Sound easy, doesn’t it?
Three rounds of
I found this online, as a Crossfit WOD that can be done at home.
It was surprisingly tough.
I like it. Try it and see what you think.
I tried 9Round for the first time last week. It’s billed as “30 minutes of kickbox fitness.” From the website:
9Round is a specialized fitness center dedicated to serving clients who want a unique, fun, and proven workout that guarantees results. 9Round offers traditional “old school” boxing and kickboxing fitness programs that incorporate functional, interval, cardiovascular, and circuit training regimens. The programs consist of a proprietary system of 9 challenging workout stations developed by a professional fighter. 9Round delivers total body results in a quick and convenient 30 minute workout with no class times and a trainer with you every step of the way.
It’s an interesting concept. The premise is that you spend 3 minutes at each of 9 stations, with 30 seconds of active recovery between stations. Some of the stations are fixed — you always start with either jump rope or running in place with high knees and end with ab work) but many of the stations in between vary. The emphasis is on upper body work – lots of punching — and abs. Leg/glute work is fairly minimal.
So far, I’ve gone three times. One of the hallmarks of the program is that, unlike Crossfit (another metabolic-style fitness program), 9Round never uses heavy weights. I did kettlebell swings with a 5-pound kettlebell. By contrast, at Crossfit, the women’s prescribed weight (the weight you are expected to work up to) is anywhere from 35-54 pounds, depending on the number of reps. Obviously, this leads to a big difference in how much muscle a person can gain at 9Rounds. This is somewhat disconcerting to me, since I think having muscle is a good thing. No, I’m not talking about looking like the hulk, but nicely defined shoulders look great, in my opinion. And weight-bearing exercise protects bones.
The most disconcerting part of 9Round has been the trainer. The site claims that a trainer is “with you every step of the way.” Well, not so much, at least, not at the facility I went to. True, there’s a trainer there. He (mine have both been men) makes sure people are staggered at the stations, calls out a 30-second warning when the round is close to ending, and shows you how to do the movement at the start of the round. But after that brief show-and-tell, he does not offer any tips or corrections as you complete the round.
The metabolic side of 9Round is a mixed bag. Because I’ve allowed myself to get out of condition when it comes to endurance type exercises, I am currently feeling very challenged. Station 8 of the circuit is an eye-hand coordination movement with the speed bag (no cardio here) and Station 9 is abs (again, no cardio). So the actual metabolic part of the circuit occurs for just 24 minutes. On the plus side, because of the way the stations are laid out, it is a HIIT-style program, which leads to greater increases in things like fat-burning and VO2 max than low-intensity, steady state cardio. Also, the workout can be scaled so that both those just starting out and those already in shape can benefit.
The strengths of the program are two-fold: it’s quick and the workout changes. I can do almost anything for 3 minutes, so even when I’m at a station doing something I really don’t enjoy, I know I only have to get through 3 minutes and then I’ll be on to something else. And I like that it isn’t the same thing each time. I get bored easily and having things mixed up is nice.
My overall rating is a solid B and likely a B+ when combined with more traditional gym workouts. I am thinking of doing 9Round three times a week and the gym twice a week. I’ll keep you posted!
Update: I never went back to 9Round after my initial try, but I plan to in the next week or two. Stay tuned!
I was blessed with good glutes as a teenager, most likely from years as a sprinter. As I got older, though, maintaining a perky, upside-down heart-shaped rear view became more challenging. Conventoinal advice said that squats and lunges were all I needed to build and maintain great glutes but the problem was that I was already squatting and lunging and it just wasn’t enough. Over time, I came up with this list of best glute exercises. Do them once or twice a week and see what you think.
Single-Leg Hyperextension – If you’re just starting out, you may find it easier to do these with two legs, but the single leg version gets the best results. Pause briefly at the top of the movement for best results. And make sure it’s your glutes, not your upper boady, providing the muscle as you move up and down.
Glute Bridges – Make these harder by using a barbell or doing them one leg at a time.
Lateral Band Walks – Do these at the start of your workout to prime the gluites.
Sprints – If you can do these outdoors, great, but another option is on the treadmill. Using the treadmill allows you to adjust the incline to really target the posterior chain. Try sprinting for 45 seconds and resting for anywhere from 45-90 seconds. Repeat this cycle 6-8 times. Do it at the end of your routine.
Front Squats – Front squats do an even better job than barbell (or back) squats for shaping the glutes. Don’t expect to be able to use the same weight you use on a back squat.
There’s the list. Now, does this mean you should stop squatting, lunging and deadlifting? Of course not. But include two or more of the above exercises in your routine and to see positive changes in your glutes!
I eat the same thing for breakfast every day. A protein shake made with Jarrow chocolate protein powder, 1/2 a frozen banana, a teaspoon of modified citrus pectin, unsweetened cocoa powder, stevia, ice, and water. Once these ingredients are blended in my Vitamix, I have a creamy, chocolat-y breakfast drink. I also have a “side” of several vitamins and minerals. 
This is a low-calorie, high protein breakfast: 207 calories, 35 grams carbohydrates, 21 grams protein, and 3 grams of fat. Occasionally, I make it with almond milk, which adds another 60 calories or so.
But the reason I eat this every day has nothing to do with its caloric value. I just happen to like it. It’s the perfect pre-workout meal. I drink my shake at around 8am, then head to the gym at 9am. That’s just enough time for digestion to have gotten the liquid feeling out of my stomach while I’m still feeling energized. There’s nothing worse than being hungry at the gym. And when I get back from the gym, my post workout meal is similarly boring: another shake and a huge bowl of either broccoli or cauliflower.
I am a creature of habit.
So I was pretty intrigued to stumble on an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition under the on-so-exciting title Long-ter habituation to food in obese and nonobese women. What was interesting to me was that researchers found that boring people like me, who tend to eat the same things all the time, generally eat less than people who consume a more varied diet. In the study, 32 women ages 20-50, 16 of whom were obese and 16 of whom were normal weight, were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Group 1 was fed macaroni and cheese once a day for five days, while Group 2 received mac and cheese once a week for five weeks.
In both obese and nonobese women, daily presentation of food resulted in faster habituation and less energy intake [read: calories] than did once-weekly presentation of food.
So there’s something to be said for eating a fairly consistent diet. It appears that when we are exposed to a food repeatedly, we don’t eat as much of it. I can attest to this. I drink the same morning shake, day in and day out. But when I’m on vacation and my sche4dule is altered, I eat far more of whatever meal I have instead, even when I am making a healthy choice. In part, this is the nature of restaurant food, but it’s also partly due to the fact that when I’m exposed to many different tastes during a meal — and especially if those tastes move from savory to sweet — I am able to eat much more than if I had only one flavor on my plate.
Of course, within our diets we want to be sure we are getting a wide variety of nutrients. But this research suggests that if you have a favorite healthy dish, feel free to make it your go-to meal.
A friend and I were discussing diets recently and in the course of that conversation, I mentioned that I was invariably stunned when I visited Barnes and Noble and saw how many different diet books are on the market. Ditto inside women’s magazine. The reason for so many books, I argued, is that no one wants to present the unpleasant reality that dieting is actually pretty . It’s the execution that trips people up. In fact, I argued, all the dieting advice anyone would ever need can be condensed into 10 bullet points or less. He challenged me and I accepted. Here are my bullets (and I bet I don’t come close to 10):
Well, there you have it. How many bullets is that? I count nine. Almost seems as though I should add a tenth just to round things out.