1 month progresss

It is a month since I start to work with Michelle Brannan as my coach and I begin my diet. 
This month was full of new experiences and lessons. 

Diet itself was hard at the beginning but after some amends I got used to limited food and preparing everything in advance. As soon as first changes started to come, I was more motivated to keep it. I sticked to my cheat days, but the be honest only once I cheat in a full understanding of this word (where we went to restaurant and I had cheesburger and fries ;). Other 3 cheats were more like refeeds with some freshly baked baguette and some ricecakes. So carbs, carbs, carbs mainly ;)

my cheat meal after week 2

Training wise I am thrilled about my resistance trainings and still working on proper amount of cardio I had to do ;)

my regular foods: some complex carbs (wholemeal couscous), protein (oven baked white fish) and veggies with balsamic vinegar

If it comes to stats, after 4 weeks I've lost 2kg and minus 4,5cm in waist and 3,8cm in my hips. Wow! :) I couldn't been more excited!

trainings legs 3 times a week results in rounder booty ;)

But, the most importnatly, by doing that, I haven't feel that good in my own skin for years! This is the best outcome I got so far!

My women inspirations in fitness world

If it comes to inspiration, there are few woman physiques whichI admire. That doesn't mean that I want to look exactly like them, but these women give me power and motivation when I need some positive kick.

Christina Strøm Fjære

Christina is current (and last years) IFBB Bikini World Champion
 

Norwegian. Christina won twice, but - what is more important - he has great post competition form as well. Gorgeous on stage and off stage!

Pauline Nordin
www.fighterdiet.com

He has her own method of keeping herself in low body fat all year long. I don't follow her principles in 100% but I admire her dedication. Discipline your dedication is her quote.

Lone Norås
www.lonenoras.blogg.no

And this is video which is my biiig inspiration. You will find there Lone Norås. She won Nordic Championships in bikini in 2012 and Norwegian Championships this years and she is only 18 years old!

As you see, 2/3 of my woman inspirations are Norwegian. Nordin is Swedish. I think that Scandinavia is a country of strong and interdependent women where weight training is not only reserved for men. I learned everything I know about weights in Norway. So maybe because of it I admire the physiques I got to know during that time :)

Thank you ladies for big amount of inspiration I have from you!

And who is your fitness inspiration?

Shortcut to shred

making adjustments to plan

So, it is August 1st and it is about a time to get serious about nutrition and training again. 

this is my 'before' photo - hope to see great results in 6 weeks :)

After some consideration, I will follow Jim Stoppani's 'Shortcut to shred' training and nutrition program for 6 weeks.

Trainings are based on intensive cardio sessions in between each series of exercises. You train each of body parts twice a week, having 6 training days all together with 1 rest day.

Nutrition is based on cutting calories with each week. For the first week there are 1,5 carbs per pound of bodyweight, then 1g carb and at last only 0,5g carb with high protein and healthy fats included.

Supplements are essential part of the program. They are additional to training and food, but still they may help!

my supplements :)

Whey protein, casein protein are the crucial ones, together with BCAAs, some fat burning combo (yohimbine, coffeine, l-tyrosine, green tea), l-carnitite, carnitine and CLA.

Exploring London - London Fields Fitness Club

I had a great training yesterday - first in a fitness club.

I went in Hackney area to London Fields Fitness Club. It might be a nice start of cooperation between me and them. I found our meeting with owners of the gym very interesting and promising :)

pic from lovelondonfitness.com

London Fields Fitness Club is a different type of gym I am used to it. More urban style, very popular these days. No heavy weights, just floor, kettlebells, simple equipment  They also use park next to them and use it for outdoor training. 

pic from lovelondonfitness.com

To start with, I went for one of their classes - Warriors training. 90 minutes training, very intensive, with boxing, jumping, strength training, agility and cardio. One of the hardest training/class for those who are dedicated as much as to train on Friday evening ;) Classes was held by Sapan, co-owner of the studio and personal trainer.

