I have been a little MIA lately from posting and from Instagram, I have been crazy busy with work, traveling and getting things ready for travel.  This past weekend I drove 8 hours to Virginia and back for a very fast trip, but it was well worth it.  I was able to spend a good amount of time with my boyfriend and I also had a quick visit with some of my best friends that I miss so much! It was an amazing weekend, but it was crazy busy and to be honest I did NOT follow my healthy travel tips.  This weekend was full of eating out, running errands and not working out, but either way I enjoyed it and that's all that matters.

Now that I am home I am packing, running around, I squeezed in a workout and I am ready to fly off to Iceland tonight!! I will be in Iceland for about 12 days with one of my very best friends and my favorite travel buddy.  We have a lot of fun hikes, adventures and things planned that I am going to share on here the whole week, so stay posted!

Today's Pre Travel Workout:

3 mile run

Full Body Circuit- 3 rounds of 10 minutes

 

Circuit 1

15 Push-Ups

20 Step-Ups

20 Plank Walk-Over Box

20 Jump Squats

40 Skater Hops

Circuit 2

30 Jump Lunges

15 Dumbbell Snatches

40 Plank Dips

20 Pulse Squats

40 Mountain Climbers

Circuit 3

20 Tricep Dips

20 Split Squat Jumps

15 Burpees

20 Squat Step Downs

20 Snap Jumps

Enjoy the workout!

Circuit workouts are my favorite kind of strength training workouts.  Probably because I am obsessed with cardio and circuits incorporate cardio with weight training.  Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy lifting weights every once in awhile but not as much as I like a good heart pumping run or circuit.

Circuits are also a great way to burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time, build strong and lean muscles and train both muscular strength, endurance and cardio.  I recommend circuit training for everyone because it can help you reach so many different goals! Here is an example of a full body circuit that I love!

3x 10 Minutes

I complete each circuit as many times as I can in 10 minutes, that means intense effort for 10 minutes, then I take a 1 minute break and move onto the next circuit.  Thats a 33 minute workout, and I typically burn between 300-400 calories in those 33 minutes!

Circuit 1

20 Jump Squats

20 High- Low Plank

20 Reverse Lunge Step Downs

10 Plank Jack Push-Ups

15 Burpees

Circuit 2

20 Step-Ups

40 Mountain Climbers

20 Squat with Lateral Kick

20 Reptiles

15 Roll-Backs

Circuit 3

20 Reverse Lunge and Kick

15 Clean and Press

20 Jump Sumo Squats

20 Plank Walk over Box

40 Russian Twists

A lot of these exercises are demonstrated on my youtube channel, if not they will be added soon! Also check out my train with me page to get more customized workouts!

 

Working out is hard, making sure you have a good workout is even harder. There are a lot of components that make sure you have an effective workout.  These are the rules I follow to make sure every workout I have is the best it can be!

Get a good nights sleep

Being well rested is one of the most important things in staying healthy and feeling your best during your workout and your everyday life.  This is KEY in a morning workout!

Eat some Carbs!

Being properly fueled is another important part of having a great workout. Eating some healthy carbs will provide you quick energy to have an effective workout.  Some snack ideas are a banana, rice cakes or rye crisp breads with avocado or peanut butter, granola, low-sugar power bar or granola bar.

Get motivated 

Get pumped up for your workout! Look forward to it, listen to good music, do whatever you need to do to get ready and motivated for your workout.

Track your workout

Get a fit bit, polar watch, or other fitness tracker that tracks the amount of time you have worked out and heart rate.  Your heart rate shows you how hard you have worked out and if you need to up the intensity to get the results you want.

Plan out what you're doing before you start 

Plan out a whole workout before you start so you make sure to get every muscle group, and get the most out of each workout.  This also prevents you from quitting your workout early! If you need help coming up with an organized and effective workout visit my train with me page!

 

I know waking up early is NOT fun, and working out is probably one of the last things you want to do when you drag yourself out of bed at 5, 6 or 7am.  Here are some tips I have to overcome this barrier.

Me right after a great early morning sweat session!!

• Change your mindset about waking up early.

