Introducing Man-of-Honor Sam...

Sam and I met my Sophomore year at college when the new gym on campus opened and we both worked there part time.  We both worked the closing shift on Friday nights, and as you can imagine there weren't very many college students working out on Friday nights so the Friday night crew had lots of fun.  I think it's safe to say we didn't start regularly hanging out outside of work until I turned 21, but that may be a lie (it's all a blur).  Needless to say, he's my best friend and I can't imagine my life, never mind my wedding, without him.

In the time that I've known Sam he has given up on his graduate degree because working at the gym rekindled his love for fitness and he is now what I call a "fitness professional."  He teaches aerobics classes, he does personal training, Sam's life = fitness!  And yesterday I got to workout with him.

Let me preface this by saying I'm very sore today.  Workout DVDs are great and all, but they don't compare to someone looking at you and saying "if you're gonna throw up, go throw up, if not, let's get back to work."  And yes, I did almost throw up, I came very, very close to throwing up because Sam had me doing plyometrics.  And as Sam reminded me after I almost threw up, "plyo makes professional football players throw-up" so it was completely justified that I was working myself that hard.

Anyways, he had me do 8 different exercise.  First I did each for 90 seconds with a like 45 second break in between.  Then I did each for 60 seconds with like 30 second break in between.  And then I did each for 20 seconds without a break in between at all (this is much harder then it sounds).  Then, because almost throwing up wasn't enough, he had me do push-ups and pull-ups and squat presses.

First exercise: Chest Pass

This was done with a 10 pound medicine ball.  You just throw it, from your chest, at the trampoline, and although you shouldn't really "catch" it as it comes back, you should just cradle it and push it back to the trampoline again.

Exercise 2: Stepping and Jumping on a Box (I don't actually remember what this was called, but it sucked)

For this you just step up onto the box with foot one, then jump to switch feet on the box, and land with foot 2 on the box and repeat.

Exercise 3: Kettlebell Swing

This was done with a 20 pound kettlebell.  You start squatting with the kettlebell between your legs, then use your whole body to swing it above your head and stop with it above your head, then swing it back between your legs.

Exercise 4: Jump and Flop like a Fish (again, I don't remember exactly what this is called, but the name I gave it is quite descriptive)

You jump up in the air and go straight to the ground and lay completely down letting your arms slap the ground behind you then get up and do it again.  Flop like a fish...  Oh, and your arms should stay above you the whole time in between jumping and slapping the ground, don't put them in front of you.

Exercise 5: Medicine Ball Throwing Sit Up

For this we used a 6 pound medicine ball and you basically did a sit up keeping the medicine ball above your head, then when you were sitting you threw the medicine ball against the ground and caught it as it bounced back up and started again.

Exercise 6: Kettlebell Side Taps

For these I stood on a Bosu ball with a 12 pound kettlebell and twisted from one side to the other bending over to tap the kettlebell against either side of the base of the bosu.  These sucked because you really needed to balance well, but they didn't make me want to throw up, which was nice.

Exercise 7: Death (yes, that's what I'm calling this, second runner up for name would be vomit)

All you have to do for this one is jump up on the box with both feet landing flat on the top, then step down.  But this is the one that nearly made me vomit.  It is not fun.  And not easy.  But hey, if it were easy to workout everyone would be in perfect shape, right?

Exercise 8: Overhead Toss

For this we used a 10 pound medicine ball and just threw it as high in the air as we could and then caught it.  You don't have to squat or anything, but you can bend your knees to help throw/catch it.  I was afraid I was going to break my nose, but don't worry I didn't.  And you have to be careful to use both arms equally, don't favor one side or the other, keep it in the middle.

So there you have it, my killer plyometric workout.  I know not everyone will have access to all this equipment, but if you do, try the workout sometime!  It's a killer, but if Sam says it'll help me get Kelly Rippa arms, Gwen Stefani abs, and Pussycat Doll legs, I believe him.

PS - all of these are personal photos.  I really enjoyed getting to use the "Continuous Motion" setting on my new camera.  I did not enjoy sorting through the ba-jillion pictures it took to decide which ones to use.  And Sam was my model for two reasons.  One, by the time I remembered I wanted to take pictures for the blog, I was half dead and there was no way anyone was photographing me.  And two, Sam has better form then I do (yeah, he's a fitness professional) so I figured it would be better for him to demonstrate.

Anyone else have a really good workout this weekend?