Track your progress with our do-at-home fitness test

This week is fitness test week at Body Beyond Baby and we are already seeing some amazing results.  Tracking your progress is essential so give this a go at home, record your results, lock in a date to re-test, commit to healthy eating and training and you'll be amazed at what you can achieve.

First up grab a tape measure and record:

• Chest measurement - go across the nipple line and make sure you drop your arms to engage your lats
• Waist measurement - look in the mirror or ask a partner to do it for you, find the smallest part of your waist and take this measurement.
• Belly button - Take the measurement that crosses your belly button
• Hips - Stand with your feet hip width apart - find the widest part of your hips including bum (usually at about crotch height)
• Legs - put one leg on a box or step so that your knee is bent at 90 degrees - about mid way along you will see where it looks biggest when looking from the inside of your leg (where it hangs down a little- so glamorous!) take the measurement here too.  You can do both legs if you like but will more than likely find one leg if larger than the other.

Really it doesn't matter TOO much where you do your measurements so long as you do the exact same ones when you re-measure in a few weeks time.

Now to the activity part:

• Timed run - we do 800m but the most important thing here is to mark out a path that you can repeat again later on so you can do this in a park, at home if you have an open space OR on a treadmill.  Record your best time
• Push-ups - to failure.  Done on either your knees or toes but if you do choose toes complete as many reps as you can on your toes DON'T drop to knees to continue, you need to go to exhaustion OR until you lose form
• Prone hold - for as long as possible. Again done on either knees or toes and good form must be maintained throughout.  Remember that we train to the weakest link so if your pelvic floor is weak or you have a large abdominal separation you need to be either on your knees or do not complete this exercise until you have re-trained your inner unit
• Burpees in one minute - as it sounds, complete as many burpees as possible in one minute.  Read the past post on the three stages of burpees, choose which stage you are at and stick with that throughout this test.  Again if you have pelvic floor weakness, a large separation or any other complaints assess as to whether this exercise is good for you at this time

Remember it is okay to record a DNC (Did Not Complete) if any of these tests are not good for you at the moment - you will probably find as yo increase your fitness levels and rebuild your body that you will at least be able to attempt them next time round and that in itself is an achievement and marked progress.

Enjoy and feel free to share your results with us either here or on our facebook page

One spot wet weather workout

Yes its rainy and wet outside but it's no excuse not to do some exercise in the comfort of your own home - these exercises can be done in your lounge room.  You don't need much space and we are concentrating on strength, so moving S-L-O-W-L-Y through each exercise so as to gain the most 'time under tension' as possible.

Grab your elastic and complete

Lower body complete one exercise after the other then rest for 60 seconds before completing a second circuit

• Squat with elastic (make it heavy) x 12 - 
• tempo 3 seconds down, hold for 3 at the bottom, 3 seconds up
• Sumo Squat with elastic (make it heavy) x 12 - 
• tempo3 seconds down, hold for 3 at the bottom, 3 seconds up
• Single leg lunge with elastic (make it heavy) x 12 each leg 

tempo - 3 seconds down, hold for 3 at the bottom, 3 seconds up

Upper body complete one exercise after the other then rest for 60 seconds before completing a second circuit

• Push ups - complete as many as you can on your toes then drop to knees (or just knees if you are not up to toes yet) THEN without resting go straight up onto your toes and lower down A-S   S-L-O-W  A-S  Y-O-U  C-A-N until your body is on the floor..... pick yourself up into your start position to go again.  x3
• Cobra - very slowly go move from face down on the floor to upper body raised - squeeze  your shoulder blades together and keep shoulders down.  x10 hold for 3 at the top (as per pictures)
•  Side prone - hold for 10 secs (or longer if you can) then aim to move through prone without coming down so as to complete a side prone on the other side.

 Enjoy

CrossFit Open workout 6

And the final CrossFit Open workout:

7min AMRAP of:
Thrusters
Chest to bar pull-ups
3 / 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 / 18 / 21 ..... 

I was really looking forward to completing this workout as I had not managed to do the last three due to the weight being too heavy for me to lift.  However India developed Croup and I missed my last couple of training sessions at Cooee CrossFit.  I felt a little disheartened that I didn't complete the games but now know I have a lot to work hard towards in preparation for doing it all again next year.  I've had a ball training CrossFit only for these few weeks and will continue to train with a CrossFit group as much as possible though inevitably I will be factoring in some other workouts due to time constraints and my training within a commercial gym early in the mornings.  

Now that I am back in Sydney I have booked a Body Composition scan for the 17th May so I will keep training hard and let you know my results once I have got them.  India is now 9 months old and I am feeling pretty good.  I fit back into 'most' clothes though expect it won't be until I stop breastfeeding that my body will completely go back.  With Marley I stopped feeding him at 8.5 months so we are now into unknown territory.  I have no plans to stop feeding India and will let her self wean this time around - it's funny as i always expected to stop feeding her sooner than I did Marley. I had a fantastic 30th birthday and am happy with the progress i have made.  I was further down the 'pre baby body' track by this time first time around but the main thing is that I am happy, continuing to see results and feeling great.


So, in terms of your own training it is an awesome thing to have something to work towards - I had 6 weeks of CrossFit AND my 30th birthday - now its come to an end its kind of like 'what now?' though with Body Composition a few weeks away that should keep me focussed.  Find your thing, make a commitment and reap the rewards.....and let me know how you went!

I