Fitness Friday: Back to it

I know,  I know, I'm as shocked as you are to see a Fitness Friday post. It has indeed been a while but after several months of eating whatever I like and spending far too much time sitting on my bum, I have started looking after myself again. 
I had planned on joining a gym in Melbourne but always found excuses not to so when we moved to Brisbane I knew that was something I needed to make happen. I was originally looking for yoga groups or dance classes but my boyfriend was told about Venus Women's gym from a friend so I had a little look on the site and got in touch with them. A week later I was in for my induction which just happened to be a pretty intense full body work out doing things my body had never done before. The next couple of days were painful to say the least but I knew I was definitely going to get results here. 
I've never been to an all women's gym before and whilst being in mixed gyms had never been an issue for me before, I think I do feel more comfortable this way. The actual exercise is very different too. There's not a treadmill in sight! Venus work in small group sessions in the morning and evening and they're all targeting different things. I've tried a few different ones so far and I always come away feeling like I've worked my arse off! I've been aiming for 3 sessions a week and a month after I'm already starting to feel stronger and more capable. I've never squatted so much in my life but  keep finding myself standing with my hands on my bum because it's feeling so toned haha!  
I definitely need to organise my week a little better as I've definitely been working some areas more than others but that just a case of planning which is what I am going to focus on this month. I've even been starting to look into obstacle races in Brisbane (eek) I'm not making any promises just yet but I think if I keep doing what I'm doing then I could be getting very muddy in the near future! 
The girls at Venus have been so supportive and encouraging and I already know I'm going to miss it when I move on from Brisbane. This experience has definitely taught me a lot about how I want to exercise from now on and I know that when we make the move to New Zealand in a few months that I will be looking for something very similar. 
That all being said look out for more Fitness Friday posts, I'm a women on a mission for a great bum! 

Fitness Friday: Total Warrior

 

So I only went and bloody did it! Total warrior has been and gone and I thought I'd fill you in on how I found the whole experience.

 

Basically it was harder than I thought. I don't know why but I really didn't expect so many hills, the very first part of the course consisted of running up and down two very steep hills and it through me,  I had to slow right down for these parts. The rest of the course was quite hilly too. I probably should have expected this to be honest and it's my own silly fault for not realising before. If I'd of thought I would have definitely trained for this.

The obstacles really varied in difficulty but there was definitely something to test everyone. I personally struggled with the climbing walls which I expected as I don't have a lot of upper body strength, it's something I'm working on. I ended up doing Total warrior by myself so often had to rely on strangers giving me a boost on some of these. Everyone was so kind and more than happy to help but it made me wish I was part of a team as it would have been much easier to get through the tougher obstacles faster. My personal favourite was the slide, it was amazing! You just throw yourself down a massive plastic sheet covered in soapy water and go flying until you land in the mud. Speaking of mud, there's a lot of it and it will get every where (use your imagination). It didn't always smell like just mud either but it's probably best if we don't think about that.

 

Half way round the course I decided that I wouldn't do it again but now that I've had time to forget about the difficult parts I think I would. (I've heard that's what child births like) I would definitely get myself more organised next time round and make sure I had a decent sized team, I also think team training would be great too. On that note I definitely needed to train more and do more specific things. Because of all the steep hills and mud, running became almost impossible and I really should have focused more on my strength and stamina instead.

 

All in all it was a great day and I feel really pleased with myself for getting through it. The staff were amazing from start to finish and the whole thing was organised brilliantly. There were photographers all along the course but sadly they were only three very bad ones of me which I didn't think were worth paying for (hence my angry warrior face pictures). Of course this means that I now have something else ticked off my New year's resolutions list, wahoo!!!

Fitness Friday: I can run!!

from befitmonaco.com

   
Hello!!   At the time of writing this the last thing I feel is fit, I'm slowly turning into a phlegmy grog monster and I'm feeling quite sorry for myself. I don't handle illness well. Before the grog hit, believe it or not, I had started to run and as it turns out, I don't hate it. About a year ago I decided to give it a go but after about 10 throat burning, blood tasting seconds I quickly gave up and decided that running wasn't for me. However with Total Warrior moving ever closer I needed to try again. One of my friends has done quite a lot of running before so one morning I went along with her and really surprised myself. She showed me how to pace myself and I managed to do a 3 mile run, we even threw in a little sprint at the end. I really couldn't believe that I'd managed it. Since then I've managed to do a few more runs, if I'm honest they've had mixed results. The weather has been all over the places recently and I've found it much harder in the sun but it's all a learning curve and I'm pleased with how I'm doing so far.   I need to double my distance before Total Warrior so I'm currently searching for a good app to help me track my progress. I need something to plan my routes too, I have absolutely no sense of direction and would definitely get lost trying to venture 10km on my own. Life's a challenge when you don't know when your going.   This week's slowed me down a little bit so I'm hoping I feel better very soon so I can get back on track. I'm hoping that a few runs a week along with some strength training in the gym will leave me total warior ready in no time......I live in hope!

 

   

Fitness Friday #2

 

Hello!!

 

Number 2 in my fitness Friday series. As you can imagine from my lack of Fitness Friday posts that my journey to becoming a total warrior champ is not going too well and I only have myself to blame. With the warmer weather starting to make an appearance I know it won't be long until I have to face facts and see if I can get to the end of the race.

 

I was flicking through my you tube subscription box when I found this video. I watch both In The Frow and the Lean Machines any way so I was excited to see what there colab would be like. The Lean Machines are both personal trainers and have excellent tips but I often feel it's aimed more at men so when I seen them helping out the lovely Victoria I thought I would just borrow her workout and see how I get on. It's designed to fit in to a busy schedule so I really have no excuse not to exercise now. I'll let you know how I get on.