It was sweaty! Lots of repetition, jumping jacks, jumping squats, push ups and so on. 
The best thing was atmosphere - there were people with a different training experience and age, but workout was suitable for everyone who want to move, burn calories and work on their condition.
In 70 minutes I've burned 470 kcal :)

pic from lovelondonfitness.com

Fatburning cardio sequence

Mine today's cardio training was inspired by amazing and fast Silje's Mariela results which she showed on her blog and instagram. It is a Norwegian trainer and fitness personality who supports quick, intensive trainings.

this wonderful ABS are not yet mine, but Silje Mariela's - here is her blog

So, this time, instead of intervalls on treadmill (with high an low tempo), I did intensive exercises sequence. The best fatburning accelerator!

My workout consisted of:

5 minutes warm up

1.) 60 sec. jumping jacks
2.) 60 sec. mountain climbers
3.) 60 sec. walking lunges
4.) 60 sec. plank

1.) 60 sec. jumping jacks
2.) 60 sec. mountain climbers
3.) 60 sec. walking lunges
4.) 60 sec. plank

60 sec. break (you can simply repeat moves 1-4 one more time or go to the next part)

5.) 60 sec. sprints in one place
6.) 60 sec. running

5.) 60 sec. sprints in one place
6.) 60 sec.running

7.) 60 sec. running drills

5 minutes stretching

Cardio time: 21 minutes
Total workout time: 31 minutes 

31 minutes for complete workout, which you can do everywhere. 
No excuses!

Daily gym log & some progress

I started this week with... 2 days of recovery. Body felt week and my attitude towards training was bad. So i decided to listnen to body and give it a rest.  
I felt little better today, to I did quite serious gym training. Legs, back and little abs and biceps was on a plan. 

'good morning' exercise - not bending your back is crucial here

I did "good morning" exercise with barbell for the first time (I mean, I did it someday in the past, but my technique was horrible). It engages glutes and lower back very good. And I also put down some weight fr deadlifts. I felt like my technique collapse with each day, so I had to take step back, decrease weights and work on it.

full deadlift with barbell

In the morning I check my progress after over a week of new eating routine (reduce carbs and kcal in genera with one refeed weekly, more here). I can see a progress both on scale and measurements. I don't feel that I can trust scale since it can be only lost of water (less carbs, less water retention), but still, tape shows a little more cm in my hips area. 

This progress is not dramatic, but still I am glad that some actually is after 10 days :) Patience. The worst part in fitness journey ;)

Deadly functional deadlift

Recently I've got a question about deadlift exercise (cheers Alexander! :) ) and I thought it is a good starting point to write a little about this thing here.

When squats, push ups and planks are the easy exercises, deadlift is more complicated, but still perceived as a basic (and one of the best effective) gym exericses.
Why it is more complicated? Because you have to have a perfect technique not to hurt yourself while doing it. That is why when I have beginner customers I don't even advise them trying to do deadlift and leave it only for those, who are already known with gym basics. 
If you want to incorporate it to your daily training routine, make sure your technique is correct.

Muscles engaged

When you're doing deadlift you are engaging glutes, lower back, hamstrings, traps and forearms.So it is basically lower body exercise, basically speaking for backside of your thighs.

Technique

Starting and ending position in deadlift

--> It is very important not to bend your back while lifting the barbell from the ground. Keep a natural arch in your back while doing this exercise! 
--> Start with bend knees, thighs should be a parallel to the ground. Knees are in the same line as foot. 
--> Lift the barbell vertically, from squat position til standing position.
--> Bend again while keeping yur natural arch in your back, take your butt as you would like to seat on a chair. When you feel the tension in your harmstrings, you bend your knees.

Check this video out, made by Silje Mariela with does and doeas about deadlift's technique:

 

Variations

deadlift on straight/stiff legs with dumbbells

Regular deadlift vs. deadlift on straight legs

While doing deadlift on straight legs, you are using more backside of your thigts, while classic deadlift engage more muscles groups. 

