This week has been great for diet and exercise and not so great for my sanity and life. I am working at a client that is about 40 minutes drive away with no traffic. Except there is always traffic and it usually takes about an hour and 45 mins to do the drive 😦 so to try to avoid that I have been going to a gym by the client. This is usually my plan when clients are far away and it works pretty well. This week I trained Legs (extremely heavy) on Tuesday, Push on Wednesday and Pull on Thursday.
In general, most of the variety in my workouts come from changing up sets or making slight variations to existing exercises, but this week I added a couple totally new exercises! I am sore EVERYWHERE as a result, but that’s good right?
New Exercise #1 – Reverse hamstring curls (solo)
Image from http://sportsfitnesshut.blogspot.com
I have seen variations of this done, usually with a partner sitting on your ankles, but recently I was shown how to do this solo! You kneel backwards on the seat of the lat pull down machine and hook your ankles under the knee pads. You then support yourself with a rod of some sort (I used a body bar at hand) and extend your body out flat and raise back up using your hamstrings as the primary mover and using your arms to help as needed. This website does a great job of explaining.
New Exercise #2 – Good mornings on an upside down bosu ball
This is exactly what it sounds like and was a great finisher after hitting a new PR on deadlifts (245# for 2 clean reps… whoop!). Start by getting a light-ish bar on your back (I used 50 pounds) and then step onto the flat side of the bosu ball. Make sure you are well balanced and then perform a set of goodmornings. This is a big challenge to you core and stabilizers!
Erica Willick of http://www.sisinshape.com inspired me with the row/press move in the top right.
New Exercise #3 – bent over row to hang clean to overhead press (new favourite)
This was inspired by Erica Willick’s most recent spread in oxygen where she performed this move with a weight plate and skipped the hang clean. I used a 50 pound bar instead of a plate and performed an overhand grip (pronated) bent over row, then stood with the bar in a hang position and cleaned to my shoulders, then performed an overhead press (near the end there was a mini squat involved to help get the bar up). I absolutely loved this chain. I did 4 sets of 8 reps and my whole upper body was feeling it. Be really careful to watch your form throughout though!
So those were my forays into new exercises this week, but I also promised you all a review of Kick by Revolution Nutrition.
In short – I loved it. But let’s get real, it’s mostly a boat load of caffeine (200 mg or equivalent of 2 cups of coffee) that tastes like watermelon jolly ranchers (assuming you do the smart thing and get watermelon flavour). It’s also got other (very legal) stimulants in it which are L-Tyrosine, L-Taurine and Methylphenylethylamine (of the N variety and not to be confused with alpha or beta which are both methamphetamines). This combination seems to give a nice steady build to your energy and in my experience, did not give me jitters or that hyperactive feeling that too much coffee sometimes has. Now, I only used 1 LEVEL scoop and I drank about 1/3 of it before my workout and the rest throughout, so I don’t know how 2 scoops downed all at once pre-workout might affect someone. But I’ve used it 3 times now and I thoroughly enjoyed the effect. it’s definitely going to be part of any morning workouts I do from now on, but I don’t think I’ll use it regularly for afternoon workouts unless I’m having a real energy slump.
If you are looking to pick some up, this is their website. www.revolution-nutrition.com/our-products/kick/
Disclaimer:Â None of the companies have asked me to do these reviews or given me any incentive to do so, I am simply sharing my thoughts in the hopes that it helps someone else make some informed choices about the products they buy.
On The Go Fitness 