Fit Mom's Blog

These were a big hit with my kids this weekend at the CrossFit Regional Competition! Although, they are designed for much younger children, they still did little circuits of swinging the Kettlebell and doing thrusters between the two of them. Super fun if you have little ones at home who are watching YOU lift heavy weights.

You can purchase them here. The set they were playing with was not for sale and they are really designed for kids under 5.

I would also like to congratulate my team, CrossFit CDR, for qualifying for the CrossFit Games! Guess, I’ll be taking a trip out to Carson this summer.

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To know me in person is to know that I literally wear workout clothes 5 days a week.  I start my day off in crops and tank tops and finish it in shorts and tank tops usually with a workout squeezed in somewhere…On weekends, I’m left with one solitary pair of jeans that fit my humungous quads and a sports bra and tank top because I’m boring that way.  However, it’s hot here in Southern California now and I need some dresses. 

Like, by tomorrow morning, when my six year old serves me coffee and eggs for the Mother’s Day tea.  He told me I need to wear a dress!  I’m not a dress girl!! I look silly in dresses, my arms are huge, my legs are huge…. I don’t carry off the usual feminine dresses very well. 

There are some brands that are now creating dresses for the athletic type body, thank you, Shabby Apple, but, they are still super frilly dresses!  I found a few that are possibilities by Horny Toad or Isis or Lole. 

Anybody have any other suggestions for “go to ” dresses for this athletic mom?!

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It’s all about hiding the stench, today! For those of you who workout at lunch and then hustle back to work with your stinky workout gear in your gear bag, you need one of these. Not just a zippered bag, it’s more of a hide your sweaty clothes and shoes bag with some serious technology behind it. I can actually fit both my lifting shoes and my cross training shoes along with some sweaty clothes all in this one high quality sport bag.

I highly recommend this bag for anyone who carries gear {shoes, shin guards & socks or sweaty clothes} in your car or anywhere. Definitely does it’s job.

You can learn more about & purchase your Sport Bag from Silver Edge Gear HERE.

This product was given to me for free for purposes of review and the above opinion is all my own.

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For those of you who follow this blog {thank you, by the way}, you know that only VERY recently I got my first muscle up. And, just last summer, I had reached a long time goal of a 100 pound Snatch.

Since January, I’ve been loosely following the Outlaw Way …the workouts are short, intense with TONS of Olympic Lifting practice, love it. {Rudy, if you read this, more than my mother reads it!!} My PR’s in most of my lifts have gone up regularly and consistently…which has made me more of a follower lately. Long story, yesterday the workout called for “Amanda” 9-7-5 of Snatches & Muscle-Ups. Two of the hardest things to do in CrossFit and both of which have taken my years to get. Since my first muscle up two weeks ago, I had not been able to get another one…with the encouragement of one of my teachers, “Rachel, today, you go down there and get another one.”

I did. I got 5 muscle ups and completed all 21 reps of the Snatch at 90 pounds!…..I was pretty damn happy with that result.

Then, today, I read on Facebook about the Amanda Miller Memorial WOD. In 2009, she competed in the CrossFit Games and passed away less than a year later from Melanoma Cancer. This July, there will be a competition in her honor. A $20 participant fee is all that is required and you can compete at whatever level you are capable of or you can just donate money.

Resources
AmandaWod
RobbWolf

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As a new parent of just one baby, I had plenty of time to do what I loved- running.  When my youngest was 6 months old, I ran a marathon after training just barely 3 times a week.  I don’t remember it being too stressful because, babies take naps and they also don’t move around too much as a six month old.  Also, my husband was around plenty to pick up and carry our six month old baby boy.

I believe I spent the better part of my first two years plus one year pregnant running only.  I’d also acquired a treadmill during that time, so, if I couldn’t go out to run, I could do something on a treadmill.  In addition, I found I could jump rope, do pushups with the baby in the car seat.

Then, since I had been a cyclist in college, I briefly dabbled in bike racing- between the years of 2006-2009, although I bet I completed only a handful of races during that time.  I enjoy bike riding and occasionally bike racing, but, in order to get really good at bike racing, you need to do it all the time.  No go, for me.  Two kids under the age of 5 was not a time to devote myself to a sport that requires a minimum of 10 hours a week on a bike.   Also, I recall having complete and total meltdowns 15 minutes prior to the races as my husband would be out racing, and I was supposed to be warming up, but, couldn’t concentrate because I was worried about what my children were doing.