Your alarm goes off and the first thing you do is hit snooze to post pone your workout.  But if that alarm was set for work or school, you may still press snooze but you would make yourself get out of bed and get ready.  So why is working out any different? In my opinion that alarm set to get up early and work out is more important than that alarm to get up and go to work.  You may need that job to pay rent, and other bills but you also need your body to function at its best so that you can go to work, and live your life.  Without exercise it will not be long until your body isn't working as well as you want it to.

• Get out of bed right as your alarm goes off, do NOT give yourself time to think about it, don't hit snooze, don't give excuses.

This is pretty self-explanatory but if you just hop out of bed right away, you are not going to get back in bed because you're already up!

• Sleep in your workout clothes.

If you sleep in the clothes you're going to workout in you have already committed, you already have your mind made up when you go to sleep that you are going to get out of bed and workout

• Get excited for your workout.

Think about how great your workout is going to be before you go to sleep, get excited for it.  I have talked about picking an exercise that you love and this is a great way to test that.  You should be excited about working out and morning workouts are great for a number of reasons.  One, breakfast tastes so much better when you're hungry for it and you know you have earned it.  Two, you feel amazing all day, you got up early and you're stronger than you were before.  Three, when you get home from work/school or whatever you can RELAX because you have already earned it!

• Get a workout buddy.

If you are getting up and working out with someone that almost always forces you to get out of bed, its much harder to blow off if you're letting down someone else.

• Plan a treat for after your workout.

Now, I do NOT mean some super sugary high fat breakfast! On the days you wake up early to workout treat yourself to a sugar free coffee or low fat latte from Starbucks or your favorite coffee store.  Or, if you make all your early morning workouts in 1 week, treat yourself to a pedicure.  Healthy rewards are the best way to stick to a health plan!

• Go to bed earlier!

I know this is easier said than done, but set an alarm for bed time and stick to it.  Making sure you get a full nights rest will make it easier to wake up, make you feel more rested throughout the rest of the day and help you reach your fitness goals faster.

• Remember the results.

Which is more important to you? Your fitness and health goals or spending an extra hour in bed? Always your health and fitness goals! So wake up and go workout!

• Always end with a good breakfast.

It is so important to re-fuel after an AM workout with enough protein, fats, carbs and water. This will set you up for a successful day, which will make you feel better and more energized throughout the rest of the day.

I was thinking about this question this morning as I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for a run.  I was trying to get ready before I started to get hungry but also slow enough so that I could wake up a little more.  I used to be such a morning workout person, I would wake up and go running and then do some weights.  This habit always made breakfast a little more satisfying knowing that I had been so productive in the hours that lead up to it.  However, since I started personal training in the early hours of the morning I have gotten out of this habit.  There is no way I was going to get up, workout, eat and shower all before my 5:30 or 6:00am clients.  Now, I have less AM clients and more work that needs to be done late mornings or early evenings.  So, I have been trying to get back in the habit of waking up and working out right away but it has been very challenging getting back into this routine.

This all got me thinking back to my senior year research project, a topic I NEVER thought I would want to think about again.  What time is the best time to work out? Is it early morning, mid-day, evening? This time last year I was spending hours upon hours in the library and in the exercise physiology lab researching this very topic.  I was reading things on circadian rhythms, biological clocks, psychological responses to exercise and motivation levels at different times of the day and blah blah blah.

I also did a little experiment of my own where I had people run for 20 minutes, at a self selected speed at different times of the day (morning and evening).  I recorded VO2 (oxygen consumption), RPE (how challenging the workout was), heart rate, RER (respiratory exchange ratio, basically compares the amount of carbon dioxide made and the amount of oxygen used by your body).  Then I compared all those numbers using some fancy statistical program and I found that the only real difference was people ran faster in the afternoon when compared to the morning times.

My conclusions were basically that it depends on the person, if you are a morning person and you love working out in the morning then good for you! But, if you prefer to workout after work or after school then thats equally as good for you.  UNLESS you are looking to perform better, (run faster in this case) then you are better off working out in the afternoon.

