Weekly workouts and Les Mills launch week
Monday, Monday, Monday! Hello, friends. I hope your weekend was fabulous. Mine was full of group fitness, a wine festival, a nice dinner out with Dave and some more group fitness.
Why so much time spent in the gym? That’s because it’s “launch week” at 24 Hour Fitness, in which we debut the latest round of Les Mills group fitness class releases. This is typically a very busy time for us instructors, because we have to learn all the new choreography, music and moves to teach in our classes. It’s particularly tough for me this round, because I’m still teaching old stuff through tonight, working at Equinox every day and trying to fit in memorizing one new hour of BODYATTACK to teach Wednesday night and one new hour of BODYPUMP to teach Friday night. It’s a lot!
Now, let’s get to our regularly scheduled programming. And if you’re new around A Lady Goes West, I’d like to welcome you to my usual Monday feature, in which I recap all of the workouts that I did over the past seven days. I lay them out in order to assess what was good about my week and what could have been better. Because I work in fitness, I tend to be a little more active than the average Joe, so don’t worry about trying to fit in as many sweat sessions as I do. As long as you’re aiming to get moving several times a week and switching up your routine every once in a while, you should be golden.
Weekly Workouts
- Monday – 15-minutes of upper-body weight training; taught one-hour BODYATTACK class, foam rolling
- Tuesday – Dynamic warm-up, mobility exercises, 45 minutes of total-body weight training, foam rolling; attended one-hour power vinyasa yoga class
- Wednesday – Taught one-hour BODYATTACK class and two tracks of BODYPUMP (the instructor after my class was late, so I filled in!), foam rolling
- Thursday – Dynamic warm-up, mobility exercises, 30 minutes of total-body weight training, foam rolling
- Friday – Taught one-hour BODYPUMP class, foam rolling
- Saturday – Taught one-hour BODYATTACK class, foam rolling
- Sunday – Attended one-hour Avant-Barre Signature class; 30 minutes of BODYATTACK practicing and drills
What was good in my routine?
I made it back to yoga this week after nearly three weeks away. It felt so incredibly good on my body to focus on my breathing, lengthen my muscles and work on some balance poses. In order to get in that yoga, I attended my favorite lunch-time class at Equinox between clients and even fell into a deep sleep in the final meditation. I walked out of that session absolutely renewed, and it reminded me why I usually strive to fit in at least one yoga class a week. I need it. It feels good. It’s beneficial for my body as well as my mind. Overall, this week I did plenty of cardio, a few weight-training sessions and even a barre class featuring small isometric moves and pulsing, so there was definitely some good variety of movement.
What could have been better?
Occasionally, a true rest day gets away from me, especially when I have an instructor training session at 5 p.m. on a Sunday evening on the agenda just before Les Mills launch week. However, I took it pretty easy on Thursday, only doing a short weights session, so I certainly didn’t go hard every day. Nonetheless, I plan to have a full rest day next week, because my body needs recovery. Recovery and regeneration are very important. In my line of work, sometimes that can be hard to fit in, but I’m being careful to stretch and foam roll quite a bit to make up for it.
And now I’m heading off to work. I’ll be cramming new BODYATTACK choreography in the middle of the day and teaching old BODYATTACK choreography in the evening. Wish me luck, and be sure to pop in tomorrow for an awesome giveaway.
Go get ’em!
Questions of the day
What’s one way that you were active last week? What was the highlight of your weekend?
Highlight of the weekend was getting my hair done and going to the Scandinavian spa for some R & R with one of my good girlfriends!
I wasn’t as active as I usually am ( I usually like 5 workouts in a week) but knew that an extra rest day sometimes is better then a less then stellar workout ‘JUST’ to fit it in!
Looks like you need a good rest day this week!
Have a great Monday!
I do need a rest day this week! A spa day sounds fabulous. I need one of those too!
I don’t know how you keep all of those routines memorized! I miss bodypump…such a good workout!
I know!! Are there any Les Mills gyms near you??
Ooh, I love it when I fall asleep at the end of yoga! I don’t even care if I’m snoring/drooling, it is always so refreshing and worth it.
I had a fantastic spa day with some girlfriends this weekend. It was soooooo awesome and much-needed!
A spa day is always fantastic! Lucky girl!
I have been working on learning BP91 all weekend. Ready for it this week!!
Good luck to you! I haven’t even watched it yet! I have a lot to do to get ready for launch. Have a good week!
Yay for yoga! -)
You did not have a true rest day in there, but I think that would be hard as a full time trainer. Overall, it looks like you had a really solid week of workouts.
Yay for yoga is right!! How many yoga classes do you get in a week?? Ohhhh it feels good.
We aren’t launching until the end of October this time around! I feel like it’s foreverrrr away! Haha. Good luck with learning all your choreo. I know how overwhelming that is just for BodyPump, and you have TWO programs to memorize!! Hope you have a great week!
Hi Ashley! Thanks– I also need to learn the new CXWORX, but I’m teaching it this week so I’m putting that one off. Looking forward to all the new music and moves! Have a good day:)
Wow – busy workout week for you! My favorite sweat session this week was a new kettlebell workout from Fitnessglo. It introduced a lot of new (to me) kettlebell moves and pushed me really hard!
I subscribe to the daily Popsugar emails. Today your article was highlighted in the email – congratulations!!
Hi Catherine!! Thanks! I actually hadn’t seen it on the daily email yet, so I appreciate you telling me. I did some kettlebells last week too. What’s your favorite kettlebell move? Mine is the swing of course!
It’s so hard for me to pick just one move! A new one I just learned is the shot put. Google it and maybe you’ll want to add it to your next kettlebell workout. I also really like the swing and side lunge with a side swing.
It would have been much easier for me to pick my least favorite move!! That would be the turkish getup … looks so easy but it’s one of the hard moves I’ve ever attempted. One of the days I’ll perfect it.
Get-ups are super hard. Thanks for the tip– I’ll try the shot put soon.
I’m so excited for launch week! I’m going to try my best to make it to a class this week but I might not be able to until we get back from overseas. Either way, I’m looking forward to your reviews of the new tracks!
And as overwhelming as it all sounds, I’m sure you are going to rock the new releases! 😉
Hi Sarah!! Where are you traveling to?? Launch week is tough, but fun. Hope you make it to a class too!
that was so nice of you to fill in for the instructor who was late!
Yes launch week!! <3 I have to learn, learn, learn by Thursday!!
I know! It’s a good thing I teach BODYPUMP, and I did it all sweaty and in total BODYATTACK gear, high socks and all hahaha 🙂
I haven’t gotten back into yoga on a regular basis since I took 4.5 weeks to travel to Canada to visit my family. I’m surprised at how much I love it – yin is my favourite since it gives deep long stretches for upwards of 5 minutes. It can be ‘painful’ but it definitely loosens and limbers up my body, especially right before I’m about to go climbing.
Yin yoga? I don’t know if I’m familiar with that style… Tell me more.
What an action packed week! Lots of activity for you! You just reminded me to get back into yoga… on the site now!
Hi Carrie! Go for it, yoga is so good! Have a great night:)
I feel the same about yoga! I definitely need to get classes into my regular weekly routine.
It feels sooo good to spend a full hour stretching and lengthening, I think everyone needs a little yoga.
Good luck with your launches! I’ve got BodyFlow on repeat in my office – launch tomorrow!