Sticking to My Resolutions...

I'm not a huge New Year Resolution person. I try to make them, but definitely end up not sticking to them most of the time. I hoping that this year will be different. I want to use this year, especially with my wedding coming up, to live a healthier life and get back into shape. My overall resolution is to run 12 5Ks (at least this distance) this year. I have my first one coming up next weekend and almost all my exercise has been devoted to cardio and making sure I'm able to run the full 3.1 miles.

Since I'm currently living in a hotel, I'm not about to run outside of the hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel treadmill is broken. So I've taken to exercising in my room. I discovered this workout that not only covers cardio but gets in some of the strength training that I have been leaving out of my exercise program lately.

via

For the upper body, I chose push-ups and tricep dips, plus another round of half push-ups/ half tricep dips. Unfortunately these were the only upper body exercises I could really do in my hotel room due to my lack of dumbbells. 

For the lower body, I chose pulsing squats, plie squats to calf raises, and wall squat. I cannot even begin to tell you how badly my lower body was burning after this. My butt and thighs have always been my trouble areas, so it's only natural for them to burn the worst considering there's practically no muscle there. Ha! But really...

For my core, I chose plank and V sit-ups. I actually did the V sit-ups on the hotel bed. This probably made the exercise a little bit easier but I was not about to lay down on the hotel room carpet and do sit-ups. Yuck!

For cardio, I chose jumping jacks, high knees, tuck jumps, burpees, moutain climbers, jump squats, and side lunges. I died. Practically. I think I ended up taking too long of a break between each set because I know my heart rate would start to fall in between. This is definitely not the best way to exercise because it actually makes exercising tougher. What can I say though, this workout was TOUGH! I wanted to do at least 2 fifteen minutes circuits but only got in the one today which is better than nothing I guess...

I want to work up to all three circuits though. I'm always looking for new fun ways to break up my exercise routine and this definitely was one. Just follow the directions listed above and pick and choose your own exercises to make it your own routine.

P.S. The 5K I'm running next week is in on honor of my grandmother who is currently fighting colon cancer. All proceeds of the race will benefit local colon cancer foundations and the national Colon Cancer Coalition. If you'd like to donate, please check out this link.