Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Zuzka's Cardio Shred #6, Her Cheddar cheese Cracker Recipe, BR Day #44, Handstand and Pull up Tips

I LOVED Zuzka's Cardio Shred #6. A good well rounded exercise. I will even count the Kettlebell clean as a pulling exercise. :)
I'm dying to try the weighted Santana Jump Lunge. A cool looking exercise. And there are shoulder presses in this workout which is an exercise that I really like.
Kettlebell exercises are very technical. I made a comment once on Zuzka's FB page about her form on snatches and caused a bit of a stir.
This time I simply asked her on FB about the KB clean instead of saying that I think her form is somewhat off. But I DO think it is off. I know Zuzka lovers get so PO'd when I criticize her form. This is NOT to piss you off guys, OK?
I know when I work out with KB's my own form suffers when I get tired. I'm not claiming to be perfect, but I think we learn from her and form should be commented on if need be.
I was taught that the bell should stay above the knee joint when it passes through the legs. Zuzka lets the bell go lower - which I thought was bad on the lower back. Did anyone else happen to notice?
Regardless I liked this routine a lot minus the punching exercise. But that's me - I just do not care for that type of exercise.

Zuzka posted a cheddar cheese cracker recipe that was to replace Cheez-Its. This cracked me up. Cheez-Its are so damn addicting LOL. But the recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups of Almond flour. That is almost 1000 calories! Not to mention the rest of the ingredients. Not that you would eat all of them in one sitting, but it still seems overly caloric to me. I think you could eat the whole box of Cheez-its for 1000 calories.
Using Almond Flour can be a controversial, and here are 2 articles debating the topic. You can decide for yourselves what you make of it.

http://empoweredsustenance.com/avoid-almond-flour/
https://gapsdiary.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/5-reasons-that-blog-on-avoiding-almond-flour-missed-the-mark/


BR posted Day #44: Yup, more push ups.  More HIIT bar and weights today. I really liked the cardio move and I liked the squat and lunge pressing moves, but I think a squat press into 2 reverse lunges leaving the bar overhead instead of MORE pressing would be better. (IMO) That's how I would do it. It's a GREAT core exercise as well as legs. Between the push ups, mountain climbers and pressing again I feel it is overload on the shoulder joints. Not if you are only doing one workout, but if you are doing all of them and repeating them day after day, it seems excessive. I expected more jumping lunges and jumping squats in these workouts overall. Not a bad thing or a good thing, but since the beginning it does seem to be a bit more upper body dominant.
The little burnout at the end was ok - more push ups! Lisa looked like she was even sick of push ups. HA! The ab exercise looked like a killer.
I've got a laundry list of things I want to try this week. I teach classes so that actually gets in the way of my progress sometimes. There are only so many hours in the day, and depending on the class I teach I don't want to workout anymore and overdo it. I need to take someone else's class for a change. Typically twice a week I get to do my own thing, and I've got to pick and choose. I usually choose the heavy weight lifting because I cannot incorporate that into my classes. Some of the other stuff I can - I just need to try it out first.

Are any of you working on pull ups and need some tips? Check out this article from one of my absolute favorites!
Bret Contreras: http://bretcontreras.com/want-chin-15-tips-improve-chinning-progress/
Hopefully you will find something in there for your own progress.

Secondly, Zuzka sometimes throws handstands into her workouts. Need some handstand tips? Gold Medal Bodies is a great site, and they have a FREE handstand tutorial that you can download:
http://gmb.io/#info
Just make sure to scroll to the bottom of the page to see the download option. Give it a read and I would love to know what you think.

I personally think pull ups and handstands are exhilarating to practice and feel like you've really physically accomplished something. I feel that way more about these exercise than jumping lunges, jump squats or burpees. Pistols would have to be on my list too.

Enjoy your workouts!

I've gotta go a little extra hard tomorrow at the gym after all the ice cream cake I had today for my daughter's bday. But seeing her little face light up was worth it.


10 comments:

  1. well happy birthday to your daughter!!! shes a beautiful girl. i remember around july4th she had a recipe for cookies which were delicious but your right on account of that i ate all of them they made me really bloated and when i looking up almond flour and saw how many calories were in it i knew why. those crackers do look delicious but i know id eat them all

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    1. Thank you! I just adore my little girl. :)
      Yep - I'd probably eat them all too.

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  2. Happy birthday to her! She is so gorgeous :) And you are a great roll model for your kids

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  3. Happy birthday princess :-) great post :-)

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  4. Happy Birthday to your beautiful daughter.

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  5. I like the looks of the Cardio Shred. Can't wait to try it. But I definitely don't like how Zuzka always makes fun of the gym training. I happen to love this type of training as well as short HIIT workouts. For me, going to the gym is the best part of the day three days a week.

    Happy birthday to your daughter :)

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  6. Happy birthday to your daughter :) This is so special day for moms :)

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  7. Thanks everyone for the bday wishes for my daughter! :)

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  8. All the negative stuff about almond flour for the ‘health’ reasons is nothing I have ever been concerned about. The reason why I don’t use it much is due to how many calories it has! If a person has really, really good self-control over portion size (ie: Zuzka!), I think it’s a great option. However, if you are like me and have a hard time sticking to a small portion, then I simply can’t have these treats around the house (whether they are the regular high carb in ingredients OR the low carb/high fat variety). For my husband and me, we only allow healthy stuff in the house BUT once a week I go out and enjoy a big meal of whatever I want  It’s not likely we will binge on chicken, cottage cheese, plain greek yog etc haha.

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    1. I'm not a good portion control person either. I like my food in large quantities, so some things I simply cannot have in the house!

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