Workout!

             So, this is the "before the workout" picture of us with Jackie.  I am in the back row, with short dark hair (the girl with short, dark hair, that is--there are a bunch of boys that fit that description, too), for those of you who haven't seen me in a while.  Notice we are all grinning like little idiots, completely innocent of the pain that is about to transpire...To answer some questions from the last post, I don't think that I saw any of the trainers, though if I had, I am not sure I would have recognized them because I have only seen Workout once or twice.  We did not run down the Santa Monica stairs--the Skysport gym is located on the top of a building in downtown L.A., so we used the utility stairs of the building.  

           Jackie was nice, but very direct and not shy about correcting us.  At one point we were doing a side plank (also known as the mermaid in pilates), but adding a tricky twist with our upper elbow down to floor and back up to work the obliques and laterals.  Well, she came up to me and was like, If you are going to modify the position like that, then you'd better make sure you go all the way to the ground with that elbow every time...I didn't even know I was modifying it!  I had not kept my feet stacked on top of each other--letting them be a little more side-to-side, instead, which was an apparent modification.  Oops.  You better believe that I made sure my elbow touched the ground--and the next time we did the exercise I did not modify.  My feet were thoroughly stacked.  

 

         Let's see, we did 120 push-ups in total--2 sets of 60.  These were made even more difficult because we did them immediately after we had just about burnt our upper body out with a resistance band.  Ugh.  We worked our shoulders, our back, our triceps, our biceps, our core, our glutes, our quads, our hamstrings...and if you think of any other muscle group, just throw that in to the mix also.  

      One thing I really liked about the hour workout was that everything we did can be done anywhere; you don't need to belong to an expensive gym to accomplish it.  Simply buy a resistance band, and voila! you can work it out.  Anywhere.  Any time.  I learned some new things that I am definitely going to incorporate into my exercise routine.  Also, during a quick Q&A in which one of the guys asked how to get rid of back fat (not to be confused with fatback, which I'm pretty is actually eaten in the South...), Jackie had a pretty interesting answer.    

      According to her research, we are all born with a certain amount of fat cells that we keep throughout our lives.  Depending on our diet and amount of exercise, these fat cells either shrink or expand.  So, if you want to get rid of what you consider to be a problem area, the solution is to work out all the muscles around the area--shrinking those fat cells.  She said you never need more than 20 minutes of cardio--to be done at challenging intervals, like 2 min running, 2 min fast walk, 1 min normal walk, 4xs--at a time.  Cardio is important for your heart health, but the best and quickest way to change body and target those trouble spots is by consistent weight or resistance training.  She told the back fat guy to work out his pecs, shoulders, biceps, triceps, and upper back--and the back fat would shrink away.  Literally, the fat cells would shrink.  Pretty awesome, huh? Also, she said that if we are doing all of our weight training, push-ups, cardio correctly (toning the core muscles throughout), then crunches become a waste of time (for those of you who hate to get down and crunch, there's some incentive to hold your core muscles!).

      She is also a huge promoter of a healthy diet, cutting back on sugar and saturated fats, etc.  However, she told us that if we are exercising a good amount, you can almost eat whatever you want.  To a certain degree...

      Oh and Jenna, I did not give her that special gift.