Nothing can prepare you for a new place because everything happening in that new space is well, new. This is move No. 3 for my kids actually, 2 if you’re only counting what moves they can remember. With each move came a barrel of changes and anxiety all rolled into the excitement of a new house. The only anxiety I had about the move was the physical moving portion. How do you prepare yourself for lifting heavy boxes and furniture? How do you muster up the energy to fill a 24-foot U-haul with only two other people, grab furniture, pack furniture, and unload the furniture? I have no absolute answer but I can tell you what worked for me and it was exercising with weights.
Weights seem to be something most women don’t want to factor into their workouts. Some women (me included) would rather slave away on a stationary bike, treadmill, or elliptical for endless hours a week; probably log in an average of an hour and a half a day. Nothing is wrong with logging in cardio time but what about combining cardio and weights, ladies? Five years ago, I used to log in a workout that looked like this:
Cardio: 45 minutes for miles on a bike, treadmill, elliptical or trail run.
Weights: 30-40 minutes focusing on a body region e.g. lower body, upper body, back, etc.
Cool Down: 10-15 minute light walk or yoga stretching
That’s a total of a little over an hour and a half spent at the gym. Don’t get me wrong, I saw results, lost weight, gained a little muscle definition (somewhere) on my body. After two months I saw the results but you would think I would have been pleased but the opposite happened. I was getting bored with my gym routine. I tried adding other things like hiking, pick up sports, or pool aerobics. Everything I added was great cardio but I still had to log an hour or more to see results. I just didn’t have the time to spend 2 hours of my day being that active. Let’s face it, American jobs don’t exactly lend themselves to sliding in two or more hours for gym workouts, unless you don’t want to eat and go to the gym during lunch, who would skip their lunch?!
How could I get a workout that combined weights and cardio that took less than an hour to complete? Well, CrossfitRx, has been the perfect solution to my problem. Each Workout of the Day (WOD) is done in 25 minutes or less, yes you read that correctly, less than 25 minutes! I’ve even done some workouts that have kicked my butt in 15 minutes. Each WOD requires you to get as many rounds in as possible of some intense ass kicking movement and heavy lifting.
I started Crossfit in May 2011 and have seen results of lost inches, higher stamina in my days, and most importantly, the move put my strength to the test. I might have had some nice dark purple bruises afterward moving but I looked at them like battle wounds. Those “wounds” were impressions of a day’s worth of hard work made easier by Crossfit.