Of course, like any study mine had a number of limitations.  The sample size was small, and people were only running, so the results may not be able to be generalized to all types of exercise.  Also, all my subjects were college aged, and college students typically have different sleep schedules than other adults so there could be some error associated with that.

My take home message for this is that exercise is important for your health, and it is a necessary part of living a healthy life and taking care of your body.  So fit in exercise whenever it works best for you and whenever you feel the best.

Powerlifting, Crossfit, Bikini Body Guide, 21 Day Fix, Spinning, Running, Cross Training, Weight Lifting, and the list goes on.

There are so many styles of exercises out there, and with each new trend of exercise there is a following of people that claim it is the best, and it will help you reach your goals the fastest.  But, do they know your goals? Do they have the same goals as you? Probably not, so that crossfit class, or that spin class may not help you get to where you want to go, especially if the person suggesting it doesn't even know what your goals are.

So what kind of exercise is best for you? Well that depends, on what you want to accomplish.  It is so important to pick a personal trainer, or an exercise that aligns with your goals.  It is also important to know what your goals are, beyond what you want to look like.  For me, I want to get stronger, I want to be able to do multiple pull-ups, pistol squats etc.  I also want to be more toned and lower my body fat percentage.  My goals are not to build a lot of muscle, so I do not lift really heavy weights every day.  I do a lot of circuit training, I lift every once in awhile and I run and do spin classes just because I love love love cardio.  What works for me, may not work for you.  That is why I encourage everyone to find the exercise that they love, that will help them reach their personal goals.

Here, I am breaking down some common goals and writing the best ways to meet those goals.  For more specific training guidelines please visit my Train with Me page or send me an email directly at taylor@healthiertravels.com!

Goal: WEIGHTLOSS

Probably the most common goal out there, many people who want to lose weight assume that they need to do a ton of cardio and eat next to nothing.  This is not entirely true.  Yes, you should do some cardio because it will improve your cardiovascular health, and if you have a lot of excess weight to lose then likely your cardiovascular system could use exercise.  There are a lot of people out there that say skip the cardio, I am not one of those people.  Cardio should never be skipped, if you do not want to go run or walk for 30 minutes, that's fine, add it into your strength training and do a circuit workout (my favorite way to add in some cardio).  Cardio is very important, especially if you want to lose weight.

Weight training.  Lifting weights is also so important if your goal is to lose weight.  Weight training increases the amount of muscle you have and decreases your body fat.  Having more muscle is beneficial because it burns more calories at rest than fat does.  For example two people, same weight, one person has more muscle than the other, the person with more muscle will burn more calories at rest than a person with less muscle.

If weight loss is your goal then yes, you are going to need to change up your diet because at the end of the day its all about calories in vs. calories out.  Although, there are obviously calories that are WAY better for you than others, I encourage you to pick the better ones 98% of the time.  Nutrition is a key part of weight loss, and general health so it can not be overlooked.  As they say, you can not out-exercise a bad diet.

Goal: BUILD STRENGTH AND MUSCLE

Building strength and gaining muscle mass is another common goal for a lot of people.  The key to getting stronger and building muscle is lifting heavy weights.  Heavy weight lifting stimulates the muscle to grow bigger.  There is a lot of research behind this (physiology stuff that I won't get into).

If muscle growth is your goal then you should not do excess, steady-state cardio because it will have detrimental effects to growing muscle.  However, cardio is still important for overall health, so adding in a good circuit workout, or a brisk walk is still beneficial and important.

If building muscle, and getting bigger is the goal then you are going to need to eat for it.  Your working muscles need to fuel to be able to lift heavy and maximize results from each workout.  For more specific nutrition goals to grow muscle I suggest seeing a RD or other nutrition expert because they will be able to give better advice.

Goal: ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE

If your goal is athletic performance then weight-lifting, speed and agility and cardio are all important.  Although it depends on the specific sport to go into further details about training, here are some general guidelines.

Does your sport require short bouts of intense cardio (football, basketball)? Then do sprints, if you have the equipment sled runs or any sort of running with added resistance will help increase your running speed.

Does your sport require fast movements, changing direction or complex foot movements? Then you need to do agility training, agility training involves the use of obstacles to help you change direction quickly.

