Wendy Roche – Personal Fitness Trainer – Asheville, NC

I’ve got some amazing clients.  I know I’ve said that before but it’s the truth!

For the last several years I’ve run a boot camp up until recently.  As a farewell present, a number of people that have taken that boot camp class for years wrote this amazing workout for me and did it with me.  I have to say, it was the most challenging, most perfect, terribly fun workout I’ve ever done!!  They took me through the warm up, quoted lines I say during workouts, and it was a blast!  They also filmed it with my iPad and gave me a card and gift card to a local coffee shop!  I was totally surprised.

I haven’t been able to tell everyone just how thankful I am for them but I truly am grateful.  Having a group of incredible people around you makes you stronger.  So remember, working out is not just good for your body but it’s good for your heart and soul as well.

Don’t get bored at the gym, try moonwalking…or pushing heavy things with people on them down the hallway.

I’ve got some amazing clients.  They come to me for all different reasons and they all know that I can help them achieve their goals.  I thought I’d share with you a short story of my client of the month; Carol!  Carol and I started working together back in May 2011.  She came to me for weight loss.  Although we haven’t lost a tremendous amount of weight she has accomplished some amazing things.

Carol’s knees bothered her a great deal.  Going up and down stairs were a major issue.  Her stairs at home are higher than normal stairs so they were especially difficult.  Carol’s balance was also a concern.  She walks on the weekends with her husband and she was worried about falling.  A concern for a lot of people, and knee pain is more common than you may think as well.  Carol is now able to step up on a bench and balance on 1 leg while holding a dumbbell above her head.  So, steps are not as challenging and her balance has improved tremendously.

Something else worth mentioning is that Carol had never workout on a consist basis ever.  She had never begun an exercise routine and stuck with it.  This is pretty common among a lot of people as well.  Perhaps you even.  Well, she hasn’t missed a workout since she began.  Really remarkable!  She’s been extremely consistent from the beginning and I couldn’t be prouder of her, until this past week that is.

Carol and her workout partner met me at a local gardens not far from the gym last week.  We went out there to enjoy the outdoors and get some sunshine, it was the first nice day we’d had in months!  My plan was to show Carol how she can burn a tons of calories during her weekend walks.  We did intervals of fast walking and slow walking; walking at a very fast pace for 30 seconds and then slowing things down for 40 seconds and repeating that for 20 to 30 minutes.  Since it was our first time trying this I wanted to just see how things went and take it from there as to how long to continue the intervals.  Well, 20 minutes pass and she’s doing really well, REALLY well.  In fact she did something that I didn’t think I would see her do.  She began to jog!!!!  Jog!  And she continued to jog for the duration of our workout, another 20 minutes.  During the 30 seconds of ‘fast walking’ she was jogging.  Wow.  Remember, this is a woman who came to me with troubled knees that bothered her going up and down the stairs.  This is a woman who had never taken up jogging as an exercise for any length of time and yet here she was, jogging intervals for 20 minutes!  I know she enjoyed it but for me it was the most rewarding day of my training career.  I’m so proud of her!  My job is to help people improve their quality of life.  It is a true pleasure to see someone like Carol doing great things and improving her quality of life.  Way to go Carol!  You are truly amazing!

I have a lot of women come to be wanting to do pull ups.  Pull ups are not impossible but they are very difficult. I have 6 ladies right now that can do pull ups!!!  And that doesn’t include any of my boot camp clients.  That number is much high including them.  If you set a goal to do pull up then go for it.  Don’t let anything stop you!!!  Here’s Pam doing a chin up, one of her goals.  She went on to do 3 sets of 5 reps.  Amazing!!!

Don’t let the name scare you from trying a Boot Camp Class.  They’re fun, high energy, and you get to learn new things!  Betsy has been coming to boot camp class for a while now and here she is showing off her skills.  A 1 arm ball toss.  Amazing!!

Heart rate monitors are an easy way to see if you’re working as hard as you need to be and to see if you’re resting too long.  I make sure not to let my heart rate drop too low between sets, that way I can get me most benefit from my time in the gym.  I’ve got a Polar FT7 Women’s Heart Rate Monitor w/ H1 Transmitter.  Love It!!  Your target heart rate zone is a range between 60% and 80% of your maximum heart rate.  Maximum heart rate is usually dependent on your age and can be calculated by subtracting your age from 220.

Here are the readings from my heart rate monitor from my last 2 workouts.  The first one (Monday) was a full body workout: core, power, strength – upper and lower body.  The second one (Wednesday) was an upper body workout.  You’ll see that even though I didn’t do a boot camp class or run on the treadmill for some ungodly amount of time I still burned a huge amount of calories and stayed in both the fat burn and fitness zones.  The construction of the workout and choice of exercises is what makes the different.  Also, notice the different in total calories burned in the workout that had leg exercises as opposed to the one that was just upper body and the amount of time I spent in fat burn mode and fitness mode.  If you want to burn big calories you have to work your legs!

Monday – Duration: 1hour 9 minutes.  525 Calories. Ave Heart Rate: 133. Max Heart Rate: 174. Fat Burn Zone: 18 minutes. Fitness Zone: 50 minutes.

