Trying New Things: Training Mate and Hope Hummus

I love trying new things and sharing them on this blog, and I have two things I’m sharing today.

1) Training Mate. Or should I say… a visit to Stud City?

Training Mate is a group fitness studio featuring

7am Wednesday Workout

I met up with my friend Joe and his trainer Oscar again this morning for a workout at the park.  We met up for the first time on Monday (I wrote about it in this post), and this workout was very similar to Monday’s, except for that I brought my camera this time!  Oscar the trainer doubled as Oscar the photographer – so I have him to thank for both an ass-kicking workout (I’ll be sore tomorrow, I’m sure) and lots of visual aids for the blog.

After stretching and warming up, Oscar had me complete a series of exercises designed to target my chest, back, arms, abs, and legs.  All the exercises were designed to use my own weight as resistance, and used two handles attached to a strap that was slung over a tree branch.

Here I am doing a chest exercise.  The motion is similar to a push-up, but I simultaneously had to steady my arms and hands, as they weren’t braced on something solid (like the floor). Instead, they were holding two handles in place as I leaned into them and then pushed myself away from them:

Then came a tricep exercise, also using my own weight as resistance.  This is probably the most effective tricep exercise I’ve ever done – my triceps were crazy sore on Tuesday from Monday’s workout.

Then came lunges (the handles and straps were pretty much just used for balance on these):

Followed by back:

And bicep curls:

A standing ab exercise that’s kinda similar to crunches, with my own weight adding resistance:

And the circuit ended with working my oblique abs on a mat:

On Monday, Oscar taught me all the exercises, so today, I went through the entire circuit, but upped the reps for each from 10 to 12.  Then, after a little rest, Oscar had me do a “30 Seconds of Hell” circuit, where I pushed myself to do as many reps as possible for each exercise for 30 seconds before immediately moving on to the next one.  Exhausting.  Felt great, too!  By the time I left the park, around 8:15am, I felt energized, was in good spirits, and glad my workout for the day was already over!  Back again on Friday morning.

Keep it up, David!