CHECK BACK LATER TODAY FOR THE WINNER OF MY WHITE BUFFALO KITCHEN GIVEAWAY 🙂
Good Morning and Happy Tuesday everyone!
If you all follow me on Instagram or twitter {which you should, if you don’t. just saying}, then you know that I was all kinds of endorphin drunk last night.
I was searching the ol’ pinterest for some workout-variety inspiration and came across a fun looking new-to-me tabata style workout. For those of you who aren’t familiar with tabata, like myself, here is a brief description.
The Tabata workout lasts only four minutes, but is one of the longest four minutes you’ll encounter. The structure of the program is:
- Workout hard for 20 seconds
- Rest for 10 seconds
- Complete eight rounds
You push yourself as hard as you can for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds until you complete eight sets. You can do pretty much any exercise you wish. You can do squats, pushups, rows, etc… Any exercise that works your large muscle groups is strongly recommended. {from active.com}
So 20 seconds of high intensity work, followed by 10 seconds of rest. Then you move on to the next move, completing 8 rounds (4 minutes). It doesn’t seem too hard right, 20 seconds? Don’t judge it til you try it.
I had 3 sets of those 8 set routines. Here’s how it looked:
Lower Body
- Squats
- High knees
- Lunges (Right lead)
- High knees
- Lunges (Left lead)
- Skier jumps
- Sumo squats
- Skier jumps
Upper Body
- Push ups
- Plank with rotation twist
- Side plank hip dips (right side)
- Plant with rotation twist
- Side plank hip dips (left side)
- Mountain climbers
- Superman
- Mountain climbers
Abs And Core
- Crunches
- Planks
- Bicycle crunches
- Planks with knee tucks
- Reverse abs
- Planks with criss-cross
- Leg lifts
- Up-down planks
To do the complete workout: I started with a warm up on the treadmill (12:30 minutes), one round of the routine. 5 Minutes on the treadmill. Another round of the routine. So I repeated the same exact routine twice. Then a cool down with random upper body weights. I ended the routine a sweaty, endorphin drunk mess. The best 🙂
I cannot express enough how much I LOVED this routine! You can expect to be seeing much more of the like here on Chocolate medals 🙂
Dinner
Let’s just say I was a hungry hungry hippo once I finished this routine, so I was thrilled to see the hubby was working on dinner by the time I finished.
Since I wasn’t so much feeling pizza Sunday night (or cooking in general, really), we saved it for Monday night. Best decision ever.
We switched things up a bit, using
- artichoke hearts
- mushrooms
- green onions
- Moz CHUB instead of shredded cheese
And instead of precooking the crust, we just put it all in at once, in hopes that it would keep the crust soft without much “wetness” from cheese or sauce.
Pizza success! I mentioned last night that I think this was a top 5 contender for Jara homemade pizzas. YUM!
Success
And you all will be happy to know last night was a success as far as my goal to end the evening with a walk instead of stuffing myself silly with sweets! Does that mean I didn’t have dessert? Heck no
I still had a gluten free chocolate chip cookie and three of those mini chocolate covered pretzel sandwiches (I was kind and shared one with Zach). Once I finished, I promptly got up, bundled up (it was quite cold) and took Gusman on a 20 minute walk around our neighborhood. By the time I got home, I wanted more of those darn pretzels, but I stayed strong and in stead cuddled with the hubby and watched Colbert. I went to bed comfortable and satisfied, which is something I’d like to make a habit of 🙂
This Morning
Woof. Between yesterday’s lunch work out (the killer 10’s routine on my Chocolate Medal’s pinterest page) and that tabata work out at night, my legs were FEELING it this morning. I woke up NOT wanting to crawl out of bed, but knowing that we have dinner plans so if anything was going to happen it had to be now.
And so it did.
Workout of the day
4 easy miles including 2.5 minute walking warm up, then run at a comfortable pace until I hit four miles, then walked it out to 40 minutes. This run took pushing myself for every.single.one of those 40 minutes — but it’s those runs that make us stronger, right?
CHECK BACK LATER TODAY FOR THE WINNER OF MY WHITE BUFFALO KITCHEN GIVEAWAY 🙂
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Love it! I’m totally inspired to go get wrecked by a tabata workout and then eat pizza 🙂
LOL do it!
I LOVE Tabata. It’s probably my most favorite form of interval training. If you ever really REALLY want to make yourself cry, try doing the 10 second rest under some form of tension. So for example, if you’re doing Tabata squats, the 10 second rest is a hold at the bottom of the squat. Or hold a plank for the 10 seconds between push ups. So so good/bad. 🙂
And incidentally, SO Crossfit. 😀
holy hell — talk about new level of tough! LOVE IT
I would be a’hurtin’ today so I have to give you some serious kudos! I will definitely give tabata a go this week, though! Those are some intense minutes, but beneficial in the long run.
You better let me know if you do! 🙂
I am very tempted to try that Tabata workout, but I’m worried it’s the kind of workout where I need a trainer standing over and screaming at me the entire time. (Not a surprise, considering my post on what a slacker I am…)
LOL — far from a slacker 😉 I just had my iPhone and a mirror. And constantly reminded myself that I could do anything for 20 seconds…which helped me push myself that much more!
you’re so hardcore.
haha I try
I love tabata workouts! I like picking five workouts and repeating them for a set of 8, but I think I’ll try mixing it up sometime too!
I can’t believe I had never tried them before.
Hey! Great post! Already mentioned this I think but I love tabata! Here is the link to the original paper written by none other than Dr. Tabata http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8897392/
Miss you and Z-man.
Love it, and love you my dear 🙂 Thanks so much for the resource, I’ll have to share it! We miss you tons! Come out and visit us SOON!
I love tabatas too! I’ve always done them with repeating exercises though! I really want to do one now!!!
They’re the best 🙂
Oooh, your pizza looks so much better than the one I’ve just polished off! I hate tabata at the time, but love it afterwards! 🙂
lol the pizza and the work out were pretty awesome 🙂
Go big or go home. I think the name of a girl I went to prom with was Tabata.
Love tabata, I take workouts with me when I go on holidays or can’t get to bootcamp. I do have a question… I read your posts and look at all the food you eat… how do you stay slim but eat all that food? hehe. I would be the size of a house! My running buddy eats like there is no tomorrow but is tiny – oh well, some of us have to stick to celery. Love your posts 🙂
I snack a lot during the day (lots of small meals) and am generally very healthy/conscious about what I eat . Generally I eat a healthy, but larger meal at dinner then give in to my sweet tooth 🙂 It’s all about balance. I try and keep my total calories for a day anywhere between 1500 and 1900 depending on how active I am.
You’re amazing and I love your blog 🙂
awwwe thank you! I really appreciate that!
Great job pushing yourself!! It will definitely make you stronger!!!:)
Thanks hun 🙂
Sounds like an exhausting workout! That dessert plate looks soooo good!!! good job on resisting going back for more pretzels, I know how hard that can be.
I’m working on it, lol
I need to try this, we did tabatas at spin class the other day and they kicked my butt!