POWER! In less than an hour!

I live in a pretty tight niche community. Okay...who am I kidding... honestly, I live in one of those teeny tiny towns where everyone knows everything about everyone; which I always thought was a "as-seen-in-movies" bad thing but I'm finding that not to be the case. The people here are great. So our neighbors held a welcome party for the new neighbors that moved in on our street. Our participating dish was a salad-but a salad can go SO many ways. I went the simple, but successful route with a chopped salad. Romain lettuce, onions, red peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower, feta cheese, craisins, and pecans. Dressed with a mixture of creamy poppyseed dressing and balsamic vinegar. I kept the dressing on the side so that any leftovers would keep. Last nights dinner was also today's lunch. It was just as good today as it was last night. Salads like this are great to prep ahead of time in bulk and eaten for 3-4 days. They will keep as long as your lettuce and veggies are rinsed and fully dried before putting away into air tight containers for your week. Bottle your dressing choices seperate, and viola- easy, quick, healthy, on-the-go meal.

Now for a workout: Saturday's I usually have a little more flexibility in my schedule for my workouts so they are generally endurance days. I still had a sore lower body from the previous day's workout so I decided on a power total body workout using the medicine ball. Now this workout, because it emphasizes the power phase of training it is not well suited for the beginner. Power training helps increase your dynamic flexibility, range of motion, and explosiveness which essentially results in the building of more muscle mass. It is important though, to have trained in stability, strength, and endurance exercises before embarking on advanced power level workouts. Power workouts burn a TON of calories which is always a plus too! If you are a beginner you can take on or two of these exercises and apply them in your less impact strength training but I wouldn't advise doing an entire power circuit, unless you're wanting to induce injury.

So I started with a stretch followed by a 1 mile run. I started my run at an easy 6 mph pace then increasing a few notches every quarter mile up until a 7.5 mph pace. Feel free to adapt that warm up to better suite your abilities (slow it down if that's too quick, or pick it up even faster at the end if you want more of a challenge), it works very well for me- takes my muscles smoothly from cold to warm.

Next I grabbed a 15 pound medicine ball, if this is your first time experimenting with power techniques and the medicine ball, perhaps consider starting with an 8 or 10 pounder.

• 15 squat to wall ball toss
• Start in a deep squat (toes forawrd, butt out, abs engaged, thighs parallel with the floor) with medicine ball held at your chest. As you come up out of the squat use the power in your legs and shoulders to toss the ball as high up onto the wall as possible, then proceed to catch the ball and absorb it back to chest level, and going immediately back into squat position. 
• 10 pushups on med ball (5 on each side)

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• 20 step up torso twist with med ball (10 each foot)
• Hold medicine ball at chest. Use a 6-inch to 1 ft step, step onto the platform your right foot planted. Balance on your right foot and raise your left knee towards your chest while simulatiously contracting & rotating your core bringing your right elbow to your elevated left knee. Step your left foot back down to the floor, followed by your right, then switch sides stepping up with your left foot, and raising the right knee. 
• 30  Oblique twists with med ball (15 each side)

• 30 second plank with toes on med ball
• 20 standing torso rotations with med ball

• 2 minute run on treadmill or elliptical (if you're at home jump rope)
• 2 minute rest

Circuit through again for a total of 3-4 sets- increasing your resistance and speed each set on the treadmill or elliptical. This circuit should only take about 30 minutes and briefly targets most muscle groups.

I spent another 10 minutes practicing sprint intervals on the treadmill (sprint for 1 min, walk for 30 sec), followed by a nice easy 30 minute cool down on the elliptical.


Eat right, stay active, don't quit. You will succeed.