A circuit and my daily greens

Even though I’m off today, I got up at my typical time of 5:30 am to make it to the Warrior Circuit class at Arrichion.

Description:
Class duration: 45 minutes
Beginner to advanced students

Fighter’s are the best conditioned athletes in the world. The Arrichion Warrior circuit is a 45 minute fighter’s circuit training regimen designed to improve functional strength and endurance. Get the benefits of a cardio-interval workout plus improve strength using body weight and resistance exercises. Challenging workout.
I’ve been meaning to try this class for a while but today was the first time I was able to work it into my schedule.

My pre-workout fuel was a Medjool date and some raw almond coconut butter.

Holy amazing delicious, this is so good together.  It’s one of my delicious sweet and salty combinations that is also great fuel for a workout.  The natural sugars in dates are awesome like that.

So what did I think of the class?

I really liked the Warrior circuit.  I feel like it was so much more efficient than when I do my own circuits.  I have trouble focusing when I do circuits alone and often rest between sets even though I don’t really need to.  I also really liked that the instructor walked over to you and pushed you to go harder and faster to finish up your set. But, I’m also one of those people who would love it if Jillian Michael’s showed up at my front door to be my drill sergeant personal trainer every morning.

The Warrior Circuit was fast, challenging, and I never got bored, although I did get my butt kicked.  The circuit is basically a bunch of moves that you do three times.  The amount of time spent on each exercise is longest for the first go-around and the time decreases for each circuit.

We started out with a brief warm up of cardio type exercises like jumping jacks and mountain climbers, then we moved into the circuit.

I don’t know if I can remember all of the the exercises, but here goes:

– push-ups on a Bosu ball
– bench press with a plate
– chest press with free weights
– holding plank on a stability ball
– punching with free weights
– front raises and side raises with free weights
– squats with free weights
– punching bag (could choose to kick the bag, knee, the bag, or punch the bag)
– bunny hops (I hate these!) over uniform obstacles
– squats with resistance bands
– bicep curls with resistance bands
– step ups
– side step ups with a medicine ball (smaller step)
–  punching bag on the ground (bend over and punch punch punch)
– abs exercise with medicine ball
– walking lunches
– ab exercise where you do a bridge and reach up and over your shoulder to the right and touch the ground, down, repeat on the left 
– toe ups ab exercise
– crunches
– wall squat

And that was one circuit!  We did this three times! It was great. 🙂

Last, we did two minute of abs:

– bicycles (slow and fast)
– flutter kicks
– toe touches (which I cannot touch :/)

I came home showered and immediately made this little beauty.

My smoothie contained:

– 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
– 1/2 frozen banana
– 2/3 cup frozen mango
– 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
– bunch of red kale
–  2 Tbsp. coconut flour
– 1 tsp. chia seeds
– bit of Stevia

If you’re wondering how much kale is in a “bunch of kale”, this is how much I used today.

I sometimes see “green” smoothie recipes that call for “3 spinach leaves” or the like.  Don’t be afraid of greens, friends.  They are delicious in a smoothie.  You have to add quite a bit to actually be able to taste them.  I could faintly taste the kale in my smoothie this morning, but it wasn’t a bad taste.  It was a fresh delicious taste. 🙂

Blend and enjoy with a spoon.  Straws can’t handle my smoothies.

Of course, I also downed some hot lemon water with a straw.  Then came the tea I’ve been enjoying in lieu of coffee for the past few mornings.  No headaches yet, so I can safely say that caffeine is definitely not a problem for me.

Other things on the agenda this morning:

– blog reading
– walking Rascal
– Target
– hair appointment (:)!!!)

Have you tried green smoothies or green monsters as they’re also called?