100 Burpee Challenge Update (+ T-Shirt Contest!)

100 burpee challenge

I am so incredibly impressed at how you guys have been taking on the 100 burpee challenge.

Doing 100 burpees in a row is tough, you guys! Mentally and physically, you really have to push yourself to complete every last one. Seriously, even if you attempt doing 100 burpees in a row, you should consider yourself to be a serious badass.

As of tomorrow, it will be our third month doing the challenge, and I couldn’t be more proud so far. After each one since we started in February, I’ve received so many comments/emails/Facebook posts/tweets/etc. about how great you felt after the challenge, how much your time improved from one week to the next, how you never thought you could do 100 burpees in a row but you did it anyway, and other similar awesome comments.

So as something extra fun to celebrate and recognize your guys’ hard work, I’ll be giving away a free shirt to the person who has the most improved time from last month!

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5 Reasons You’re Not Getting Stronger

Ever feel like you’ve reached a plateau and that no matter what you do, you just don’t seem to be getting stronger?

Yeah, we’ve all been there.

In fact, that’s one of the biggest downsides about bodyweight training—it can be harder to measure your progress, since so many of the movements are all or nothing. This means that unlike weight training, where you can up the weight five pounds every week or so, with bodyweight training you’ll be doing the same thing… over and over.

So it can definitely be kind of discouraging when you feel like you’ve been working at something forever and you still can’t do it.

Here are 5 reasons why you might not be getting stronger:

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healthy bedtime snack ideas

Why You Should Eat Before Bed (+ 10 Healthy Bedtime Snack Ideas)

healthy bedtime snack ideas

A lot of people think that the best way to lose weight or get leaner is to stop eating altogether after dinner.

But think about what that really means…you probably eat dinner around 7:00 p.m., and maybe go to bed around 10:30 or 11:00. If you don’t eat breakfast until 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. the next day, that can be a long time without eating for an active person.

Trying not to eat after dinner probably means you:

  • Get “snacky” and go for something sweet (ice cream) or salty (chips, popcorn, etc.), which isn’t always bad, but can often lead to binge eating of unhealthy foods if you’re actually hungry.
  • Get so hungry you’re grumpy and feel bitter about not getting to eat more so no one else wants to be around you.
  • Wake up completely depleted and starving with no energy to exercise or start your day (or worse, wake up in the middle of the night feeling famished and nauseous—speaking from experience!).

Personally, I’ve experienced every one of these things, and they’re not fun. While everyone’s bodies are different, if you’re currently waking up in the middle of the night feeling famished or feeling extra depleted the next day, you may want to start incorporating a healthy bedtime snack.

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Why You Should Add Rings to Your Workouts (And How to Get Started Using Them)

 

One of the simplest, yet most effective training tools of all time is something that nearly every playground has (yet exists in very few commercial gyms)—rings. 

And unless you’re a former gymnast or regularly train at a CrossFit gym, you probably haven’t used rings since you were a kid. Yet a sturdy pair of rings will only set you back about $30, and will add a whole new level to your training.

So why are rings such an amazing workout tool? Training with rings will:

  • Add an element of instability to any exercise, automatically making it harder and more effective 
  • Seriously help to push through workout plateaus
  • Increase the difficulty level and challenge of pretty much any bodyweight exercise
  • Make you feel like a kid again!

Plus, once you master the basics, you can start doing even cooler looking (and extra fun) things like iron crosses, skin the cats, front/back levers and even handstand push ups using rings.

Yet if you think that adding rings to your workouts is going to be easy, you’re in for a big surprise. Training with rings is tough—even for the really fit.  And while it’s an awesome goal to work up to crazy hard exercises on the rings, most of us aren’t quite there yet.

Here are four ways to ease into adding rings to your training:

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5 Stretches You Should Be Doing on a Regular Basis

 

Although I rarely miss a workout, I’ve never been very good about ensuring I give my body the proper recovery it needs to bounce back after all my hard work.

Because even though I talk a lot about taking rest days, foam rolling, and not overtraining, mobility and recovery have been some of the hardest habits for me to build (and I know I’m not alone here). After all, recovery is boring. Sitting around with a foam roller for 30 minutes? I’d rather do a workout in half that time any day.

