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5 Spring Training Tips

The season of spring has finally surfaced! Hurray! To celebrate the sunshine and warmness, here are some workout tips to spring into action at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club.

  1. Get Heated
    Rev up your heart rate with a dose of intense cardio. Fire up your metabolism.
  2. Explore New Movement
    Don’t continue to repeat the same movements over and over again. Invite some newness into your routine. Static movement is a great way to switch things up. Practice static holds in plank, low plank, low lunge, or wall squat. Feel the burn.
  3. Spice/Switch Things Up
    The winter months can create a lot of mental, emotional and physical stagnation. To snap out of that winter lethargy and boredom, reinvent your workout method. If you’re always on the bike, get off the bike and hit up the treadmill. If you are always concentrating on strength and overlooking cardio, look for new ways to get your heart rate elevated. If you have been overlooking stretching and flexibility, get yourself to a yoga class at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. If you are constantly involved in strength training, explore fresh variations on squatting, lifting, and lunges. Spice things up! Get out of your comfort zone!
  4. Fuel and Hydrate
    Stock up on lots of greens and drink loads of water to improve your body’s alkalinity and cell vitality. Drinking half of your body weight per day is highly recommended.
  5. Detox
    Spring – a season of new beginnings and renewal – is a wonderful opportunity to detox. One sure way to rid yourself of toxins is to sweat. Take a crazy sweaty yoga class at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym to release any bodily toxins that you are holding onto. Another way to detox is via diet. As the days get warmer, it’s important to eat more cooling, light foods. Introduce more salads and fresh fruits and veggies into your diet. Take a break on all the heavy, comfort foods of winter. Favor refreshing, enlivening foods.

Happy spring, Greenville gym enthusiasts!

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Monday WOD: Barbell Challenge

Are you looking for a new challenge to integrate into your typical Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym routine? Do you want to spice things up and step up your workout a notch? Are you on the hunt to achieve some new, impressive results? If so, I may have just the thing for you.

Fitness expert and innovator, Krissy M. Cags, is the inspiration behind this intense, butt-kicking barbell workout-of-the-day (WOD).  Kick-start your week at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym with this strength-building, leg-burning, and confidence-boosting WOD. Throw yourself into the fire. Feel the burn. Confront the challenge.

Let’s get you started.

  1. First, load up the barbell with an appropriate weight. Krissy uses 95lbs. You will sustain this weight during the entire workout, so make sure that you load up the barbell with something reasonable. All set? Okay. Let’s go.
  2. Thrash out 20 thrusters.
  3. Hash out 20 sumo deadlift high pulls.
  4. Pound 20 push presses.
  5. Kill 20 back squats.
  6. Hammer out 20 front squats.

This WOD is no joke, right?

This barbell challenge is for time. So, run-through the WOD as quickly as humanly possible. Note: Each time you break the 20 reps there will be a 5 burpee penalty. Ouch. Do the reps unbroken and no burpees for you. Spare yourself the added pain.

Go beast all over this challenge the next time you hit up the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. Sure, it is going to be tough. Yes, it is going to hurt. All of this discomfort is a good thing, though. By challenging yourself, you have the power to inspire meaningful change. The only way to progress with your fitness and health goals (and life goals!) is to let go of excuses, fears, and anything holding you back and throw yourself into the fire. You must face the challenge head-on.

Good luck Greenville gym enthusiasts! You got this.

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Monday WOD (Workout of the Day)

Next time you hit up the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym, your goal will be to make love to the squat rack. Yeah…you heard me right.

Here’s one solid, squat rack WOD for you to tackle and tear up:

  • 30x Back Squat
  • 15x Push Press
  • 10x Pull Ups
  • 20x Front Squat
  • 15x Push Press
  • 10x Pull Ups
  • 10x Overhead Squat
  • 15x Push Press
  • 10x Pull Ups

Don’t have the slightest clue about these various squats? Don’t know how to properly perform a back squat, front squat, overhead squat, or push press? No worries. YouTube to the rescue!

Tune into these YouTube videos with one of my favorite fitness inspirations, Elliott Hulse – a pro strongman and strength coach – to master the front squat.

Click here to learn the correct form. After you’ve mastered that, check out Elliot’s video for a juicy tip to make your front squat that much stronger. Oh yeah.

Next, to master the back squat, check out this CrossFit back squat demo.

To learn the overhead squat, click here for a CrossFit overview of overhead squat basics.

Finally, receive detailed instruction for the push press in this CrossFit push press video.

