2014 Workouts To Make This Year a Better One

I promised in my last post that I would give you workouts...and then I didn't post them! Something must have messed up because they didn't get posted. But I have them now!
Don't freak out when you read all this. It's a lot of information, but that doesn't mean a thing! I don't want to just throw a bunch of random exercises at you at simply say, "goodluck". I want to make sure you know what you are doing and are doing it right so you can get the very most out of each exercise and that all the hard work you put into it doesn't go to waste!

There are 4 different workout sets: abs, legs, arms, and combination. Depending on how long you workout each day, you should exercise no less than 4 times a week, and 5 or 6 times is best. Doing one type of exercise each day would be really good (example: abs on Monday, legs on Tuesday, arms on Thursday, and combination on Friday).  If you feel like you want to do more than just 4 days a week, try jogging around your neighborhood for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or do a combination set on the days that you want to fill in. Or if you really want to work a certain area, do that exercise set twice a week. (Don’t do an area-targeted excerice (ie abs exercise) more than 3 times a week.) And don’t forget to take a day off. You might want to hurry up and get into the best shape possible, but if you jump right and don’t take any breaks, you might feel more pain then you should. Only some pain is necessary for gain.
You should hurt when you do these exercises. You should feel somewhat sore the next day. You should be tired.  If you don’t feel any of those things than you are either hurrying too much through the excerices, not doing them right, or you need to step it up a notch and do more rounds and reps.
These are workouts are here to help you. It’ll be difficult. Everybody would always do it if it is always fun. The idea is to basically kill yourself for a period of time every day, and before you know it, you will feel so much more alive.

Don’t take a break during the round. Only one minute rest between rounds (the one minute starts as soon as you are done with the reps, not when the maximum minutes is up). Once you can make it through all required rounds in the maximum number of minutes or fewer, add the extra amount to the right (in parenthesis) and work your way up from there. Your goal is to be under maximum minutes for each round for lower amount of reps. Don’t do them sloppily to make sure you get them done. Doing them right is way more important them doing them fast. The time goal is a goal. Focus on doing them right and with good form and technique first, and then focus on getting them done without taking any breaks.

Feel free to comment about any of the ones you don’t know how to do and I’ll fill you in. Or you can try googling them ;)

 

Abs:
repeat 1-3 times
Goal should be to be under 6 minutes or under on each round. Once you make it through all three rounds in 21 or less minutes, add more reps (the ones that are in parenthesis)

Take 1 minute break between rounds.

-30 (or 40) crunches

-15 (or 20) situps with hands on hips

-20 (or 30) bycicles (10 or 15 to each side)

-15 (or 20) vertical leg crunches

-15 (or 25) leg raises (don't let feet touch ground!)

-45 second (or 1 minute) plank

 

Legs
2-5 rounds
Goal should be to be under about 6 1/2 minutes on each round. Once under 35 minutes for all 5 rounds, add extra reps in parenthesis

Take a 1 minute break between each round

-10 (or 15) squats (with weights if they are available and you feel comfortable using them)

-20 (or 30) lunges (10 for each leg)

-20 (or 30) step ups (10 to each leg)

-15 (or 20) reps of the bridge

-1 minute of jumping jacks

-30 second (or 1 minute) WITHOUT STOPPING wall sit

 

 Arms
1-3 rounds
Goal to be under 8 minutes for each round.  Once under 27 minutes for all rounds, add extra reps.

You have a lot more options for arm workouts if you have dumbbells, but there are still ways to work your arms without weight

Pull ups---Pull ups are a great workout for upper body. But they can be very difficult. They are optional on here for 2 reasons. One, not everyone has a place to do pull ups. If you have a pull up bar you use that, or if there is any bar-type thing that can hold your weight and feel comfortable using, use that. Two, pull ups are difficult. At first, just attempt one. Don’t try to go for all 4 pull ups on your first try. Strengthen your arms using the other exercises and then you will be able to do pull ups.

Take a 1 minute break between each round

-20 pushups

-15 dips

-Optional---4 pull ups

-15 pushups

-10 dips

-Again, optional---3 pull ups

-10 pushups

 

 

Combination workout (abs, legs, arms)
Do 2-4 rounds.
Each round should take not much longer than 7 minutes. Once completing all 4 rounds in 32 minutes or less, add extra in parenthesis.

Take a 1 minute break between each round.

-25 (or 35) crunches

-10 (or 20) vertical leg crunches

-10 (or 15) squats

-20 (or 40) lunges

-15 (0r 25) pushups

-45 seconds of jumping jacks

 

 

 

 

If you have any, any, comments, questions, suggestions, criticism, anything, please let me know. This is the first time I have done this and even though I spent a lot of time and thought on this, there is bound to be something you are wondering about. Let me know if I have made a mistake, there is not enough time for each exercise, or something else is wrong. And please let me know how this works for you! I won't know if this is any good if you don't give me feedback! Keep me updated! Love you guys!