1a Kettlebell Windmill: 3 sets of 12 reps

1b Mid Cable Woodchop:  3 sets of 12 reps

2a Barbell Jerk: 3 sets of 10

3a Overhead Squat: 3 sets of 12 reps

3b V Grip Pull Up: 3 sets of 12 reps

3c Calf Raises (just because I like them): 3 sets of 12 reps

4a Cable Crossover: 3 sets of 12 reps

4b 1 Leg Deadlift: 3 sets of 12 reps

4c Overhead Dumbbell Tricep Extension (just because I like them): 3 sets of 12 reps

Wednesday – Duration: 1hour 6 minutes.  372 Calories. Ave Heart Rate: 122. Max Heart Rate: 163. Fat Burn Zone: 40 minutes. Fitness Zone: 18 minutes.

Bosu/Ball Spiderman Climb: 3 sets of 15 reps

Kneeling High Cable Woodchop: 3 sets of 12 reps

Bench Press: 3 sets of 12 reps

Pendlay Rows: 3 sets of 12 reps

Weighted Body Dips: 3 sets of 8 reps

Military Press: 3 sets of 8 reps

T Bar Row: 3 sets of 12 reps

Alternating Dumbbell Press On a Stability Ball: 3 sets of 12 reps

Barbell High-pull: 3 sets of 8 reps

Call me to set up a no obligation consultation to get started on your own big calorie burning workouts!  828-712-1929.

The first monthly challenge here at O3 Health and Fitness for the new year of 2013 is a tough one.  Since we’re at the beginning of what will be an awesome year we thought we’d start things off with an awesome workout challenge.  The structure is 20 Reps of 13 Exercises done for time.  In other words, do all the exercises in order as fast as you possibly can.  Substitute as you see fit such as pulldowns for pull up or hanging leg raises for knee to elbows.  The only requirement is that you make the weights HEAVY.  I don’t want you to be breezing through this.  I did this workout without substitutions and had to stop a number of times so if you do have to switch one exercise out for another that’s fine, just make sure the weight or exercise is equally difficult.  I did this in 9 minutes and 26 seconds, a gym record so far.  Give it a try and have fun!!

Goblet Squat 

Box Jump 

Pull Up (pullddown) 

V Up Sit Up (alternating v ups) 

Walking Lunges (20 each leg) 

Power Jacks 

Knee To Elbow (hanging leg raises) 

Push Up 

Mountain Climber 

Ball Slam 

1 Arm Row 

Push Press 

Burpee 

This was my very first attempt at doing clapping pull ups, as you may be able to tell by my expression.  I tried these based on a conversation I was having with a client who said she had read an article that explained why women couldn’t do pull ups.  She and I discredited the article right away of course because we both can do pull ups.  I told that I knew women could do clapping pull ups in fact.  So, later that day I had to try it for myself to see if I could do a clapping pull up and to my great surprise I could!  That’s one thing I love about strength training, it enables you to do things you didn’t think weren’t possible.  Granted, pull ups are hard and take a lot of training to be able to do but that in no way means they’re impossible.  If you want a better, healthier life then go get it!!

Writing workouts is what a large portion of what my job consists of.  My clients appreciate it when they come in and their workout has already been thought of and written out for them ahead of time.  I wanted to go over some key elements that I think should be in your workouts to make sure you’re getting the most out of your time in the gym.

#1 Work Major Muscle Groups!

If your main goal is to lose weight and tone up then you don’t need to be spending time working on your biceps and muscles of the forearm.  It takes the body more calories to maintain muscle mass than it does fat.  In other words, the body will burn more calories the more muscle it has to maintain.  So, you want to build the big muscle groups in as little time as possible so you can achieve the weight loss and toning as fast as possible.  If you’re spending a lot of your time working biceps and triceps and not focusing on the three largest muscle groups in the body (chest, legs, and back) it will take you a lot longer to reach your goals.

#2 Minimum Rest

I saw a post on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that went something like this:

Question: ”What do you do to workout?”

Answer: “I lift weights.”

Question: “What do you do for cardio?”

Answer: “I lift weights faster.”

Simple yet there’s some true in that.  You do need bouts of cardio within your week to burn a large amount of calories at one time and to strengthen your heart.  Two very important things.  There’s yet another way to burn more calories while lifting weights and that to lift weights faster.  I don’t mean to do a bench press as fast as possible, what I mean is to move from one exercise to the next with as little rest as possible.  In order to be able to do that you need to alternate the muscle groups between upper body and lower body.  Do an upper body exercise followed by a lower body exercise without rest.  This will get your heart rate up, increase your metabolism, and burn more calories all while building muscle.  A perfect combination!

#3 Complex Movements

Similar to what I talked about in the previous paragraph, the idea here is to do something that increases the heart rate, increases the metabolism, and burns big calories.  A complex movement is when the upper and lower body are working at the same time.  This way you work a large amount of muscles at one time.  An easy example of a complex movement is a squat press.  Stand with a pair of dumbbells held at your shoulders and go down into a squat.  As you stand back up press the dumbbells over your head making sure it’s all one smooth movement.

Here’s how I put it all together:  12-15 reps each, minimal rest, 3 times through.

Squat Press (complex movement)

Wide Lat Pulldown (back-upper body major muscle group)

Deadlift (legs-lower body major muscle group)

Bench Press (chest-upper body major muscle group)

Have Fun!!  Live Life Better!!