Guest Post: Workout advice from our favorite personal trainer

Hello friends,

Isn’t raw ice cream the best

Today we have a very special guest post. I was lucky enough to not only meet this beautiful lady but I also got to work with her! As well as I have made a great life time friend and forever workout buddy

I am sure many of you know this lady but she is great for workout advice and tips! As well making some delicious raw foods and desserts! It is my deepest pleasure and honor to introduce our guest post today, Gina the writer and creator of Fitnessista!

Hi guys! My name is Gina and I write over at a little blog called The Fitnessista.

I had the pleasure of meeting the twins while Michelle and I attended 105degrees and since then, I’ve been so fortunate to have these girls as friends.

While we were in culinary school, Michelle was my loyal workout buddy. Every morning, at 6am, we set out to the gym for an hour or so before we had to get ready for class and took weekly power yoga classes together. When I first got to Oklahoma, I wondered how my new schedule would effect my fitness level (since I’m used to working out later in the day and wouldn’t be able to keep the same routine), but it ended up being a good thing to switch things up. I started to see changes in my muscle definition and was able to focus more on running and yoga. So even with the crazy amount of sweets I was eating in culinary school, when I left, my jeans still fit. Winner, winner, raw dessert dinner

It turns out that without knowing it, before school I was in a workout rut.

The thing is, it’s extremely easy to plateau with workouts—our bodies are very intelligent machines and will get used to whatever we expect them to do on a regular basis.

In order to see fitness gains and bust out of a rut, one needs to add additional stressors in the current routine. To do this, all you have to do is change one of the 4 characteristics of exercise:

1. Mode: The type of exercise you’re doing. Take a new class or try a new activity. This will challenge different muscles than you’re used to and enable change to start rolling. This is why you’re often sore after taking a new type of class.
2. Frequency: How often you workout. Try to add in an extra day of cardio or weight training, or if you workout almost every day, add in an extra day of rest. Remember, it’s during times of rest that our body can recover and grow back leaner and stronger.
3. Duration: How long your workouts last. Instead of doing a solid 45 minutes every day, try doing 30 minutes one day and 60 the next, for an average of 45 minutes. This way, you aren’t adding in an additional “net” amount of exercise, but are shaking things up to stop cruise control from kicking in. Or, shorten the workouts and increase the intensity.
4. Intensity: Level of difficulty of the workout. Make sure to alternate workout intensities—there’s no reason to go balls to the wall every day. Your body will get used to whatever routine you put it in, whether it’s dilly dallying on the bike or doing full-out sprints on the dreadmill. Just make sure to constantly keep your body guessing.

So as ya’ll can see, it’s easy to make small changes in your workouts and bust out of a workout plateau. My motto is that change creates change- anything you can do to shake things up is a good thing for results and for sanity. It gets boring doing the same thing over and over

Happy training and hope to see you at The Fitnessista sometime

While you’re here at Pure2Raw, order some raw goodies.. the twins really know what they’re doing (*cough* flatbreads crackers cookies *cough*)

xoxo,

Gina

Thanks again Gina for the great guest post! You are the best

I hope everyone has a great day and we see you back later for some socca action and a twins challenge!

Till next time,

Michelle

Pure2raw Twins