It’s incredibly important to learn the correct technique and form before you crank out this squat rack workout at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. Get real familiar with the proper movements to avoid uncomfortable sensations in the body, pain, and potential injury.

In terms of weight, keep it light to start. If you don’t know where you are at for weight, consult a Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym personal trainer. For all fitness related questions, don’t hesitate to ask our athletic trainers and health specialists. The fitness team at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club is here to help you!

Don’t fear the squat rack. Make it your friend. Get intimate with it. Make love to it.

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New Year Countdown: Burpee Challenge

Happy New Year’s Eve to all of you Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym enthusiasts! In celebration of the impending New Year, I would like to share a burpee challenge inspired by trainers at Rise Above Fitness. I’ve tweaked the burpee challenge a bit to observe the lucky number 13. Run through this challenge to continually remind yourself that 2012 is soon to be a period of the past. Goodbye 2012. Enter, now, the year of 2013.

Complete this brutal burpee challenge to start off the New Year with a bang and detox from all of the holiday indulgences you ingested. This burpee challenge is an opportunity for you to kill two birds with one stone: To (1) cleanse and (2) commemorate the New Year.

Before you give this challenge a whirl, retrieve a timer to record the amount of time it takes you to brave this burpee routine at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym.

For this challenge you will need a weight bench, a pair of dumbbells, and a wall ball. Consult trainers at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym if you have questions concerning the exercise equipment.

2013 Burpee Challenge:

  • 13 Box Jump Burpees
  • 113 Double Unders
  • 13 Burpee Curl Presses
  • 113 Double Unders
  • 13 Ball Slam Burpees
  • 113 Double Unders

Give it a go. Push your limits. Sweat out the sweets and stagnation of the holiday season. Set the New Year on fire with a fierce Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym session.

Disclaimer: You will most likely feel a bit sore starting off the New Year upon completion of this challenge. That’s a good thing! It means your muscles got some sweet action. It means you are starting off the New Year boosting your strength and supporting your health. Props to you!

Enjoy your final day of 2012. Make your last workout of 2012 at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym count.

Finally, may you enjoy an abundance of health and strength in 2013!

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A Simple, Stimulating Circuit Challenge

‘Tis the season for feasting, indulging, and carbohydrate overload. If you’re already feeling the sluggish aftermath of excess carbohydrate consumption, it might be time to surrender the sweets and sweat out the accumulating impurities.

Yes, put down your gingerbread cookies, peppermint truffles, fruitcake or whatever your seasonal weakness is and get yourself to the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym immediately. It’s time to get down with a simple, yet stimulating circuit routine, inspired by Krissy Mae Cags, creator of BAMFit and a Rise Above Fitness trainer.

This circuit will be super effective if you keep up the pace. Remain active and really push yourself during your time at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club.

Okay, here we go. Are you ready? Yeah, you are!

Circuit Challenge:

  • 5 V-Ups
  • 10 Push ups
  • 15 Box Jumps
  • 20 Weighted Walking Lunges
  • 25 Kettlebell swings
  • 400M Run

Circuit Training

Running through this circuit routine once would be far too easy. That’s why you’ll challenge yourself to run through it 5 times! I said it would be simple. I never said it would be easy!

If you want to realize results, you have to challenge yourself. What’s more, if you’re going to indulge heavily in holiday pleasures, you must be willing to train hard – to put in lots of gym time and lots of sweat.

Don’t let this holiday season break your fitness routine and hinder your goals. Stick to structure. Create a Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym routine. Commit to clean eating 6 days a week and reserve one day per week for indulgences. I can’t emphasize this enough: Restriction is not healthy. Restriction will definitely result in a massive splurge at some point. That’s why it’s more effective to strategically incorporate your splurges so they don’t get in the way of your fitness intentions. Remember: Moderation in all things.

Enjoy your circuit training workout at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. Most importantly, enjoy a happy, health-conscious holiday season!

Photo Credit: By Krissy Mae Cags via Instagram

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Two Ferocious Chest and Back Circuits

Next time you are at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym, destroy yourself with these killer chest and back circuits inspired by fitness innovators and educators Krissy Cags and Travis Baker.

First, enjoy this dirty, giant set of fortifying chest and back exercises:

  • Incline Barbell Press x 12 reps
  • Pull Up x 12 reps
  • Flat Bench Press x 12 reps
  • Bent Over Row x 12 reps
  • Dip x 12 reps
  • Reverse Grip Chin Up x 12 reps
  • Push-ups x 12 reps

Repeat this circuit 5 times, resting 45 seconds between rounds. Ouch.

