Here are some “Before” pictures I took today at my future fitness studio. Please help me choose wall paint colors!!
Front Room From Rt Corner
Front Room, Taken From Corner
Partial Wall w 2way mirror sep F and Main Room
Main Room Taken From L of Partial Wall
Bathroom, Ewww
Super Heavy Bench We Moved In
The Price Was Right on this desk
In case it’s difficult to tell, here’s the color scheme: blue. There is low pile industrial grade blue carpet throughout. The top most pictures show it best. There is blue trim in the front room. It’s kind of a country blue/light blue. The carpet does have some lighter and darker blue variations in it. The walls are white. The Price is Right Desk is kind of a honey tan. The bench (did I mention it was HEAVY) is dark green.
I’m no good at interior design. How can I transform this place using primarily paint, into something that looks bright and energetic like a gym? My logo is going to be black and red. I’d like to use logo colors in the design somehow, but don’t have a clue how to make that work with the blue. I can’t change the carpet, and would rather not have to paint the trim in the front. It has a really weird wood grain finish that may or not take paint. Also, I like the green of the bench and would be fine leaving it as is, sans the heavy dirt!
Please feel free to give your expert interior design suggestions in the comments or tweet @strongsarah.
I decided to repeat week 10 of Enter the Kettlebell this week, since I couldn’t complete it last week. Heavy day never happened last week, due to a bout with a stomach virus. Rather than just pick up where I left off, repeating the entire week will give me an opportunity to ease back into working out, and rebuild some lost stamina.
This morning I wasn’t even sure I could make it through today’s light workout. My son came down with the same virus yesterday, and although he was over the “worst” of it, he was awake much of the night with body aches. Of course this means I didn’t get much sleep either, so the thought of exercise wasn’t all that enticing this morning.
However, propelled by the desire to reestablish my normal routine, I made the workout happen. Today consisted of clean and press ladders: five ladders of three rungs each. As usual, I added in chinups/rows as prescribed in the workbook. Together that portion of the workout was difficult but doable.
The second half of my kettlebell practice consisted of 9 minutes of snatches performed at a comfortable pace. I got through this, but not without experiencing more fatigue than usual, and probably less-than-stellar form for some of the reps. Afterward I felt exhausted rather than energized. I guess that’s to be expected, so I’m not too concerned. And I am continuing with medium day of week 10 on Wednesday. Tomorrow’s variety day may end up as a rest day, though. I’m still not feeling 100%.
My second, and somewhat unplanned workout of the day consisted of moving a large desk and heavy park bench into my future studio space. The landlord had agreed to let me have these pieces of furniture, which had been left by prior tenants in other units. So my husband and I used our “functional” strength combined with some hand trucks to get the job done. Look for pictures of the space and the two “new” pieces of furniture to be posted here later today.
My “inner coach” was speaking in Life Lessons during today’s kettlebell practice. Here are 27 lessons that apply to kettlebell training, and pretty much everything:
Keep your eye on the thing that can hurt you.
Slow movements give you time to think.
Pay close attention when someone wiser than you gives you advice.
Shortcuts are ok for road trips but not for workouts.
You’re generally stronger at the beginning of the day’s effort.
Sometimes it is more difficult to move slowly than to go fast.
Always warm up before starting your main activity.
Breathe.
When it’s time to push forward, give it everything you have.
Quality over quantity.
Concentrate on what you are doing.
See yourself doing it right in your mind.
Enjoy every opportunity for rest.
Write things down so you don’t forget the details.
Have fun.
Celebrate every success. Notice but downplay the failures.
Getting up and down holding something heavy is hard work.
Quickly moving something heavy is hard work.
Hard work is good for you.
Today’s hard work will be tomorrow’s easy work.
When a child comes in the room, notice and say something kind to them.
You feel good when you’ve tried your hardest.
Practice everything, even the stuff you think you’re good at.
Some time alone can be refreshing.
No matter how far out of your reach, never assume something you want to do is impossible.
I started the week with “light” day of Enter the Kettlebell week 8 on Monday. This week the pattern for the cleans and presses changes so that you really do have a light day of presses, a medium day and a heavy day. In ETK terms that equates to 5 ladders of 3 rungs each on the light day, 5 ladders of 4 rungs each on the medium day and 5 ladders of 5 rungs each on the heavy day. This pattern remains in place through the end of the Rite of Passage, week 12.
Light day was no problem with the cleans and presses. Chinups were tough. The conditioning practice on light days includes kettlebell snatches performed at an easy pace: 10 R, 10 L followed by a minute rest. In this case, the practice lasted 8 minutes. I’m not sure if grip strength is the problem, or just form in general. But kettlebell snatches are just painful for my hands. I’m training with Elise Matthews, RKC-II on Sunday and am psyched about letting her evaluate my form with snatches, among other things.
Tuesday was a variety day and I chose to do a test to see how many swings I could do for a set period of time with as-close-to-perfect form as my body and brain could agree on. The practice lasted 12 minutes and wasn’t physcially tough because I was focused on correct form as opposed to a completing a certain number of preselected reps. When I felt like I was losing form in any way at all, I stopped and rested until I felt ready to go again. It was an interesting practice, and illuminated the fact that many of my past workouts have gone too far. The hardworking exercise fanatic in me always wants to push the work load. I have to focus on taming that beast because form needs to be the priority.