Does your sport require explosive movements? Explosive lifts will be very beneficial to those sports (almost all) that involve explosive movements.  Some examples are shooting a hockey puck, a basket ball, swinging a racket or kicking a ball.  DEFINITELY make sure to have a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specials show you these exercises before attempting alone.

There is a lot that goes into training for a specific sport beyond conditioning and muscle strength.  To make sure you are training to maximize athletic performance send me a message!

Goal: GENERAL HEALTH 

Exercise is a crucial part of maintaining general health and well-being.  The American College of Sports Medicine recomends 3-5 days of about 30 minutes of moderate physical activity and 2-3 days of strength training.  That is a pretty general recommendation, so pick what you like and do it! Go to classes, try getting advice from a personal trainer and enjoy physical activity and living a healthy life!

Those are my general suggestions on how to reach each of those goals! For more details and specific recommendations on weight loss, muscle growth, athletic performance, and general health please visit my train with me page or send me a private message!

Squat

Squats are one of the best exercises to workout your entire lower body.  Follow these steps to make sure you are using proper form:

1. Stand with feet hip width apart
2. Bend your knees and sit back, like you're sitting in a chair
3. Hinge your hips forward while keeping your spine straight and chest up
4. Make sure your knees are pointing over your toes, not collapsing in or out
5. In the up phase, push through the heels using your glutes

 

Split Squat/ Lunge

Split squats and lunges are other great exercises that work all of the muscles of the lower body.  A split squat is when you keep both feet stationary and just move up and down.  In a lunge you would just move your front or back foot to meet the other in between reps.

To work the gluteal group primarily take a larger step and keep your weight in the heel of the front foot while pushing up.  To use work the quadriceps more take a smaller step.

Proper Form:

1. Take a step forward and bend both of the knees, make sure your front knee is not passing over your toes, make sure your back knee is bending towards the ground
2. Hips should be moving forward and down
3. Push through the heel to press yourself back up, repeat

 

Single Leg Dead Lift 

The single leg deadlift works the hamstrings, glutes and muscles of the lower back, it is also a great exercise to practice balance.

Proper form:

1. Stand on one leg, weight in your heel, holding a dumbbell in both hands
2. Bend at the waist bringing your chest towards the ground, keep your shoulders and hips squared, back flat and abs super tight
3. Pull yourself up slowly using the hamstrings and glutes, returning to starting position.

 

Good morning everyone! Today I decided that I would share the arm and HIIT workout that I did yesterday.  I always seem to save arms and HIIT for the middle of the week which are my two least favorite things.   Oh well, I did feel great when I was done and looked down at my polar and saw that I had burned 567 calories in under an hour and I was dripping in sweat.

HIIT- 5 minute warm up on 7.5mph 1.0% Incline

-5, 1 minute intervals with a 1 minute rest all on a 1.0% Incline

-High Interval- 9.0mph to start, each interval I add .1-.2 mph, with my last interval ending at 10.0mph

-Rest Interval- 5.0mph-6.5mph, I gradually increase the speed over the 1 minute rest

-Cool down- 3 minutes walking at 3.0mph

I was really happy with this workout because I almost never get my heart rate over 178 bpms (beats per minute), but during the last interval of my sprint my heart rate was 183 bpms and I definitely felt the difference.

After my sprint workout I stretched a little bit but I didn't want my heart rate to drop to low because I was doing a circuit as an arm workout.  I picked 15 different arm and ab exercises, did each exercise non stop for 30 seconds with a 15 second rest in between exercises and I repeated that twice.  I finished off with some heavier weights and my arms were pretty dead by the end of it.

Combining higher intensity bursts of cardio exercises and strength exercises is a great way to torch calories and build lean muscles.  I definitely recommend circuit training to anyone that is trying to lose weight and lean out. Contact me if you have any questions or want some suggestions of circuit workouts!

Here are some of the arm and ab exercises I included in my circuit.

-Push-Ups

-Tricep Dips

-Mountain Climbers

-Bosu Ball Burpees

-Dumbbell Clean and Press

-Bench hops

-Commandos

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone was able to get in a great workout today!