Need some new progressively overloaded workouts?

Your future called ... and it's SO proud of how strong you are.

That's from all the progressively overloading workouts AND sleep / nourishment / rest you've been giving it. ;-)



Now maybe this is a reality for you right now. You know you're progressing with your workouts and have an awesome plan for the rest that you're implementing or starting to implement. Or maybe you're on the waitlist for TRANSFORM: Body + Mind and will have soooo much confidence and clarity around all of this very soon. But if you're not yet strength training or you've been kind of bopping around and counting group exercise or Peleton-with-weights classes as strength training, this email is for you in particular.



Progressive overloading is the way we strength train when we have fat loss, muscle-building, or "toning up" goals. Once we've reach all of the goals and just want to maintain our strength and body composition, we have more flexibility to be able to bop around to various workouts because it doesn't take as much of a stimulus to maintain as it does to achieve those goals. It takes consistency to maintain! But there is more flexibility to the approach.



I'm going to assume for the rest of this email that you have fat loss, muscle-building, or "toning up" goals. Here's how to approach the strength training part of the puzzle if that's the case:

• Have a solid, 1-week plan that targets all major muscle groups in the various ways they need to be targeted and in the various planes of motion and angles -- you'll likely need help with this, it's coming below ;-)

• Use a resistance, reps, and sets that make at least the last few reps of each exercise feel HARD to complete. That's important. Write that down. What exercise? How much weight? How many reps? How many sets?

• Repeat the same workouts week after week for 8-16 or so weeks before changing it up to a different set of workouts BUT, make it spicier over time. Meaning, add resistance as you can, reps, or even sets over time.
  

In case you need a week's worth of workouts to get you started, you can use some of mine! This is a 4-day a week plan and covers all the major muscle groups. Because someone will ask ;-) core is sneakily baked into ALL of my programming so I gotcha covered there too. Do them on any 4 days a week that you'd like, just avoid doing similar muscle groups on back-to-back days (like upper 1 today and upper 2 tomorrow. Not enough rest there for recovery + progress).


Upper Body 1

Lower Body 1

Upper Body 2

Lower Body 2


If you will be signing up for this March round of TRANSFORM: Body + Mind (cart is open NOW!), keep in mind you'll have a full progressively overloading workout routine in there as well as optional meal plans, fun recipe collections, and other resources in case you hate cooking or are always on the run, cycle synching, menopause, pregnancy, postpartum, and breastfeeding considerations. Those are just some of the resources. It's really a whole COURSE and that's the real power of it. ;-) You can check out more details right here.

Hope you enjoy those workouts!!


XO,
Tara

At-Home Booty Exercises

Ready to work your backside?

Well gee…that was really personal!  Sorry about that.  But not really ;-) because I hear from so many women about how they'd love to sneak in workouts at home and focus on toning up their boot-y!

So, I figured I'd share a few of my favorite moves in a super-duper-fast video demo (do you have 36 seconds?!).

Try these 2 exercises for your glutes.  Scale the reps and sets up or down depending on your current fitness level.  Add in a march-in-place warm-up and weave in a few sets of jumping jacks or stairs to turn up the heat.

In good health,

Tara

Fit As A Mother (the series) - A Doll

I'm back with another Fit As A Mother (time-lapsed) video for you guys.  These videos are meant to spark creativity and show that you can workout anywhere, anytime, with anything!

A big shout-out to Lucy, my daughter's well-loved purple doll in this video.  :-)

How do you like to workout?  What do you do to squeeze fitness in as a busy mom or working woman?  I'd love to hear about your routine or goals!

In good health,

Tara

Sleep-deprived and Staying Healthy

It's no secret that sleep has been a scarcity around here for….well, quite some time!  As a breastfeeding mama, I'm "on call" every night - and that usually ends up being at least 5 or 10 night-time wakings (and feedings).  :-O  Yup, that wasn't a typo.  

My daughter was the same way, so I'm sort of immune to how ridiculous this actually sounds.  It's a path I'm more than happy to continue on until things happen to change organically.  I'm not looking to sleep-train, cut him off from night feedings, ask my husband to give him a bottle in the middle of the night, or anything else really.  No judgement to anyone else - this is just our choice.  It's actually quite a sweet set-up - Jagger sleeps in our room and he has this adorable way of simultaneously kicking and punching me when he's ready to nurse.  I swear it's much cuter than it sounds!  There's usually no crying involved, just a gentle "Mom, I need you now please" type of nudge.  At 9 months in, we've definitely gotten into a groove.

Magnolia is now almost 3 years old and those early co-sleeping and breastfeeding days with her are just beautiful memories now.  I know all-too-well how quickly the weeks slip by, even as each night may seem to last forever.  

With our days totally filled with Magnolia's stories, songs, activities, and boisterousness, I'm a-okay letting the wee hours of the night be reserved for one-on-one time with Jagger.  The snuggles and sweet baby breath will be gone before I can say, "Sleep, child!".  ;-)

So where does that leave me with my health and productivity?  There's this whole work thing, house thing, wife thing….Well, I have my moments of dragging and clawing my way through each hour, for sure!  However, I do like to think that a few of my good habits are responsible for keeping me as healthy and energetic as possible during this extended period of barely-any-sleep (and REM?  Do I ever get into REM?!).  I am typically rather fast-moving (that type A curse), happy, and feeling good and strong.

I started to record this video, as usual, without Jagger at first.  But, my storage space ran out on my phone about 30 seconds in and after taking time to make more space on this device, Little Man was ready to join me.  Perfecto!  After all, the lack of sleep is just a liiiiiiiittle bit about him anyway.

'Til next time...

In health,

Tara

Glute Bridges

Are you looking to strengthen your pelvic floor and core?  Have you had diastasis recti (that painless separation of abdominal muscles causing a belly bulge) from previous pregnancies?  Or, do you have some lower back pain that you're looking to rehab?

The Glute Bridge is a perfect, gentle-yet-effective exercise you can do in the comfort of your home with no equipment.  Watch me demonstrate it next to a very awake, Jagger-dude.  

As you lift your leg high into the air, concentrate on rolling your vertebrae off the floor one at a time as well as returning contact with the floor one vertebrae at a time.

If you find this helpful, please share with your friends and family!  And, if you'd like more of these videos, drop a comment or an email and tell me what you'd like to see more of.  I'm here to help you.  Yup - YOU!  ;-)