Rows and Squats

It was another 5 am morning at the Mad House!

We did a short but painful one today!

400 meter rows
50 squats

4 rounds

We don't have a row machine so we use our barbells and do a deep deadlift to a highpull for 2 minutes to 4 minutes. Clark uses 65 lbs and I use 45 lbs.

We also decided to do hindu squats rather than air squats.

Another Early Morning

We were back outside at 5:30 this morning. I still think working out should be done when the sun is up but when 5:30 is your only free time, it's when you workout.

Today we pulled out a workout that we got from GymJones (but they borrowed it from crossfit). We tackled Fran this morning.

You do 3 rounds of each exercise changing resps each round.

21-15-9

Thrusters (Clark used 95 lbs and I used 65 lbs).
Pullups (We don't have a pullup bar that we can kip on, so Clark did straight pullups and since I am not up to those numbers in straight pullups, I did body rows on the jungle gym).

Early Morning Workouts

As Clark said last night, Coach lit a fire under us. We decided that there were no more excuses to be told. We had to set the alarm clocks and get up when they went off. We were up at 5:15 this morning to be outside by 5:30. I want you to all know that I absolutely LOVE working out and training. However, when the sun is still sleeping it is hard, and I mean H-A-R-D, to get excited about a workout! Clark tried to have a conversation with me and I think I may have growled something about being awake but not being social. Yeah, I am not a great morning person!

Here is what our workout at 5:30 this morning looked like:

5 Rounds
10 Hammer Swings with the clubbells (Clark did his with his 36 lbs kettlebell at the end of a towel) on each side for 20 total.

20 rocking squats/deck squats (I used my 24 lbs kettlebell and Clark used his 36 lber).

After that we did 5 rounds of hindu pushups. Because of time I had to do 10 pushups each round while Clark did 20 pushups each round.

We ended the workout with a 100 meter bear crawl on the kettlebells.

I had to get ready and head to work at that point, but Clark was mad enough to do a little more!

His second workout of the morning was:
3 rounds of 50 meter tire drags and 50 meters farmers carry with 70 lbs of kettlebells in each hand.

After that he did 50 pullups and 50 plyo jumps.

Coach Lit a Fire Under Me

Hello Everyone! I hope this latest entry finds you all doing very well. This entry is going to be brief, and not really have anything to do with training, per se. I hate for our first post in a while to be like that, but hey, it happens sometimes.

I'm writing today, mainly to say that CoachMaxwell has gone and done what all great coaches do: He lit a fire under us. He went and linked us on his blog, and now we have A LOT more people reading what we're putting out there. This is just what we needed to get us moving again, since that wonderful thing called life has been happening to u s the last few weeks. I just graduated Fire Academy, but since the application and hiring process takes quite a while, I had to get a job for money in the meantime. I wound up at UPS. Yeah. crazy schedule and I convinced myself that it was going to cut into training time, so guess what? It did. Same thing has happened to Michelle. She's going back to teaching, so her schedule has been turned on its head and she convinced herself of the same thing. Guess what? Same result.

Maybe the point of this is that if you convince yourself things are going to be a certain way, you'll find a way to make it happen.

So, again, thank you Coach. If you guys aren't checking out Coach's blog, you need to. The man is amazing, and an absolute wealth of knowledge. On a final note, if anyone out there, reading our stuff is involved in the fire service, and you're in Florida, SC, or NC....I need a job! The bottom line of all this is that as of tomorrow we're back on training and back on blogging.

Our Playground!

Clark mentioned our "playground" in his last blog and promised pictures with it. I aim to please, so here are the pictures of our collection of workout gear. The most expensive equipment would be the kettlebells and clubbells. However, those were collected over a 3 year period of time. The rest of the equipment we found for sale, for free, or made ourselves. I must admit that I am pretty proud of our homemade gym!

Above: This is our Jungle Gym system in place on our girls swingset. We use it for body rows, plank rows, ring pushups, and so much more. It is an awesome piece of equipment! We also use the swingset for pullups and knees to elbows.

Above: Clark is posing with our "playground." The larger tire is the flipping and the smaller tire is for dragging. The Jungle Gym is hanging from the large tire and our rope and webbing for dragging and pulling things is hanging from the smaller tire. The clubbells are leaning on the tires and the kettlebells and weights are infront of those. You will see our two homemade medicine balls beside the clubbells. We have two rolls of fire hose that we use for RopesGoneWild work. We also have 2 olympic weight lifting bars (45 lbs each) with various weights that are not shown.

Above: We have 5 clubbells (2 10lbers, 2 15lbers, and 1 25lber). Our two homemade slamballs are pictured above. One weighs 20 lbs and the other weighs 18.

Above: Our kettlebell collection (1 1o lb bell for our 9 year old daughter, 2 9 kg or 18 lb bells, 2 12 kg or 24 lb bells, 2 18 kg or 36 lb bells, 2 20 kg or 44 lb bells and one 53 lb bell).

Above: One last look at our playground! :-)

Making It Work

Have you ever had one of those days when you just don't know how to fit a workout in? Have you felt like everything was going against you and you just couldn't find time to fit in a full workout? That is how my day was. I overslept. The phone was ringing off the hook. My girls were in one of "those" moods. I had 100 things on my to-do list. I had NO idea how to fit a workout in, but I KNEW I had to or else I was going to beat myself up over it.

I ended up doing a complete body weight workout because I didn't have time to do a set up for a full kettlebell or equipment based workout. I gave my oldest her assignments (I homeschool for those of you who don't know) and put my youngest up on my bed and got her some Barbies to play with. In my bedroom, I did the following workout:

This may not be the exact workout because I can't find my book, but it is what I remember from the Fab Five workout in EddieBaran's book BodySculptingBodyweightExercisesforWomen.

75 Hindu Squats
25 Hindu Pushups
25 V-Ups
2 minute plank hold
1 minute gymnastics bridge.

I did it for 2 rounds which took about 15 minutes. Then this evening when things started to wind down, I repeated the workout for 2 more rounds. It defintely wasn't as demanding as some of the other workouts I do, but it got my heart going and kept me moving. It was defintely better than doing nothing!

Clark was also having one of "those" days today! He didn't know how he was going to get a workout in, but he was determined to. So, when he left to turn in some job applications (for those of you who don't know, he just graduated from fire academy) he took some workout clothes with him. While he was out, he happened to be near the fire academy and he stopped by to use their gym to get a quick workout in. Here is what he did:

300 Heavier (from GymJones )
25 Pullups
50 Deadlifts at 185
50 Pushups
50 Floor Wipers at 145
50 Plyo Jumps
50 Clean and Press at 40 lbs each hand
25 pullups

then just to top it off for a little more challenge:

More than 200 (from GymJones )
25 Plyo Jumps
25 Thrusters at 2 X 30 lbs
25 Knees to Elbows
25 Pushups

for 3 rounds