Total Body Workout: Taking It To The Track

You don't have to compete in the Olympics to work out on the track. Running tracks are free to use and one of the best places to burn tons of calories! Check out this total body workout...

Travel Workout!

All you need is a set of resistance bands and you are good to go for this workout. Try to make it through twice or three times and you will come home from your trip in better shape than when you left!

Out Of Town DOES NOT Mean Out Of Shape!

If you're traveling for summer or getting ready for a semester abroad you might be concerned that you're going to come home heavier than when you left. You have to navigate the delicious food that's everywhere on vacation, limited access to a gym and a very different schedule that yours at home . Follow these tips and you could come home in BETTER shape than when you left without missing out on the fun of your vacation!

1. Buy a set a resistance bands and pack them in your bag. Every dumbbell exercise can be done with resistance bands. Coming up I'm going to feature workout videos that use just your body weight and the bands so you can still get great workouts while out of town.


2. Get a map and get walking. I have a friend that went to school in Europe for two years and came back about 20 pounds lighter because she had to walk everywhere. You can buy a pedometer or download the pedometer iPhone app to track your daily mileage.


3. Pick active-activities. Experience new places via biking, jogging, walking or kayaking. Or try paddle-surfing, rock-climbing or any other new sport.


4. Eat like a European! We love our HUGE portions here in the US. In fact one of my favorite shows is "Man Versus Food" (you have to watch it.... you will cringe, you will cheer and you will want to make a stack of 45 pancakes), but in other parts of the world they don't eat muffins the size of their heads or food that can be measured by the pound! Enjoy all the food vacations have to offer just try smaller portions.

P.S. Coming up...a travel friendly workout video series perfect for the week vacation or the semester abroad!

Workout Video: Awesome Abs

Get ready to have awesome abs with the exercises in this video! Do this workout three times a week along with your regular cardio and you will see results in no time!

Super Summer Legs!

Here are a few of my favorite exercises for summer-worthy legs! All you need is a chair.

Wii Workout?

So maybe video games can be good for you. I have done almost every abdominal exercise known to man but I could not believe how sore my abs were after boxing with the Wii. I've never been much of a video game person, but I have to say, this thing is awesome. While " Wii Sports" tennis and bowling won't be much of a workout, the boxing is CRAZY!!! Try the skills breakdown especially the section where you have to duck and weave, I guarantee you will be feeling those obliques in the A.M. You can also try 20-30 minutes of the boxing rounds, that will burn some serious calories and it's a super fun way to do your cardio! Plus, you never have to leave your living room:)

Make Cardio Go By Faster!

1. Try interval training! Many things are great about interval training, you burn more calories in a shorter amount of time, you accelerate your results and intervals make the time seem to fly by. I like to use a 1:2 split, where your recovery is twice the time of your interval. For example, you can work really hard for :30 seconds and then recover for one minute.
2. Watch your favorite TV show! If your working out at home it's easy since you already have a TV or computer. Most gyms have TVs, mine for some strange reason only shows channels for CNN ESPN and whatever channel always runs Maury Povich, which is great and all, but sometimes I'd rather watch Gossip Girl. This is why I love to download shows to my ipod and for long runs, I'll watch a whole movie.
3. Get a great playlist! Nothing motivates you to workout like music! These are some of my latest must have workout songs.

• "Closer", Neo
• "Just Dance (Robots to Mars Mix)",Lady Gaga
• "Around the World/Harder Better Faster Stronger", Daft Punk
• " If I Were A Boy (Karmatronic Remix), Beyonce

How To: Build a Living Room Gym!

