Inspiration

House Hunting Garage Gym Style

August 26, 2011 6 Comments

Have you ever gone house-hunting for a home to rent using nothing but Google Street View and Craigslist? Me neither… that is up until 3 months ago in a state of near desperation. I can’t count how many times I called up a homeowner a mere THREE days after they posted a listing to hear, “Oh, the house has already been rented.”

So, when I came across a listing for a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house, I pounced on the opportunity to rent it simply because:
1. It had a yard for my dog.
2. It had a 2-car garage for the Garage Gym of My Dreams
3. It had no HOA so we can drop all the weights we wanted.

We knew NOTHING about this Colorado house other than what we could discern from Google Street View. Yet, faster than you could say “3…2…1…GO,” we had called the property manager and filled & faxed out a renters application simply because we NEEDED that 2-car garage!!!

And now that we have the space, here is what we’re envisioning: A power rack, barbells and weights, a platform, rings, pullup bar(s), kettlebells, box jumps, a small area for mobility WOD and foam rolling…
The real challenge will be deciding which equipment we can do the most with given the small amount of space.

View From Garage Door

Please note: There is no room for a car in the 2-car garage! In fact, The Rules are that only the following may be stored in the garage:
- Bikes and boards used for transportation
- Gym equipment
- Tools used to fix bikes or make gym equipment

Top View

And here is the rest of the Garage Gym Wishlist. The power rack, barbells, and weights are absolutely essential. If I can do nothing else in that gym, I atleast need to be able to squat, bench, deadlift, press, and powerclean. Next would be a set of gymnast rings – most everything I can do on a pullup bar, I can do on rings and then some. My last essential item is a sled for conditioning… I already have cash set aside specifically for it! I think I’ll be able to do A LOT with just these items. But, just for fun here are the other things we dream of eventually having:

If you have a garage gym, I’d love to hear what your Essentials are. What items do you use the most? The least?

When Dream Board Meets Log Book

August 23, 2011 1 Comment

Meet the single most important “gear” I own that I simply will not workout without: my log book.

Since I’m half good at fractions, I like to describe my log book this way: It’s half dream board, half inspirational quotes, half food porn pictures, half goal-setting, and half “Holy crap! I completed a Navy Seal workout in 2008?! WHY?”

The Navy Seal Upper Body Pyramid is a pretty cool workout. You should give it a shot. But, no kipping allowed!

I can’t stress the importance of writing workouts down. I like to know where I came from and I really like to know where I’m going… most of the time. Unless you’re some psycho genius (who isn’t, right?), you’ll never remember all the workouts you did, the amounts of weights you lifted, the number of miles that added up, and all the little-but-equally-important victories other than PR’s. Rippetoe put it best when he wrote, “All people who are serious about their training write down their workouts.”

Any notebook will do, really. But if you have time to kill during an episode of Weeds, here’s one way to make your log book a little more… custom. Materials needed:

1. Go through a stack of mags, ads, newspapers, etc and cut out pics and quotes that inspire or motivate.

2. Glue the quotes and images onto the covers of your book. This is essentially like converting your log book into a Vision/Dream Board so anything goes.

3. Allow to dry.

4. Slap on a coat of Mod Podge. (Mod Podge is usually found in the craft sections of stores. It comes in a gloss, matte, even sparkles. Pick a flavor and have fun with it.)

And that’s it! Here’s what the back of my log book looks like. I’m kind of a crunchy outdoorsy girl so I included more than just workout related stuff.

I also printed out and glue’d into my book Rippetoe’s Strength Standards Chart as well as a few Percent RM Charts that allow me to estimate how much I should theoretically be able to lift based on how many reps are prescribed. Happy Lifting! (You do lift, right? Yes, even women benefit greatly from weight training. Just throwing that out there!)

Filed Under: DIY Tutorials, Inspiration Tagged With: DIY, exercise, fitness, journal, log book, notebook, weight training, workout book

Reebok CrossFit Games 2011

August 12, 2011 4 Comments

The move to Colorado was delayed a week in order to attend the annual CrossFit Games… actually, it’s called the Reebok|CrosssFit Games now. Formality aside, I know it as the convention of fit hard-bodies. Everywhere you looked it was traps! deltoids! six-pack abs! and solid bums! made for oly lifting, sprinting, weighted pullups, and sled-pushing.

The energy was INFECTIOUS. It’s kind of pointless to write about it because it’s just one of those events you just have to experience. Not only could you watch these insanely fit athletes compete in an arena (yes, kind of like Spartacus but no one literally dies), but there was also bull-riding, stand-up paddling, coaching from Rob Orlando (yes, please,) workout gear shopping, jump-rope fitting, and CrossFit web-celebs to be met. In fact, it was at the CrossFit Games that I got to reunite with Joe Petrusky from CrossFit Love and hilarious and witty blogger, Fitbomb. For anyone that didn’t know, Fitbomb’s wife is the culinary genius behind NomNom Paleo (sometimes when I’m hungry, I go to her blog and drool at the pictures.)

Ryan "@deckerra" Decker, Joe Petrusky (owner of CrossFit Love), and me.

Henry "@fitbomb" and me!

Anyway, here is a very, very, very small collection of images. I got a little shutter happy (I’ve seen 6-pack abs before just not THAT many all in one location.)