Jun 17 2010

Heavy Rope Intervals – Conditioning Workout With Ropes

If you have ever used heavy ropes to do an interval workout you will feel my pain!

If you haven’t had the ‘pleasure’ of doing so yet, then look forward to it and make sure you add ‘Heavy Rope Intervals’ to the list of things to do before you die!

Apparently these ropes were named ‘Best New Cardio Tool of 2009′ by Men’s Health magazine and all I can say is that after a few minutes my lungs, arms, legs, shoulders……lets just say EVERYTHING was burning!

This workout was designed to be hard, fast and effective. I’m pretty sure it ticked off all of these boxes and then some! Following a 40 seconds work into 20 seconds rest interval, I did five work sets followed by a full minute rest (very generous I know!!). Do this for four rounds and you have a nice 20 minute workout. (30 minutes if you include a warm up before and lying in the foetal position for 5 minutes afterwards!)

Round One:

  1. Double Waves
  2. Alternate Waves
  3. Double Waves
  4. Alternate Waves
  5. Double Waves

Round Two:

  1. Outside Circles/Spirals
  2. Inside Circles/Spirals
  3. Double Waves
  4. Outside Circles/Spirals
  5. Inside Circles/Spirals

Round Three:

  1. Rainbows/Throws
  2. Alternate Waves
  3. Rainbows/Throws
  4. Alternate Waves
  5. Rainbows/Throws

Round Four:

  1. Double Waves
  2. Alternate Waves
  3. Inside Circles/Spirals
  4. Rainbows/Throws
  5. Outside Circles/Spirals

I got Rach to film some of the action, so you can see exactly what the exercises are if you aren’t familiar with them.

Ropes supplied by Australian Kettlebells

Interval Workout Music supplied by Workout Muse


Oct 1 2009

Blueberry Cheesecake Pudding

You can never eat too many blueberries. Well maybe you can, but I don’t think anyone has yet.

But you can eat too much cheesecake. And I’m sure plenty of people have!

So what’s the alternative? I want to have my cake and eat it too!!

Enter the Blueberry Cheesecake Pudding courtesy of Allie from Pimp My Protein Shake.

It’s blueberry, it’s cheesecake (minus the fattening crumbled biscuit base), it delicious and it’s good for you. What more could you want?

850657_bucket_o_berries

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 1/2 cup lowfat cottage cheese
  • 1/4 cup vanilla whey powder
  • 1/2 cup blueberries (frozen works best for thickness and cost)
  • 1 oz. lowfat cream cheese
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (depending on your protein powder)

Allie has an order of adding the ingredients and blending, but true to my style of keeping it simple, I like to chuck it all in the food processor and just blend it until it’s all mixed together. Choose your own path here!

It will only need a few hits of about 30 seconds in the food processor, checking that its all mixed in and you don’t have pockets of ingredients that haven’t joined the party.

If you want to thicken it a bit more, throw it in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes while you clean up and it will be perfect.

Depending on the actual ingredients you use, you will be getting about 35 grams of protein, 5 grams of fat and 12 grams of carbs.

Yum yum, enjoy.


Sep 23 2009

Raspberry Blender Bomb

All of the recipes I post here are generally the result of some trial and error. As you probably know by now, my number one rule when it comes to eating food is that it has to taste good. Gone are the days of holding your nose and dry reaching in an effort to eat well. Say no to bad tasting food and say yes to this next recipe!

raspberries

Raspberry Blender Bomb

Ingredients

  • 200ml almond milk
  • 1/2 cup frozen raspberries
  • 1/4 cup whole walnuts
  • 1/4 cup banana protein powder

Now this is where it gets tricky. You have to put all of the ingredients into a blender and blast it for 30-60 seconds.

Maybe it’s not that tricky after all, so that means there are no excuses for not eating well.

It will come out like a raspberry sorbet, but if you leave it for a few minutes (or use thawed/fresh raspberries) it will be a great tropical drink.

This blender bomb is perfect as a snack between meals, or even as a desert. You are getting a nice hit of protein, good carbs, good fats, fibre and a heap of other nutrients.


Sep 11 2009

Killer Time Saving Workout

Ok straight into it today with another quick, challenging workout. This workout is designed to tick off the boxes of strength, fitness and fat loss. And sitting here writing it up , I’m not sure which is harder, doing the workout or general moving for the next two days!

Set up a barbell for deadlifts and a kettlebell for swings. I used 100kgs and 30kgs respectively. In between these two exercises you will do pushups. Choose a level, easier or harder, for the pushups depending on your strength.
After you have warmed up you will do the three exercises in a circuit. First round do 20 reps, second round do 15 reps and third round do 10 reps (that’s of each exercise). Rest ad much as you need to but as little as possible throughout.
Remember if you aren’t questioning why you are doing this at some stage, then chances are you aren’t working hard enough.
After you have done all three rounds, take s few minutes to gather your breath and you breath.
Next move onto the chin up bar armed with a stopwatch. All you want to do here is start the timer and do one chin up. When the timer gets to one minute, you want to do two chin ups. Continue adding one chin up per minute until you can no longer keep up. This may seem easy to begin with but it will catch up to you quick enough. I managed to get up to eight reps before calling it quits.
That’s it. Roughly 30 minutes in length but one supreme workout the did have me questioning why I was doing it!!
Let me know how you go.