In college you're short on cash and short on space, but that doesn't mean you have to skimp on a home gym. All you need to get a great workout at home is a little space and a few inexpensive pieces of fitness equipment. Home gyms are great since they are cheaper than paying gym dues every month and you can save time by just walking to your living room to work out.
Here's what you need:

• Three sets of dumbbells ( light, medium, heavy)
• exercise or yoga mat
• resistance bands
• stability ball

Extra credit

• BOSU ball
• exercise videos
• medicine ball

Cardio Calories

How many calories are you actually burning on those cardio machines in the gym? Can you be sure that when you get off the elliptical machine you can feel elated that you burned off last night's cheeseburger and fries? Well unless you enter in your own age, gender and body weight into your machine your calorie count will automatically be based on a 150 pound man. All you 150 pound men can rest easy (I have a feeling to weigh 150 most of you are still in high school), but unfortunately for everyone else you've probably been over estimating you calorie burn, bummer I know. So make sure you enter in your real weight and age when you get on the cardio machines then you can know last night's cheat meal is no big deal!

But won't I look like a female wrestler?

3 Myths about lifting weights, BUSTED! (My own nod to Adam and Jamie from the fascinating "did they really just recreate the Hindenburg" show Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel )

Myth #1: Lifting weights makes you look like the Hulk, minus the green skin and unfortunate cutoff purple shorts. BUSTED! Unless you do steroids (a la ARod and Barry "my head was always 36 inches around" Bonds) you will not bulk up. Lifting weights makes your muscles stronger but you have to take supplements and do very specific workouts to add bulk.

Myth #2: Cardio is the best way to lose weight. BUSTED! While cardio is an essential part of a well rounded workout plan, combining cardio and weights is the best way to lose weight. Lifting weights increases your muscle mass and muscles burn more calories at rest than fat. Thus, (I love this part!) if you have more muscle mass you burn more calories just hanging out watching TV:)

Myth #3: Lifting weights doesn't burn that many calories. I'm not getting that much out of my gym time if I just lift weights. BUSTED! Lifting weights has the great benefit of a high after burn. After burn is the calories you burn after you are done working out. If you lift weights for an hour, you will burn an extra 100 calories or so over the next 24 hours. That means three weightlifting sessions in a week equals 300 extra calories which is about what you would burn running three miles!

Workout of the Day! INTERVALS!!

This workout can be done outside either running or walking, or on any cardio equipment in the gym or in your living room with a jump rope. (OK, so jump roping realistically depends on whether or not you have downstairs neighbors and substantial floors. My upstairs neighbors seem to pour large amounts of water and drop bowling balls at 11pm every night. It is very very strange and no one wants their downstairs neighbors wondering why there is thumping upstairs for half an hour:)

All right intervals are awesome! They are calorie blasters and you get more done is less time! Here's the workout.

• 33 minute total workout
• 10 minute warmup
• 1 minute hard followed by 2 minutes easy recovery (repeat 6x)
• 5 minute cool down

Got a Cold? When to start working out again.

I've had a cold for what feels like an eternity which means I haven't worked out in weeks. I'm finally feeling better and it got me thinking, what is the best way to get back into a workout routine after being sick. Once you get sick and you take a few days off, it's easy to fall off the exercise bandwagon especially if you just started working out. Here is how I get started again after being sick.

1. First, I always take time off when I'm sick. My body is working hard to get better so a run might just increase the duration of my cold.


2. Once I feel better, I don't do any exercise for the first day or two.


3. Then for the first week, I cut the duration, intensity and number of workouts that I would do in a week in half. So if I workout for an average of 45 minutes six days a week, I only workout three days for about 20-30 minutes at lower intensity.


4. I find this way I can start working out again and I don't have a cold relapse.

Workout of the Day!

Get MORE Results in LESS Time

Who wants to spend forever in the gym? I'm really into fitness and I'm not a fan of spending more than about an hour in the gym. That is why I'm a huge fan of any workout that gives me more results in less time. One of those workouts is circuit training. Circuit training is when you perform exercises back to back without resting between the exercises and there are also lots of different kinds of circuits but one of my favorites combines both cardio and weights.

1. Cardio 10 minutes: (include 5 min warmup)
2. Weights 10 minutes: repeat 15-20 reps of squats, pushups, shoulder presses, lunges, dips for the full 10 minutes, move from exercise to exercise without resting
3. Cardio 10 minutes
4. Weights 10 minutes: repeat #2 above
5. Cardio 10 minutes
6. 5 minutes of Abs: Crunches, 20 reps of bicycles, basic crunches, reverse crunches followed by one minute of plank
7. YOU'RE DONE!!!