While doing deadlift on straight legs, you stop your movement when you are taking barbell down and you start feeling tension in hamstrings, you take barbell up and go back to standing position.

One day, all body workout

I found it difficult to train this week - mental attitude was bad, I forced myself to do leg day in Wednesday but had no fun at all by training... 

I decided to take Thursday and Saturday free with only light training on Friday (my aerobic class). That helped my body to recover and to gain strength for today's training.

I decided to do whole body workout, with little breaks between series, doing 2 exercises for bigger muscles groups and 1 for each of smaller groups.
90 minutes, 16 exercises after I was totally exhausted but really satisfied with my effort!

On today's training plan there were:
* (quads, butt) squats
* (quads, butt) dumbbells lunges
* (hamstrings) straight leg deadlifts
* (hamstrings) seated leg cursl
* (calf) seated calf raises
* (calf) standing calf raises
* (chest) dumbbell chest press
* (chest) dumbbell flies
* (shoulders) barbell shoulder press
* (shoulders) dumbbell side laterals
* (upper back)one arm dumbbell rows
* (upper back) lateral pulldowns
* (triceps) triceps pushdowns
* (bicep) biceps hammer curls
* (abs) hanging leg raises
* (abs) crunches
* (lower back) hyperextensions

Baby's got pumped!

Normally, I do not advice such long and exchousting workouts. But today I had time, energy and proper attitude and I really wanted to use that :)

pre-workout necessities: BCAA from MyRevolution, Fres (no calories high coffeine drink) and my training book

Tomorrow there will be a rest day with 30 minutes of cardio!

Lean body workouts - first two days

pre-workout toilet photo is a must! ;)

So I am officially after second day of Lean Body workout plan. 82 to go! ;)

Yesterday I did biceps&back workout together with 30 minutes sessions of intervals on treadmill. I have to say that those intervals were challenging, due to the fact the higher one last for whole 4 minutes! I'm definitely used to short ones, but what does not challenge you, won't change you, isn't it? :)

pseudo biceps flex ;)

Today's training consisted of chest, shoulders&triceps work. All exercises consists of 3 sets. 2 sets with 10-12 repetitions and the last one which is max rep. to failure. Ouch! 

Circuit 3 and orange dinner

bulgarian lunge with dumbbells exercise

Sunday's training 

Today was the last training for this week, circuit three.
I had so much power that I also did some additional exercises and beat my own 3 records! :)

Today's total body workout:
* inner thighs side split squat with barbell 12x12,5kg 12x15,5kg 12x15,5kg
* thighs bulgarian lunge 12x6kg 12x8kg 12x8kg
* back bent over row 12x12,5kg 12x15,5kg 12x15,5kg
* back seated rowing 12x35kg 12x35kg 12x35kg
* lower back, glutes deadlift 10x40kg 10x40kg 10kgx40kg (!) my new deadlift record!
* abs kneeling crunch 12x22,5kg 12x22,5kg 12x22,5kg
* chest bench press 10x14,gkg 12x14,5kg 10x14,5kg
* legs, butt leg press 45 degrees 12x110kg 12x110kg 12x120kg (!) my new leg press record!
* shoulders lateral raise 12x4kg 12x6kg 12x6kg
* calves calve muscles leg press 20x110kg 20x110kg 20x110kg
* chest max reps of classic push up - I made 40 in a row (!) new record in push ups!

Sunday's dinner

delicious oven-baked salmon with sweet potatoes and carrot&apple salad

After work and such a great training there was a a time for a good dinner: salmon with sweet potatoes and carrot-apple salad :)

I am a big fan of apple&carrot salad, however I do not always have time to prepare it. You simply have only to grate carrots and apples, that is it!

don't forget to add few drops of olive oil that all the vitamins from carrot could be absorbed