Not going to lie, this will hurt. You’ll immediately feel like you put on some extra pounds of muscle after manning your way through this circuit beast. What’s more, you’ll definitely feel this one the next day. That’s a good thing! It means you successfully worked those chest and back muscles. It means you are moving forward, tackling your Greenville gym fitness goals and creating your best you.

To add more brutality to the fitness mix, here is a further series of exercises you can perform at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym to fire up the muscles of the chest, back, and more. Get ready and pumped to slam, swing, and slam some more.

Slam. Swing. Slam. via Krissy Mae Cags Webstagram

  • Rope Slams
  • Kettlebell Swings
  • Ball Slams

Fun, right? Right. You definitely gotta muster up some enthusiasm for this set!

Perform exercises as repeats of 40-30-20-10-20-30-40. That’s 40 of each exercise, 30 of each, 20 of each, and so on. We’ve got plenty of exercise equipment at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. However, if you can’t find some of the equipment necessary, ask a trainer or staff member at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club to help steer you in the right direction or modify the exercise. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

What’s the hold up? Transport yourself to the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. Suffer the burn. Generate a sweat. Strengthen and sculpt those chest and back muscles. Meet your fitness goals. Create your best version of you.

Kill it.

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8 Simple & Strengthening Yoga Poses for Gym Enthusiasts

Amidst your strenuous workout routine at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym, you probably don’t feel like you have adequate time and energy to get in that yoga or Pilates class that you have been pondering. That’s cool. I feel you. We can’t do it all. The good news: You don’t have to get in a full-blown yoga class to reap the powerful benefits of a yoga practice. Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym does, however, offer yoga and Pilates in the mind and body room. So, if a full-blown class is what your heart desires, we’ve got you covered. If not, get wild with this handful of highly accessible, total-body strengthening, and core-enhancing yoga poses while you’re working it at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club.

  1. High Plank
  2. Low Plank (Plank on forearms)
  3. Side Plank (Each side on forearm or arm extended)
  4. Downward Facing Dog (To amplify Down Dog, try bending your elbows at about 45 degrees so that they are hovering right above the ground)
  5. Dolphin (Downward Dog on forearms with option for Dolphin push-ups)
  6. Crescent Lunge (Each side)
  7. Boat Pose
  8. Bridge Pose

You can sprinkle these poses into your circuit-training regimen or practice them as a sequence post-workout. Hold each pose for 30 seconds to one minute. If you find this too easy, set your timer for 2 minutes per pose. The more the merrier. Also, after you have practiced these very fortifying postures, it’s nice to enjoy a few restorative poses to relax, cool down, and reboot the system. Try Child’s Pose and/or Butterfly Pose to experience a juicy stretch and release.

See that? Your Greenville yoga doesn’t have to be so hard to get in. Just hop on an exercise mat post sweat session, cycle through a few poses, and there you have it. Boom. Yoga made easy for Greenville gym going enthusiasts!

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Butts and Guts Challenge

I am about to propose a serious challenge for you to master next time you are working out at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club. Actually, challenge is an understatement in this fitness scenario. This “challenge” may be better described as a murderous, muscle-frying fight. One of my fitness gurus, Krissy M. Cags, is, again, setting the bar pretty high here; maybe, even, a bit too high. You gotta aim high, though, right? Right.

There is always room for advancement in your fitness regimen at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. There is NEVER room for boredom or stagnation. If you think your workout at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym needs a significant boost, here it is in the form of an energizing 1K exercise experiment.

This set of exercises is pretty simple, actually. The exercises are very straightforward. No funny business here. Yet, don’t get too excited or smug. I said simple. I never said easy.

Allow me to lay it out for you.

First, get in a short, cardio warm-up of 10 to 20 minutes tops. Then, here goes…

  1. Sit-up to Bridge Exercise – 1000
  2. Atomic Sit-ups – 1000

Yeah, that’s right. 1K of each exercise. Do it in whatever order you wish. Just do it!

If you are anything like me, you may prefer to ease your way into things. 1000 of each exercise may be a bit much right off the bat. I’d start out with 250. Then, jack it up to 500. Then, 750. Finally, 1000. See that? Baby steps.

Spice up your Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym time with this crazy challenge once per week. By all means, up the ante to twice (or more) per week if you’re a super hero.

