Tag: workouts

Movement, Seasonal - Spring

Outdoor Fitness: Taking Your Workouts Outside After Winter

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After months of indoor workouts, spring finally invites us back outside!

Transitioning your fitness routine from the controlled gym environment to the great outdoors requires some adjustments, but the benefits:

  • Fresh air
  • Vitamin D
  • Changing scenery

…make it well worth the effort.

Why Take Your Workout Outside?

Outdoor exercise offers unique advantages over indoor workouts:

  • Natural vitamin D exposure improves mood and immune function
  • Varied terrain challenges different muscle groups
  • Changing scenery reduces exercise boredom
  • Research shows outdoor exercise can feel less strenuous while burning more calories

Smart Transition Tips

1. Start gradually: Begin with 20-30 minute sessions as your body adapts to different temperatures and terrain.

2. Layer appropriately: Spring weather can be unpredictable. Wear moisture-wicking base layers and bring a light jacket you can remove as you warm up.

3. Modify your routine: Convert gym exercises to outdoor versions. Swap treadmill runs for trail jogs, or stationary bikes for cycling paths.

4. Fuel yourself: Stay hydrated, and consider adding LMNT or Tailwind to your water bottle for longer cardio sessions.

5. Embrace the elements: Use nature as your equipment—park benches for step-ups, hills for resistance training, or trees for balance exercises.

Simple Outdoor Workout Ideas

  • Park circuit: Alternate between walking, jogging, and bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, and push-ups against benches.
  • Stair workouts: Find local stadiums or public stairways for powerful cardio and lower-body training.
  • Nature walks: Start with brisk walking before gradually incorporating light jogging intervals.
  • City date days: Put on your favorite running shoes and explore new areas of your local city or town.

Remember, consistency matters more than intensity. The joy of moving outdoors after a long winter can reinvigorate your fitness journey and help you build sustainable healthy habits.

Are you looking forward to more outdoor workouts!? What’s your favorite way to get active outside? Leave a comment to share with the group and inspire others!

Featured Series, Relationships

Getting Healthy Together: A Couple’s Guide

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Are you and your partner looking to embark on a health and wellness journey together? Congratulations on taking the first step!

Getting healthy together can bring many benefits to your relationship, including:

  • Increased motivation and accountability
  • Enhanced teamwork and communication
  • Improved overall health and well-being
  • More quality time spent together

Here are some tips to help you and your partner get healthy together:

1. Set Common Goals

Discuss and set specific, achievable health goals together. This can be anything from running a marathon to cooking healthy meals at home.

2. Create a Shared Vision

Develop a shared vision for your health and wellness journey. This will help you both stay motivated and focused on your goals.

3. Schedule Healthy Time Together

Plan regular healthy activities together, like:

  • Morning yoga or meditation sessions
  • Evening walks or jogs
  • Cooking healthy meals together
  • Weekend hikes or outdoor adventures

4. Support Each Other’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Recognize and support each other’s strengths and weaknesses. If one partner is struggling with a particular aspect of their health journey, offer encouragement and support.

5. Celebrate Milestones and Progress

Celebrate each other’s progress and milestones along the way. This will help keep you both motivated and encouraged to continue working towards your health goals.

6. Make Healthy Choices Together

Make healthy choices together, like:

  • Preparing healthy meals at home
  • Avoiding unhealthy snacks and treats
  • Drinking plenty of water throughout the day

7. Be Patient and Flexible

Remember that getting healthy is a journey, not a destination. Be patient and flexible with each other, and don’t be too hard on yourselves if you slip up.

Healthy Couple Challenges

Try these fun and healthy challenges to keep you and your partner motivated:

  • Cook a new healthy recipe together each week
  • Take a 30-minute walk together each day
  • Do a 10-minute workout together each morning
  • Try a new outdoor activity together each month

Conclusion

Getting healthy together can be a fun and rewarding experience for couples. By using these tips and challenges, you and your partner can support each other and achieve your goals together.

Share your favorite healthy couple activities and tips in the comments below!

✨ Stay healthy and happy ✨

Mindset

How to get motivated and stay disciplined

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Now that you have the idea of being healthy and fit, our next step is to bridge the gap between wanting and having.

  1. Define and remember your WHY
  2. Write out your goals every morning and night
  3. Visualize your goals and the steps you’ll have to do to get there
  4. Create a written plan and review it often
  5. Plan your workouts ahead of time
  6. Commit to weekly food shop, cooking more at home, and swapping out old/bad foods for healthy/clean foods
  7. Take action on your written plan
  8. Remember the 3-step rhythm of success: Plan, Do, Review.
  9. Tell people about your goals! Now you have some accountability.
  10. Reach out via my contact page if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about your health and fitness journey!
Movement

Weak grip? Hang from a bar

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Having a strong grip is essential for our workouts and everyday living.

Workouts

If you are using a bar or dumbbells: to get in a quality workout, you want to be able to hold onto the bar or dumbbell for a full set without your grip burning out on ya.

Imagine you’re doing a set of deadlifts with 10 reps each set. You get to rep 7 and your grip is about to give out… so you stop and you don’t complete the full set. Ya got a weak grip my friend – let’s work on that!


Everyday living

Aside from workouts, our grip strength plays an important role in everyday life – carrying groceries, furniture, and other heavy objects.

Imagine you’re carrying groceries and you have to stop and off load because you’re grip is literally giving out and you can’t go on any further.


Ways to strengthen our grip

It makes sense to keep a strong grip, right?

So when and how can we work on it?

  • Monkey bars are a great and fun option to try if you live by a calisthenics park or playground. This is my personal fav, just hanging and climbing in the fresh air and sunshine 🙂
  • Hang from a pull-up bar or dip bars
  • Farmer walks: hold weights by your side and walk with them (highly recommend for foundational strength)
  • Utilize gripper balls or a similar tool

During your next workout, try out a grip exercise or two. Give them a spot in your weekly workout routine, stay consistent, and you will most definitely feel your grip get stronger over time.

What’re some ways you work on your grip strength? Are you gonna start incorporating these or something similar? Comment below!

Small changes lead to BIG RESULTS

Getting Started, Mindfulness, Movement

How can I make my workouts more effective without using equipment?

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Practicing ‘mind-muscle connection’ during your workout can make your movement session more effective without using equipment.

To sum it up:

If you think about and focus on a muscle while you’re training it…

You’re much more likely to recruit that muscle and make it grow.

Here are some strategies to help improve your mind-muscle connection:

Performance Goal

Setting a total-rep performance goal can help you maintain focus over an entire training session.

You just set a number of reps and lift until you hit it!

The key, however, is choosing the right exercise and rep range.

Skill Goal

Focus small and build a small skill that leads to better movement.

Focus on your lacking skill until it integrates into your movement.

Then move on to your next weakness.

Reset Between Reps

Resetting between reps is a great way to refocus.

Rather than rushing and stringing reps together…

Perform each individual rep with stout focus.

The result is stronger performance.

Your mind stays focused on the task…

And good positioning lets you heave more load.

Happy moving ♡
x Corie