A Better Way with Kersten Kimura

A couple of weeks ago, Mari and I started a little health project over here. Mari’s goal is to get into a better shape that, for her, means improving her cardiovascular health, get stronger and alleviate the annoying back pain. I talked a bit more about her goals and our work in this post.

But it’s not only about physique, because she also wants to get back to her true, energetic nature!

I’m really proud of Mari. She is serious about her training, has worked hard and sees some results already. Physical changes take time, but she says that her mental energy and mindset are better already after two weeks of training. Here’s what she has to say:

Training in general has already affected positively to my mood and energy level. Both VERY important things to keep me motivated to continue!

That's important, because consistency is what the results depend on.

Get Creative

One very cool thing about Mari is her creativity. She works out outdoors, mostly in her backyard or even in the nearby forest. Isn't it cool?

The other day, she used pieces of log for her exercises. Why not? Anything works! Do the fun stuff. Never think you look weird when you are doing something different than others. Instead, be proud of it!

Don’t Let the Weather Stop You

The weather doesn’t matter either, if you really want to get your workout done. Let’s face it: It’s really easy to use the weather as an excuse to skip you sweat sesh. Don't let it happen.

Okay, it’s not fun to work out when it’s pouring rain or when the temperatures drop below zero, but if the conditions are not all that extreme, working out in fresh air is going to make you feel so much better than going to a stuffy gym.

And if it really is freezing cold out there, you can still do your workout. The comfort of your own home is always there. Most of the workouts in the plan that I have put together for Mari don’t require too much space, so even a tiny apartment will work.

This Week: Focus on Core Strength

In the past months, Mari has experienced some back pain, which she believes is a result of long hours of sitting in front of the computer. Her back and core area in general need to be strengthened, and that’s exactly what we will focus on this and next week’s workouts.

Not only though – the body is one unit and all its pieces are connected to one another. Sure, there can be focus on one thing, but it's always useful to add in at least couple of movements to strengthen other areas of the body too. I'm a huge fan on big compound movements and in general, try to incorporate them into every workout.

Today’s workout is divided into two parts. The main focus of part one is core and number two, lower body.

The Workouts

“No Crunches” Core Workout

If you are not a big fan of sit ups and crunches, but still want to strengthen the deeper core muscles, this workout is for you. You will be doing the following exercises:

3 rounds of

20 Plank Toe Touches

20 Dead Bugs

20 Bird Dogs

20 Plank Knee Touches

20 Split Leg V-Ups

Bonus: 45 seconds “Bicycle ride”

See the video for the details on how to perform each exercise.

 

“Strong Legs” Lower Body Work

The second part of the workout is short and sweet, consisting of only two exercises. You will be doing a combination of side and front lunges, followed by side kicks.

Make sure to do the kicks as fast as you can, and stay in a low position all the time to really feel the burn in your quads!

Here are the exercises:

Hi, friends!

Happy, happy new year to you! I hope this one will be fun and filled with great experiences. I don't have any resolutions for the next year, which is no different from last years.

My approach is simpler: I keep my goals in mind any time and act accordingly, doing what's best in a current situation and conditions. This is not always easy; not every day is awesome. But I believe that taking small steps and being very consistent in doing so will take me farther than huge resolutions that I have no idea how to achieve.

But let's switch gears and talk about warming up for kettlebell workouts. In particular, I'd like to talk about how to warm up the core.

Eqipment-free Warmup

Kettlebell workouts are great full body workouts. There are six basic kettlebell movements: Swing, Squat, Clean, Snatch, Press and Turkish Get Up. Out of the six, the swing is probably the most common. Anyone who has worked out out with kettlebells is probably familiar with the swing.

In the kettlebell swing, you use your legs, arms and core – the whole body. You should never start a kettlebell workout without a proper core warmup, because the movements are vigorous and skipping the warmup may cause a serious injury, especially in the back.

4 Movements for the Core

All of the following movements are

* equipment-free

* also great for strengthening the core

* perfect for low-impact workout days or rest days

* great for warming up before any other workout (not just kettlebells)

* easy to do at work to take a break from sitting – you just need a mat and they don't make you pour sweat!

Here are your four exercises:

1.Kneeling to Downward Facing Dog

This exercise warms up lower and upper back and shoulders. Also the calves and hamstrings get a nice stretch.

Begin on your hands and knees, wrists directly under the shoulders. Stretch your elbows and firmly press through the palms. Lift the knees off the floor, press the heels down. Press the floor away and push the hips up. Come back to the starting position and repeat.

2. Bird Dogs

This exercise warms up and strengthens upper and lower back and works on the ab strength.

Begin on your hands and knees, wrists directly under the shoulders. Tuck the abs in, then lift up left arm and right leg. Reach as far as you can with both, then come back to your starting position. Repeat to the other side.

