Total Conditioning Xtreme Workout

When I worked at Lifetime Fitness, almost eight years ago, they offered a class called TCX (Total Conditioning Xtreme). TCX was my favorite class to teach and take. It was the perfect blend of strength and cardio for 60 minutes.

I like to go through my old workouts from time to time and came across this workout from when I was teaching group fitness at Lifetime. If you don’t have a step you do all the exercises on level ground. The only other thing you will need is a set of heavy and medium weights.

The workout features six different sets of exercises. For set 1 do the pushups, sit-ups, and burpees, and then rest for 30 seconds before doing another round. Once you have finished all three rounds rest for 60 seconds before starting the next set.

This entire workout should take an 45 minutes to an hour to complete. If you only have 20 or 30 minutes pick several sets for a modified version of this workout.

If you really want to challenge yourself perform each round at a different tempo. Tempo is the time your muscles are working under tension and is the rate or pace each exercise is performed. This gets hard fast. For example if I were teaching this class and leading the pushups I would say ” Let’s lower down for a count of 1 2 3 4 and come back up with a count of 1.” The next round I could switch that up and lower for a count of 1 and come up with a count of 1 2 3 4.

I would love to know if you try this workout and what you think. Have a great day and thanks for reading.

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Leg Day Kettlebell & Mobility Workout

Well friends, it has been a week. Between the election, our air conditioner going out, and homeschool, I am so happy it is Friday! We are taking our second week off of school for Fall Break next week. Sometimes you have really good ideas and this was a really good idea to save a week because the weather is supposed to be actual Fall weather and I am ready for it. We took a week off at the very end of September but it was still hot outside.

And speaking of homeschool the kids finished their ELA curriculum for the semester this week. I am so proud of them, and me! We are still going to be reading, spelling, and writing until Christmas but it is nice to have this portion of their work done. I am using the same program as their elementary school but I must have paced it differently so we finished it up this week, all 15 weeks of lessons, done. Yay!

My workouts this week left me unusually sore. Which I take as a good sign that I am challenging myself. So here is one of the workouts I did this week with Fit Women’s Weekly Live. I used a 44 KB for the swings, squats, and deadlifts and was so proud of myself. Between the warm up and 4 rounds of this it was the perfect 30 minute workout to start my day.

If you decide to try this the 30 seconds squat holds are without weight, as are the last 3 exercises. For the swings, squats, and deadlifts use a heavy weight or KB and perform 10 reps for 2 sets before moving onto the next exercise.

When you finish all these exercises rest for a minute and then keep repeating for up to 4 rounds. I was dripping sweat and so glad when it was over but so proud of myself for sticking with the 44 pounds KB.

And now I am logging off and into the weekend with the same plans we have had basically all year. Staying home and playing outside as much as the weather allows. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

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Circuit Workout + Our Week Off From Homeschool

Happy first day of fall! We are still over 100 degrees here in Arizona but each new day is one more day closer to cooler temps. Last week we took off from homeschool and tried to spend a few mornings outside before the heat of the day took over. We made it to the lake one day for a swim and also to one of my favorite places in Arizona, Boyce Thompson Arboretum.

Other highlights of the past week included Maisie losing two teeth and Caden finished reading Prince Caspian with my mom and we watched the movie to celebrate. Overall it was just a nice change up in our schedule and yesterday we jumped right back into our homeschool curriculum. The kids loved the break and I am happy to report they had great attitudes yesterday when we picked up where we left off.

My friend Doug shared a workout on Facebook yesterday and I immediately decided that it would be my workout for the day. I met Doug when I worked at Life Time Fitness and he is an overall great person and a super knowledgeable personal trainer. I learned so much about personal training from him by watching how he worked with his clients and also being trained by him.

To this day I still have notebooks that have workouts designed by Doug from when I participated in his small group trainings. If you are in the East Valley and a Life Time Fitness Tempe member schedule a session with Doug, you won’t regret it.

This workout took me about 50 minutes and I was pretty sweaty. I absolutely loved the side lying get-ups. I had never done those before and will be adding these into my workouts periodically from now on. To perform side lying get-ups: lay on your right side with your right arm bent in a 90 degree angle. Your thumb will be rotated to point at the floor near your head. Press down with your elbow as you rotate your arm and thumb to get your palm face down in front of your stomach. Your right side will lift off the ground as you do this and then reverse the move to start position.

Again happy first day of fall! I hope you make at an awesome day!

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