The bad news? This will kill. The good news? You are well on your way to stronger, more defined abs and glutes.

Fight for 1K victory at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club. Go all the way to 1K!

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Secrets of Navy Seal Strength

Desire Navy Seal status strength? Well, it’s your lucky day. I’m about to unleash a circuit training routine that Navy Seals use for cardiovascular and strength conditioning and endurance building. Practice this circuit when you’re kicking it at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville athletic club. If you can make it through this, you are one mean, physical engine. If you can’t finish it all, no worries. You must start somewhere.

Here she is: 13 grueling exercises for you to master at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. If you practice this routine twice weekly, it’ll yield impressive, fortifying results. This is a circuit, so start from exercise #1 and continue through the exercises until you reach #13. Then, repeat again…and again. Some of the exercises call for 5 repeats, while others only 3 or 4. As you will soon discover, the intensity tapers off towards the end, so you’ll land smoothly.

  1. Push-ups :: 35 x 5 reps
  2. Sit-ups :: 40 x 4 reps
  3. Dips :: 30 x 4 reps
  4. Swimmers :: 15 x 3 reps
  5. Hanging Knee-ups :: 15 x 3 reps
  6. Hanging Obliques :: 15 x 3 reps
  7. Body Builders :: 15 x 3 reps
  8. Breast Stroke :: 20 x 3 reps
  9. Squats :: 30 x 3 reps
  10. Lunges :: 30 x 3 reps
  11. Pull-ups :: 15 x 4 reps
  12. Wide grip pull-ups :: 15 x 4 reps
  13. Close grip pull-ups :: 15 x 4 reps

Whew. That’s no joke.

If you’re in topnotch shape, you should be able to get through this circuit routine in roughly 45 minutes. Take your time, though. No one at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym expects you to be a hero. There’s no set time limit. Just keep moving! Try your best to make it through the entire circuit regardless of how long it takes you.

As you continue to practice this circuit, you’ll find yourself working your way through it faster. Most importantly, you’ll realize increased endurance, enhanced muscle tone, and greater cardio power.

Enjoy!

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Welcome October with a Full Body Fitness Challenge

It’s a new month. With the dawning of a new month, it’s a good idea to create some new fitness goals and, also, to spice up your Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym routine with some innovative workouts.

Let’s start with the first. List at least 5 fitness goals for the month. Maybe it’s to get to the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym more often. Maybe it’s to concentrate on a particular area of the body, be it the abs, arms, etc. Maybe it’s to try something new; perhaps a Yoga, Pilates, or cycling class – something unexplored and fresh. Whatever it is, write it down. Post it to your fridge. Make the list visible. Make the goals accessible and achievable. No one expects you to gain 30 lbs. of muscle in 30 days. Although, this is supposedly possible according to fitness expert Tim Ferriss. Let’s aim at something more reasonable.

Now that your list is complete, let’s explore a quick workout you can churn out during your time at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. This routine, entitled The Special K Routine, is inspired by Krissy Cags, personal trainer at Rise Above Fitness and Creator of BAMfit. Do each of the following exercises for 25 reps, then run through it 5 times. Ready, set, work it.

Exercise 1: Sit-up to Bridge. Move from a full sit-up to a full bridge. Lift the hips all the way to the sky and engage the gluts with a tight squeeze. This movement targets the booty and the tummy, so you’re killing two birds – butts and guts – with one stone.

Exercise 2: Dive Bombers. Begin with your hands and feet on the floor and your hips raised, so your body resembles an inverted V. Lower your shoulders, then glide your chest forward. Send your chest in between your hands and then up toward the ceiling. Then, reverse it. Bring your hips back toward the ceiling. That’s one. 24 to go. Ouch.

Exercise 3: 180 Squat Jumps. Simply do a squat jump, but up the ante with a 180-degree turn each time you jump. Hey now! Keep your chest open and your core engaged. Be sure to get low on each squat. Don’t cheat yourself.

Exercise 4: Superman to Hollow. This is a bit tricky. Start like superman (on your stomach), with your legs and arms lifted off the floor. Engage your core, then roll over to your back without letting your limbs touch the ground into a hollow position. On your back, in the hollow position, your arms and legs are still lifted and you have a space (hence hollow) between your lower back and the ground. Hold for two seconds after each roll. This exercise is no joke.

BOOM. There’s a quick, intense, full body challenge for you to master at the Pivotal Fitness Greenville gym. It will surely murder your muscles…in a good way.

*All photos courtesy of Krissy Cags.

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