#1 superfood--CLPL

quinoa.

Pronounced KEEN-wah, this is the best food you can possibly eat.

Packed with all sorts of nutrients and amazing stuff, it aids in weightloss, supplies energy, and is amazingly healthy for you.

My friend who is super obessed with healthy food (she does the paleo diet, is organic, and even went vegetarian WHILE on those diets for a while) showed this to me. I tried it and I was like whoa.

There are so many things you can do with it. It's a grain, but it's not. It's gluten free, its not a wheat.

I looked up some recipes you can do with it and there are an endless supply. Everything from breakfast quinoa with cinnamon and maple to quinoa tossed in a salad with tomatoes and spinach!

crispy quinoa bake

cinnamon maple breakfast quinoa

quinoa stuffed sweet potatoes

I had a swim meet this weekend and i knew quinoa would be the perfect thing to eat. Saturday morning I made up my own breakfast quinoa. I cooked the quinoa according to the directions on the box, then while it was still simmering, I added about a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1 1/2 tbs of brown sugar, half of a chopped up apple, and a bit of honey (to taste). I mixed it all together and it was delicious! Later that day (after I had raced) I baked a sweet potato and put some quinoa on there with a dash of cinnamon. That was great too! I would highly reccomend trying some quinoa. It is such an amazing superfood and it will help you feel and look better! 

It's not hard to eat healthy! You just have to do it!

All images from this pinterest board.

The Project

Some people write these things, and it seems as if they had gone through a time in their life where their closets were filled with extremely dated clothes, their drawers filled with papers with only a few scribbles on them, and their house looked like it could be an episode of Hoarders. And all the sudden they were sitting in their messes, they decided to clean up, and now they are super organization clean freak with all those cute little file folders.
That may be the case with some people, but I am coming to you from the midst of the story. My life is not one big cluttered mess. In fact, it may seem as if I've got everything worked out. But in all those drawers of the freshly dusted dressers, are a bunch of old letters I don't know what to do with. When I wake up in the morning, sometimes I wonder how I am going to get it all done and I pray to God for some free time to do something productive that doesn't include homework or swimming. When I do get some free time, I find my self regretfully staring at my phone screen or at the back of my eyelids to find the time has disappeared and oh look it's time to go to swim practice.
I strive to maintain a balanced lifestyle. Get straight A's. Make it to at least 7 out of the 10 practices each week. Have a perfectly clean room when I get home. Be socially active and popular. Have a boyfriend. Have all the newest and latest trends and all the cute expensive clothes. Run a blog like a pro. Get at least 8  hours of sleep. Be fit. Have each meal that I eat be all healthy and yummy and fresh and perfect like a avocado panini with sun-dried tomatoes and stuff ya know. But...in the words of the late Hannah Montana, nobody's perfect. Which I have come to learn pretty reluctantly.
Why not, one step at a time, learn how to manage your time, keep away clutter, eat healthy, stay fit, and stay alive?
I think it's a great idea.
I have already begun to analyze how I am going to go through this process. To be able to allow time to at first learn how to do, I will have to keep track of my time. But with a little hard work and determination, I feel like I may be a much happier person at the end of it.

I am going to do a series where every other week, I will post a way in which I've (hopefully) succeeded in...how do I put this...becoming more successful in what I do. Being more productive. Managing my time. You get the point. As some of you know, I will begin to redo my room soon, and so I will show you some of the ways I am going through that process. My fitness routines. How I am managing my time. How I am budgeting. How I am planning my outfits. Etc.

Hopefully you guys can hold me accountable to do this, I want you to! Knowing people are reading what I have done and all my ideas sure will be motivating. I have already begun to work on this project, and the posts will be coming up soon!

I am calling the project....

The Clean Life Purposefully Lived
Life is a spiral...and it can be a smooth spiral...until the frizz happens and then everything starts going whacko and everything goes in different directions and before you know it you don't have a 6-pack abs and your closet isn't colorcoded anymore.

And I want ya'll to contribute to this project! If you have or will post about something in these topics (clean eating, budget, organizing, fashion tips, fitness, etc) then link up with the button on my sidebar!

If you do, it gives people a chance to come back to my blog and see more ideas that are similar, because I will create a page to link up all the people who have taken part in the CLPL project!

Feedback would be awesome!

Note: this will be a series, therefore I will post about this for a while, but the CLPL project will not be my only post topics at all!


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