Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Family Plank Night...Even More Fun! Burpees

Micah, Sidney and Quinn working on their planks.

I think I have a few upcoming personal trainers in our family...Quinn & Sidney.  Some of you may be asking, "Why not Micah?".  Well, during our Family Plank Nights, Micah has a tendency to think that his words that are in his mind are the most important and the funniest words that you have ever heard and that you have to hear them right now.  His focus during planks are also...let's just say that he really doesn't have any focus at all during these.  In fact, I don't even know how he can actually do a plank when he is laughing, looking around at everyone and just being silly.  That is our Micah!  

Last night we had another "Family Plank Night" and the kids were excited.  After the big kids got home from school Sidney was thinking hard about what exercise she could show everyone to do.  Quinn came up with one all on his own and titled it the "spin & jump" (it is exactly what it sounds like...you spin around and jump at the same time but you land on the floor.  Not fun on the knees if you are over 20 years old).

Sidney was having a difficult time figuring out what to show everyone so I gave her a few ideas.  What we came up with...burpees!

(My kids don't know that most of the world hates burpees so...Shhh!)

The music was cranked up, the timer was reset and ready to go and then we all got on the floor, did several sets of front planks and in between those we did burpees.  After about 15 minutes we were tired and sweaty.

What are burpees?  According to Wikipedia...my source for all accurate info ;)...here is the definition that is given:

The burpee is a full body exercise used in strength training and as aerobic exercise. It is performed in four steps, and was originally known as a "four-count Burpee":
  1. Begin in a standing position.
  2. Drop into a squat position with your hands on the ground. (count 1)
  3. Extend your feet back in one quick motion to assume the front plank position. (count 2)
  4. Return to the squat position in one quick motion. (count 3)
  5. Return to an upright standing position. (count 4) [1]


You can do additional things with these too...pushups, jumping (which is what we did), moving in different directions, etc...so many ways to make burpees even more fun than they already are.  (Yes...I did say that they are fun.)  We stayed simple though and didn't do these too long.  I know people that are in crossfit and they did burpees for 7 minutes straight the other day.  I can not do burpees for 7 minutes straight and I don't want to do them that long either.  Our goal:  to finish 4 in a row and then 5 in a row.  This was enough for the little ones.  Quinn was trying so hard too and at 4 years old he was doing a great job!  

Next time we will be increasing our plank time to 25 seconds.  We have been doing 15 seconds and we are ready to move up.  (I did not get cheers from everyone when I let them know the changes that we will have at the next Family Plank Night.  There are some concerns that they won't be able to do 25 seconds.  Once they see that they can do it they will be cheering for themselves!)

Try some burpees...and I don't want to see the picture that is below on any of your Facebook pages, blogs or on Pinterest.  :)  (I did find it on one of those places though!)
My Workouts Lately:  I haven't been writing much about my workouts lately.  Right now there is a lot of repeating and lots and lots of reps with my exercises.  My workouts are pretty intense right now and they are pretty long.  I've been trying to get up at 4:30am but my body isn't liking that time of day.  I can do 4:45 just fine and even 4:40 sometimes.  4:30 though...that just isn't working for me.  (It really shouldn't work for anyone...seriously!)  I have had to take 1 or 2 exercises from each of my workouts and do them the following day at the gym. I usually save my deadlifts for the following day and this works fine since those require me to do a little more setting up with the weights too.  Today I started week 2.  Each week I do more and more sets of the final exercises.  Day 1 of each week is probably the hardest just because of this change.  I went from doing a combination of exercises (10 squat jumps, 10 squats and then a squat hold for 10 seconds) 3 times to 4 times.  It is tough but I always pull through and finish.  I know that next week I will be doing these 5 times and right now...I am not a big fan of that change :)  I can tell that I am getting stronger though with these activities.  Last week I could hardly finish these exercises.  I thought my legs were going to fall off on day 1 after I was done with the first combination.  Today I didn't start to feel the tiredness in my legs until the end of the 2nd combination.  See...improvement!  

What is really exciting though is seeing a bunch of women in this area getting ready and prepared to make some changes!  This thrills me a lot...to see that others are wanting to change their lives and learn new things about becoming healthier.  I have posted a few times about the Precision Nutrition Workouts that Jeff was offering.  The deadline was yesterday and there are at least 5 women that I know of in Rochester that are taking part in this.  I actually met up with one of these women at the gym this morning and helped her get all of her measurements (or at least the ones that I do) down on paper.  It isn't always fun to see those starting numbers or even have a stranger see those with you but it is very important.  The numbers will change so much and you will be so glad that you took those few minutes to write down where you started.  Looking back at your results will be so encouraging and will help you know that you are making positive progress.
I can't wait to hear about all of the success that these women will have!  I know it will help keep me motivated also...as this journey is not done.





1 comment:

Cori said...

Hmmm ... I wonder if Family Plank Night would go over here? ha ha! Keep up the good work, Jess!