Back to running in 2008, trained for the St. Geroge Marathon and ended up injured and running it after having lost a month of training.  Long story, but I ended up in Yoga “rehab” for my stupid hip which had lead to basically tendonitis in my right knee. Yeah, me.

Now, 2012, my longest “workout” takes 15 minutes or less and I can be completely torn up in just 7 minutes.  I love lifting weights and I love that my quads are bigger than they’ve ever been and I love seeing progress in my lifting.  And, I love spending time on mobility work and I just happen to love crossfit.  In all my years of athleticism, I’ve never felt or seen as much progress in my own personal strengths or in my change of body type or in my overall outlook on life as I do with crossfit.  I’ve also met some of the coolest people on the planet through crossfit and have improved my diet by 200% since I first began.  Bye bye iced mocha’s with whip cream daily!!

In summary, CrossFit is working for me because it takes a hell of a lot less time (more or less) {I’m still a die hard}, I’m fitter than I’ve ever been in all my years as an athlete, and I have a 100 pound Snatch, heck yeah!!

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Image Credit: CrossFit CDR

One of the most hated, slow moving strength training movements you can do with one piece of equipment is the Turkish Get Up. It’s fantastic for improving core strength, midline strength, balance- you don’t want that huge KB to land on your head, and teaching you how to maintain your core strength with just one arm. Most women I know start with the lightest thing around- sometimes it’s an eraser, to learn the movement and then you gradually work your way up from there. Pictured here is 35 pound KB and although I can do them, it is brutal. Ten minutes of them is even more brutal and they were not executed as perfectly as you might see on a video.

To learn more about the Turkish Get-Up and how to do them, please refer to the RKC manual for women, here.

You can also check it out on You Tube, here.

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It’s spring break for us here!!

As always, it takes me a few days to switch over from work out of home mom to work at home mom and how it feels to always have something to do, whether it’s laundry, dishes or entertaining my boys, all the time.   Although, they have been mildly under the weather the last few days, they have by NO MEANS slowed down.   Up at 6:30AM and to bed at 8:30PM with very few “slow down” times during the day makes for a VERY busy mommy.

We’ve already had a camp-out.   We’ve planted our spring vegetables and now are currently planning our FREE or almost FREE trips to family friendly LA destinations – such as Noah’s Ark and Muscle Beach!  Also free in our area are the local hiking trails that have little to no now on them such as Forest Falls, White Water Preserve and Oak Glenn.  I can’t wait to get busy and stay active with my boys this week.

How will you spend your spring break?

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For those of you who are new here, my current passion is CrossFit. I’ve previously been passionate about lots of sports including marathon running, triathlon, bike racing and yoga all documented here to some degree. However, for the past 2 years, I’ve done nothing but crossfit and yoga almost daily and with that kind of dedication and consistency comes certain opinions about shoes, for example.

CrossFit requires an athlete to be able perform multiple different movements in the course of an hour, an event or even a trail run (I miss those). And, so far, there really hasn’t been a perfect shoe, at least for me. Most days, I’ll start my day in a wood soled weight training shoe and finish in a light weight cross training type of shoe, usually my Innov-8′s unless the workout requires significant amounts of running- in which case, I wear a racing flat.

Today, I’ve had the great pleasure of trying both the Barefoot Runner Dash Glove and also the Barefoot Run Bare Access Arc.  Both shoes are designed to be barefoot runners with the Run Bare being more of an entry level barefoot runner as it offers more support in the sole.  Can I just say that my first out of the box experience has been amazing!  It is rare that I love a pair of shoes the minute I put them on and these have left me completely floored.  Both have a wider toe box, a very light weight feel to them and are easy to get on and off.  I love the extra elastic strap at the back of the Dash Glove shoes as it gives you just a little extra flexibility in getting them on and off.

As with any new shoe, there is a “get to know you period” especially when it comes to running, but, for everything from jumping rope to box jumping to hiking outside with the kids, I can honestly tell you these shoes feel fantastic.   There is a good amount of research and knowledge on the Merrell site about why to use Barefoot runners here.  I’ve previously owned a pair of Merrell’s called the Siren and loved them till they fell off my feet!  In essence, Merrell has never let me down and these Barefoot runners do not disappoint.

If you’ve had good experiences with Merrell,  please share them here!

P.S.  I am incredibly thankful for having this opportunity to review Merrell’s Barefoot Running Shoes for purposes of review on this website.  The opinions above are my own, no joke.

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post is now published on Social Moms Network!

Click on over….

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