Push-Ups for Beginners

Thursday, December 10, 2009

When I first started doing personal training, I was really bad at push-ups, since I hadn't done them in years. Eventually, though, I was able to do about 30 real push ups in a session. Push-ups work your arms as well as your chest, abs, back, etc.

If you can't do a push up on the floor at all, you can always start with push ups on a wall, on a bar at the gym, on your stair railing, etc. - and you can keep practicing this way until you can go all the way down and get the technique down.

And of course, there are always knee push ups:

But my favorite thing Kerri taught me was doing push-ups using the Bosu ball (they have these at most gyms, probably near the free weights - you can also buy them yourself, but they're $100+). I can't find a picture of exactly what we did, but essentially all you need to do is place the bosu ball, dome side UP, right under your chest, and when you come down while doing your push up, lay your chest on the Bosu ball, and lift your arms up.

Then, place your arms back on the floor and push yourself up for the next push up. After doing the push-ups this way for awhile, you'll eventually be able to do them without the ball underneath you at all.

One Mile at a Time

Monday, December 7, 2009

I crazily agreed to run a half marathon with my mom a few days ago - crazy because the race is on Dec. 20th. So I have stepped up my casual 2 miles of running, 3 days a week, to doing a lot more. And while I am still in no way a runner, I have realized that if I just keep doing a bit more each day and do one mile at a time, it isn't so bad.

This past week, I got up to 4 miles, and today I will try for 5. Since I am doing a longer distance, I know I can't run the whole thing, so what I have been doing is running 2 minutes at about 5.2mph, then walking 1 minute at 4mph. It evens out to a good pace overall, but the slowing down to do a brisk walk for a minute really helps me to keep going. Usually, I don't like slowing down to walk, I like to just go for it, run the whole thing and be done. But that only works for about 2 miles, so if I am going to have any chance of doing 13, the walking is necessary.

So, wish me luck!

Delicious & Nutritious Pizza

Andrew and I decided to make homemade pizza last night, because we wanted something healthy, but we were getting a little sick of salad, whole weat pasta, etc. So we went to whole foods and got ingredients to make a healthy BBQ pizza.

We got refrigerated dough (1400 calories for the whole package), organic barbeque sauce (we used half the bottle, which only added up to 125 calories), low moisture part skim shredded mozzarella (we used a cup, which is about 320 calories), and then peppers and onions to go on top. We don't eat meat, but this would definitely be great with chicken on it too of course.

So all totalled it was about 230 calories for each slice of the pizza (we cut the pizza into 8 slices), and was so delicious, I would have ordered it at a restaurant. And it really didn't take too long to make - we baked it at 375 for about 25 minutes. I definitely recommend it!