My trainer gave me some advice the other day that now seems pretty obvious, but that I honestly hadn’t thought of. I have trouble with big workouts and eating. I get nauseous. Even if I eat hours before, it still happens. Even if I eat a liquid breakfast (though that does help) it still happens. But a few hours before the workout, it feels like my stomach is getting empty and I get hungry. Working out on an empty stomach is not a good thing, but I can’t have a meal or I get sick. Even a bar seems like too much. Ro’s solution? A tablespoon of nut butter (in my case, TJ’s Natural No Salt Peanut Butter). Calorically dense, and satisfyingly full of fiber and protein, but it is only a tablespoon and so doesn’t feel “heavy”. You do want to give it a bit of time to digest, and drink plenty of water so it doesn’t stick to your ribs, but especially today it was the perfect healthy snack.
Speaking of my trainer, Sacfitnessfairy Roseanna wasn’t available this week, so she sent me and a buddy some “homework”. She claims it was a workout, but it seemed more like attempted murder. We had to cut it short, I could barely finish half the workout and my friend Leo (name changed to protect the guilty) was so hungry he was ready to chew on the dumbells.
We started with 12 45 second “sprints” on the treadmill, with 15 second rest between each. I did mine at around an 8:20 pace, which is pretty fast for me, and at a 2.0 incline.
Oddly, running has become second nature to me, and while a bit tiring, this part was “fun”. Then the pain began. 🙂
The way it would work is that we had 8 exercises, with 30 reps of each. Before each one we also had 10 burpees and had to carry a 25lb weight straight-armed above our heads for 25 paces. Originally there were 9 exercises and we were supposed to do the circuit twice, but I am convinced that would have killed me. As it was, it was a close thing.
We began with squat jumps, then did vertical rows, pull-ups, tri-kickbacks, side squats, side to side pushups (which SUCK when you immediately have to follow them with burpees), v-ups and dumbbell side twists. I did 30 reps of each except the pullups and the tri-kickbacks as it was obvious there was no way in heck I’d be able to get to 30 reps of those and maintain any semblance of form.
Speaking of form, 10 burpees on their own isn’t terrible. I do a fairly gentle version because of my knees. But by the time I was at 90 of them, the original of their name became quite clear to me. Thank you liquid breakfast.
And I still have my daily run to do, but I’m holding off until it cools down at least a bit outside. Doing the math, I ran just over a mile at my sprint pace, so if I do 3 miles tonight that’s a nice bit of traveling. We’ll see if I can make it that far.