Dorm Room Workout Series

The Wonderful World of Bands!

Check out a cheap and easy way to get a great workout in your living room!

Better Treadmill Workout

It's winter in Seattle and for me that means working out inside. I am not afraid to say it, I am a sunny warm weather outside girl. So for me that means one, I'm some sort of traitor to the Seattle North Face and Gortex culture and two, the treadmill and I have gotten to know each other very well. So to keep things interesting I've come up with a few variations on indoor workouts and here is one of them.

All you need is an ipod (or Zune, I know you're out there) or any sort of music player and a treadmill.

1. Create a playlist with a large variety of songs. You can also just shuffle the songs for the duration or your workout.
2. After a warm up each time the song changes change your speed or incline to correspond with the song. Fast songs get sprints, slow songs get walking or jogging and mid tempo songs get hills.
3. Cool down with walking or jogging.

I promise this workout will fly by and the with the variety of speeds and inclines you will end up getting a better workout than if you just slogged away on the treadmill at one speed!

Accessory Analysis: BOSU Ball

This is a BOSU Ball. BOSU stands for Both Sides Up and its is one of my favorite and most versatile pieces of fitness equipment. When the dome (blue) side is up it provides a great unstable surface to stand on and do any number of upper or lower body exercises from bicep curls and shoulder presses to squats and lunges. The great thing about an unstable surface is that it gives you the added bonus of getting a great core workout no matter what exercise you are doing. I love anything that allows me to get more bang for my buck because, let's be honest here, no one wants to spend a ton of time in the gym. The BOSU is also great when the platform (black) side is up since you can use it to make push ups harder, since push ups aren't hard enough anyway, right? There are a few gyms that teach BOSU cardio classes where you use the ball in the place of a step and those classes are killer! Seriously, I have taken them and they are nap inducing. Finally, the BOSU is amazing for abdominal workouts. You can use it in place of a regular stability ball for crunches and it's fantastic for plank exercises. So if you are in the market for some fitness equipment, I highly recommend the BOSU ball since it is so effective and the BOSU with some dumbbells or bands is all you really need. Plus it stores really nicely under a couch or in the corner so it is always out of the way.

Dorm Room Workout Series

Check out this video to get more out of your workouts when you go outside!

How To: Getting Awesome Abs

Ok, so the question that both men and women ask me most often is " What do I need to do to get really great abs?". Well, first you have to watch TV at about 2am and you are going to need a credit card, impaired judgement and.... Actually that is not true at all but we have all been there:)

There are two essential elements to great abs that don't involve crunches or equipment at all and there are a clean healthy diet and cardio. When your body fat is in a healthy range there will not be excess fat covering in abdominal muscles so then you can see the definition in your abs. Eating well and doing cardio are great ways to get your body fat in a healthy range. Then adding strength training, including ab exercises, to your workout routine will strengthen the muscles and ,bonus, keep your body fat percentage within a healthy range.

The third element to great abs is actually strengthening the muscles in the core. This can be done with pilates exercises, yoga as well as traditional abdominal moves. Stay tuned for a Dorm Room Workout Series abdominal video for some exercise ideas.

Accessory Analysis!

In Accessory Analysis I'll review my favorite , or as the case may be not so favorite, pieces of fitness equipment! I actually ask for these things for Christmas and most of them are taking up what very little storage space I have in my apartment. Thus, Fit4College blog readers one, me not having to trip over medicine balls in order to turn off the TV, zero.

Dorm Room Workout Series

So as part of this blog, I'll be posting some videos as part of a Dorm Room workout series. These videos will contain tips, exercises and workout routines that are specifically geared to working out as a college student. That means small on space and small on budget. (In reality these tips are great for those that are out of college as well, because working out in your living room saves time and is convenient and saving money is great for things like shoes and, oh yeah, rent.) So be sure to check out the videos to get some workout ideas.