RSBC Madness!!

Wow, It's Friday already! I'm finally able to get some time to blog about yesterday. Busy busy busy. Last night's work out was super hard. I felt really challenged and today I'm feeling the fruits of my labor lol. We started off with the typical warm up: running in place, a few squats, body weight bent over rows which basically are lifting your arms out down and up, like a T-Y-I, push ups and of course some good old mountain climbers. Then Curtis graced us with "call it an extended warm up" and threw in a Mitochondria Push up challenge. A little clip about Mitochondria since I'm no expert, taken from this site:

"Definition Mitochondria and Their Importance to the Metabolic Rate
Mitochondria are little organelles present within all cells of the human body. Mitochondria are often referred to as the “powerhouse of the cell” because they are responsible for producing most energy from food elements. They also contain all of the enzymes associated with aerobic energy production. These organelles are an important part of the metabolism because they control fat burning that occurs at low levels of exertion. The aerobic oxidation forms a large part of our basal metabolic rate so any increase in mitochondrial mass will help raise the metabolism."

So for this we did the 4 second push up... yowza. 2 seconds down, 2 seconds up. 60seconds of WORK and 60 seconds of rest...Slowing it down REALLY forces you to concentrate on your strength. You can't just use the force of gravity to thrust yourself up or down. Can I just say that these are like...10x harder than doing regular push ups? geez.

I could barely do them, I stopped several times, almost fell on my face several times... after the second round (out of 3) I went up to a tire, still could barely do them. I think for those I need to be on a wall.

Last night was killer.. I think I said that already, but it was seriously so hard. I was grunting and making all sorts of noise... sorry to my neighbors if you had to listen to me all night while Curtis was trying to kill us!

For the main workout: ESCALATING DENSITY. What's that? Basically starting out working and resting for equal amount of time, and then escalating your work, while decreasing your rest. Our cycles were like this:

(work/rest)
30/30
40/20
45/15
50/10 <-------- "f@#$**#)^%#@*&&#*@"

For each of those cycles we did 5 different exercises. 5x4= 20 total rounds. blech.

1. Staggered Squat Left (loaded with weights or not, I loaded with one 10 pounder)
2. Staggered Squat Right
3. Bent Over Rows <--- my shoulders are loving that one!
4. Sumo Squat with overhead press <----thighs are loving THAT one!
5. Mountain Climbers OR if you're extra feisty, at the half way point switching to Mountain Jumps... I wont even go there.

So each of those five we'd run through the 30/30, 40/20 etc. The last round, 50/10 was my most verbal round. At the end I pretty much collapsed on my mat and didn't move for a few minutes. Curtis succeeding in kicking my butt no doubt. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

After camp I had my hubby grab me a glass of my post workout drink then picked him and the kids up and headed to the grocery store. I wanted to try a Kale and Brussel Sprout salad that another camper, Allison, had mentioned before. I've never eaten either of them and was scared I'd really hate it. The first few bites I wasn't too thrilled. It wasn't BAD, just not amazing. Then I started getting a few of the toasted sunflower seeds on my fork that had been dressed in the homemade dressing I made... it slowly started getting better and better. By the end of my bowl, I think I fell in love. It was so delicious. Maybe it was an acquired taste or something, but I definitely acquired it! Thanks again Allison for the recipe, having more options means I have more chances to fuel my body correctly.

I pushed the double stroller out of the store and took off running. Elika screamed "WEEEEEE!!!!" and my husband screamed "Where are you GOING?!" He parked in the very first spot closest to the door but I took off and ran down a whole row of cars and back up to him at the car. I use to nag at him for parking so far away from the door because "look how far we have to walk now!"... LA-ZY! So last night he looked bewildered at me  and said, "What has gotten IN to YOU!?!"

Rock Star has...

Then he told me to run the cart back to the well  in front of the store. So I did. And that was that. I feel amazing!

Long Week, back to RSBC Finally!

Well not really a long week since it's only Wednesday, but it seems like so long because I haven't been to Rock Star Boot Camp (RSBC) since last Thursday for boot camp Friday. You already know that I had to miss TRX Saturday since I posted about that in my last blog. I also missed Monday to be with my kids, and Tuesday my dad had some truck issues or something I needed to bring him to his warehouse to sort out. I left with plenty of time to get to camp, but then got caught behind a major serious accident literally one blog away. It's like seeing it so close, but yet so far out of reach.

Monday was Halloween, obviously.. I dressed my daughter in a mermaid costume that I made myself (squee!!) and I made one for her cousin to wear as well. They were the CUTEST little mermaids that ever walked the land. My youngest baby was a little kitty. She slept the entire time we were trick-or-treating, this year wasn't much for her.

Anyway, my oldest will be 2 two weeks from today and she's never had a piece of candy. Not even one. She did have fun holding out her bucket and saying her version of "trick-or treat" which was "see-yo, see-yo". She's so cute. She loved getting treats in her bucket, even though she wanted nothing to do with them, YAY for her! It was so much fun seeing all the little kids dressed up in their cuteness, meeting new people. I didn't splurge on eating candy though like every other year. I actually don't like too much candy, I'd prefer not to have cavaties thank you! I got soooo much of it though, I think I'm going to have to give it away at Elika's birthday party in a few weeks. Actually that just reminded me that a fellow camper and friend's husband is deployed, serving in the US Army and they missed out on treats, so RSBC is putting together a big box of all the candy we SHOULDN'T be eating to ship to his unit. They'll really enjoy that I bet!

Tonight was the typical "Kill a friend Wednesday" but Curtis decided to call it "kill your partner cardio thunder band day". That basically sums it up to a TEE. We used these wonderful "teal spaghetti" tension bands:

and then proceeded with some crazy partner madness. The band was around our hips, while one person was working, the other served as our tension anchor, pulling back on us creating resistance. We weren't just doing jumping jacks, we were doing jacks while working against a force drawing us back.

30s of work, 5s of rest
5 different stations x 5 cycles.

1. Stationary Sprints
2. Jumping Jacks (killer on the calves and shins!)
3. Full body extensions, jumping if you can at the top
4. Back/Forward pedaling, 2steps back- 2 forward.
5. Side shuffles.

YOWZA!

I highly suggest NOT going a week in between HIIT sessions at RSBC. Seriously. It's such a beyotch getting back into it. My feet hurt, my back hurts, calves, knees... just about everything. BUT I will say that all this "rest" seems to have given my body time to recuperate and I "lost" a few more pounds. I say that in quotes because I've said before that my scale has mood swings. It works sometimes, then it doesn't.

Rachelle has scheduled a before and after measurement dealio to take place 11/12. We're going to take our measurements of our "before" selves and then start on the Rock Star Boot Camp Holiday Fat Buster! Sounds like fun. I can't wait to beat the crap out of my fat and NOT go all crazy with the holiday foods coming up. I'm not exactly sure when we're going to do another measurement to see our progress, but I love that I'll be able to document the changes I'm making with other campers, and see their success as well! YAY.

I'm so glad to be back at camp. Too bad it's the weekend soon.

One last tidbit:

My cucumber salad/salsa was featured in a good friends blog across the country. She's on the east coast, so we're going international :) WOOT. Jk, not that big of a deal. But check out her post here on The Half-baked Housewife. She is hilarious and has some great stuff on her site!