some great benefits to it. It is a great way to shake up your program, decrease boardum and allow you to set mom fitness goals for yourself. In the long run you will be able to lift more while you are circuiting, therefore cutting more fat. All training I talk about is strengthening, but I am specifically referring to trying near max lifts. I do feel I am ready for this as my baby is almost 1 year old.