Wednesday was medium day, so the clean and press practice included an extra rung in each of the five ladders. It went fine. I think I must be getting stronger with the presses. For the conditioning portion of the practice, I did kettlebell swings for 8 minutes: 24 swings (which equates to about 45 seconds work for me) followed by 15 seconds active rest. This part of the workout felt more heavy than medium!
By Thursday I realized that I would be losing a rest day this weekend because I’ll be training with Elise on Sunday. I am taking rest days very seriously and prefer to err on the side of too many at this point, so eliminating one from the week didn’t feel right. I considered using Thursday, a planned “variety” day, as a rest day to make up for losing Sunday, but then realized that if I did so, I wouldn’t get much practice with Turkish Get Ups in this week. That didn’t seem right either, so I did a workout of 15 minutes of slow “naked” (no weight) Turkish Get Ups followed by some (no idea how many) single leg deadlifts. (Just because I miss deadlifts). I think it was a good compromise.
The need for rest was confirmed when I somehow slept over 9 hours Thursday night. Because today, Friday, is a planned rest day, I had turned off the alarm clock. I expected to wake up at my usual time but slept through instead. I feel really good today, and am excited to tackle my first “heavy” day of cleans and presses tomorrow. More fun follows on Sunday! Yay!
Still following Enter the Kettlebell and the workbook that accompanies it, I started last week’s training on Monday, June 29 with a “light” day. It was week 7 of the Rite of Passage. Kettlebell presses seem to be going well. I had no problems completing all ladders and rungs. With the pulls, I began adding in negatives when I could no longer do regular chinups. The kettlebell snatch practice went well, except that my hands continue to bother me before I am fatigued.
Tuesday was a variety day in which I chose to do twelve minutes of alternating 50 swings and 1 minute of jumping rope. Then I did five minutes of Turkish Get Ups. More details are here.
Wednesday was “medium” day per ETK. There is nothing major to report, other than the harder I push myself on Tuesday, the more difficult the swing practice is on Wednesday. I’m not sure if I’m really better off trying to get that extra conditioning on Tuesday or not. I’m not ready to change things yet. It’s just something I’m contemplating.
Thursday was the second variety day of the week. I decided to focus on doing bodyweight work only, for a change. I chose 4 exercises to do and performed them in intervals, doing :30 of work followed by :15 rest. I completed the 4-exercise circuit 5 times. The exercises I chose were: Burpees (because I’ve never really done them much) Mountain Climbers (because I need to get better at them) Squats (because I ALWAYS need to work my lower body more) and Push Ups (because I need to improve there too.) About the second time through the circuit I wished I had chosen the exercises more intellectually because I realized that in 3 out of 4 exercises I was down on the ground, bearing weight on my hands. My right (bad) wrist got sore quickly so I didn’t push myself terribly hard. Besides, I was already a bit weary from the rest of the week’s work. Nevertheless, I confirmed bodyweight exercises (even if poorly chosen) still provide an excellent workout.
Friday was a rest day – hallelujah!
Saturday was “heavy” day of Week 7 of ETK. Again this week, the presses were not the rigorous part of the practice, but were the same as the other two days. The tough part was the swing practice. Five minutes can seem long when you are swinging a kettlebell almost nonstop!
Saturday I also noted that my chinups seem to be a little bit stronger, probably because ETK is giving me a reason to work on them. Thanks to Jerry for suggesting I substitute negatives when unable to do anymore regular reps. Negatives were a big part of the training I did in the New Rules of Lifting for Womenprogram, to help me achieve my first chin up, so I know they work.
Sunday was a rest day, and after all of the exercise last week and the Independence Day festivities, it was mandatory.
The Week Ahead: Week 8 of Enter the Kettlebell began today, with a successful “light” day again. I’m further refining my chinup training this week and am looking forward to doing more chins in the near future. I will also be changing my kettlebell swing practice somewhat after receiving input from my friend, Sandy Sommer, RKC. It’s going to be a great week!!
If you know me, you know I love lots of different kinds of training. This means anything that involves moving weight — from simple bodyweight exercises to heavy barbell lifts to mma conditioning workouts. It all pretty much qualifies as my kind of fun. Though it’s certainly not the “be all end all,” the kettlebell has recently become my favorite training tool. Here are five reasons why:
Top 5 Reasons Why I Love Kettlebell Training
Kettlebell workouts are fast. My typical workouts are about 20-25 minutes long (plus warm up and cool down.) It is definitely possible to get an amazing workout in under ten minutes with the kettlebell.
Kettlebell workouts are complete. Both cardiovascular training and strength training are accomplished at once. Full body movements provide a workout for all major muscle groups.
Kettlebells are portable and little space is required to get in a full workout. Exercise in your basement, living room, bedroom, den, office. Take your kettlebell outside. It can go with you wherever you go (but beware of the rolling around in the back seat of your car!) There is even a new backpack specially made for carrying you kettlebell with you on hikes or walks.
Kettlebell training is fun. There is just something fun about swinging the kettlebell. And where I get a “this is fun- Whee!” feeling from the swing, I get a different but equally fun “OH YEAH! THIS ROCKS!” feeling from the kettlebell snatch. It’s empowering to be able to hoist a handled cannonball overhead. Multiple times. Note: the fun morphs into serious work after a few swings and/or snatches, but that is not a bad thing.
Kettlebells are economical, at approximately $50 – $100 each. We have all probably paid more than that for a good pair of running shoes. Which one lasts longer? You only really need one kettlebell to get started.
Just my top five. I have a few (dozen) more in mind as well. What are the reasons you love kettlebell training?