And when it comes to stretching, I’ve been even worse. I’ll tell myself I’ll stretch while watching TV at night, but when attempting to do this the other night I realized the main reason I rarely do it: stretching hurts!

I’m not talking about half-ass, wimpy stretching. I mean real stretching. Getting deep into those muscles so that you feel like you want to scream or cry or throw up or something similar.

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Food Logging: What I Eat On a Typical Day

 

Although I mostly talk about fitness here because that’s my real passion, there’s no denying the importance of nutrition when trying to meet your goals, whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle, or improve your athletic performance.

I really, truly believe that if you follow the 80/20 rule and focus on including protein and veggies in nearly every meal, you’ll be able to naturally regulate your weight and start focusing on other more interesting things, such as doing your very first pull up. But, I realize that some people want more detail than that.

So that’s why I decided it might be helpful for those of you struggling with determining portion sizes and how much protein, carbohydrates and fat you should really try to include in your diet to record my own eating habits for a typical day.

I will warn you ahead of time: I am a vegetarian. I don’t talk about it a lot on the site because I’m not an evangelist, and believe everyone can make their own choices when it comes to what they want to eat, and that not every diet works for every type of person. I became a vegetarian when I was six years old because I was a big animal lover, and have stayed that way ever since.

So, carnivores and pescitarians, feel free to just think about substituting a meat version of any of the weird hippie veggie proteins you see here if you’re trying to figure out your own portion sizes.

Here is my food log for Tuesday, March 24th:

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New Year’s Resolution Check-In (Three Months)

Back in the beginning of the year, I wrote about how to set New Year’s resolutions that you’ll actually keep, and asked you guys to tell me about your own personal resolutions for the year.

Your responses gave me hope, made me smile, and really made me appreciate how awesome and determined you guys are. Your answers ranged from everything from holding a 10 second freestanding handstand to getting 100 burpees in under 10 minutes to accomplishing your very first pull up. I’ll admit too that it made me proud that you guys were focused not just on looks—because getting fit and healthy is so much more than just looking good.

In that post, I also outlined my own resolutions for the year, and mentioned that I would check in quarterly with you guys to see how your resolutions were coming along and give you some accountability to help you stick with them.

So here we are at the beginning of April (I know, what? Where has the year gone?)… and it’s time to see how those resolutions are coming along!

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7 Awesome Workouts to Get You in Shape Before Summer

 

There’s no question that we tend to focus here on getting you feeling stronger and fitter, rather than focusing just on how you look.

Because I really, truly believe if you follow the 80/20 rule and work out like an athlete, the body you want will just follow.

Yet even if you’re still surrounded by snow, summer will be here before you know it—and if you want to feel more confident while half-naked at the beach (and really, who doesn’t?), the time to start hitting it hard is NOW.

Here are 7 workouts to get you in shape before summer rolls around:

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How Often Do You Really Need to Work Out?

 

One of the questions I get asked a lot from you guys is, “how often do I really need to work out to meet my goals?”

The first answer that always comes to my mind is that depends on your body—and your own personal goals. Someone trying to lose 20 pounds is probably going to need to work out more than someone trying to just maintain, just as an athlete looking to boost their strength and conditioning will want to work out more often than someone just looking to look better in a bathing suit.

But, since that answer doesn’t really satisfy anyone (I wonder why…), I’m going to do my best to give you some guidelines on how often to work out based on your goals:

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The Best Bodyweight Exercises for Strong, Powerful Legs

 

Unless you’re that guy at the gym—the one with giant back, arms and chest muscles but stick legs—you no doubt already know the importance of working your legs. Because not only will working your legs result in a nice, well balanced physique, they’ll also make you more functionally fit and a better athlete overall.

But although a lot of people think the only way to work your legs is to work the machines or squat rack at the gym, what the average gym-goer doesn’t realize is that many of the best leg exercises can be done with nothing but your own bodyweight—making them the ultimate excuse-free exercises.

Here are 7 of the best bodyweight exercises for strong, powerful legs:

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