3. Dead Bugs

This exercise is perfect for warming up hip flexors. This is extremely important, because kettlebell movements, especially the swing, requires a lot of hip work. Dead bugs also strengthen the abs and improve coordination.

Lie on the back, arms straightened up and legs in a tabletop position. Extend out left leg, bringing the right arm overhead at the same time. Come back to your starting position, then repeat to the other side.

4. Half Bridges

Just like the dead bugs, also half bridges are excellent for warming up the hip area. It's also a great lower back exercise. If you are doing it for strengthening purposes, feel free to add weights. For example, you can hold a dumbbell on your hips.

Lie on the back, feet on the ground, arms on the sides and extended out. Keeping the knees together, lift the hips off the ground and as you are coming up, squeeze your glutes. Come back to your starting position and repeat.

 

For preparing your core for kettlebell workout, do 2-3 rounds of 12 reps of each exercise.

Try the exercises out and let me know how you liked them!

 

 

 

Mari approached me couple of weeks ago asking if I would be up for helping her back on a workout track.

Mari has always been active, but past couple of years have been hectic for her: two kids in a row, full time job, running a blog, fighting with depression.. No wonder that there seemed to be no time for taking care of herself!

But as a mom, wife and starting entrepreneur, she knows that the better care she takes of herself, the happier her family and better her business. So she realized that she has to get back on the health track.

While Mari's goal is not to lose weight, she wants to get into better shape to be able to jog, take longer walks, and get rid of the pain in her lower back that had become together with a sedentary lifestyle.

Mari and I share common love for nature. We both also love working out outdoors with using simple equipment. Therefore, I was happy to help her to get back to the exercise routine again.

The Workout Plan

For the next six weeks, we will be working out three days a week. Each workout takes about 20-30 minutes.

Even though this is a Six Week Plan, we know that working out is a lifestyle, not a six week plan. This plan is meant to help her back on track. 

Here is an example of Mari's very first workout day, that I called “Back to Basics Bodyweight”.

Part 1:

3 rounds of 20 Walking Lunges, 20 Box Jumps and 20 Butterfly Sit Ups, followed by 100 meters run.

Part 2: 

3 rounds of 10 Push Ups, 10 Walking Burpees, 10 Triceps Push Ups, followed by 100 meters run.

As you see, these are all bodyweight exercises that can be done everywhere. Working out doesn't have to mean going to a gym and lifting heavy weights if that's not what you like – not at all!

It can be fun, minimalistic, using only bodyweight (we'll add in some fun equipment later) and still effective.

Follow us on Facebook to see how we are doing!

 

Hey, friends!

Greetings from Hawaii, where we will be celebrating Christmas and New Year's this year. I'm ready to get away from the low temps in California (one morning, it got as low as 39F!) and enjoy the warmth over here.

Here is what I'm looking forward to during this winter vacation:

* Plenty of outdoor activities, like swimming, hiking and paddle boarding.

* Couple of long-ish runs to explore the surroundings (probably up to an hour).

* Fun family time.

* Good seafood.

* Quick, short and sweet workouts. 

I actually got to work on my pistols yesterday as we were waiting for my in-laws to pick us up from the airport. Why waste time? Besides, I had zero interest in sitting down again after a 5-hour flight, so I got to work:

There is still a long way to go, but I'm glad to see and feel that I'm making a progress.

Heart Pumping Jump Rope & Med Ball Workout

Traveling means that my workouts will consist of mostly bodyweight exercises and that they are relatively short. Even shorter than usually, meaning less than 30 minutes. I'm not planning to go to a gym but take advantage of all the awesome outdoors.

There's just one piece of workout equipment that I packed with me: a jump rope. Couple of days ago I realized that it's time to polish my double unders again, because I will be doing a lot of them during next weeks.

So I took my jump rope and medicine ball outside to do this workout:

As I've said before, double unders can be the most annoying but also the most rewarding exercise. This time, I did pretty well. Other days, they don't feel good at all.

If you can't do double unders yet – no worries, do singles, or singles with doubles added in here and there. Just make sure to work hard.

Enjoy the workout!

 

I love using a little unconventional ways to build strength. I do use dumbbells and medicine balls in my workouts and I'm in love with kettlebells, but if I can try something different, I'm always up for it.

Working Out With Different Tools

For example, sandbag is one of the things I use in my workouts a lot. You can find couple of videos on what to do with sandbags here, here and here. If you are creative and love working on DIY projects, you can even make your own sandbag.

Next time when you are walking in a forest (I hope you do that!) and find a piece of log, use it. If you are used to work out with a barbell at a gym, go ahead and do the same things that you are doing with a barbell with this log.

You can lift it up or press it like you do with a barbell, but there's no need to limit yourself to those things only. Try something different. Throw it around, carry or roll it. Forget about having to “workout”, play instead. It can be more fun than you have thought when you are not afraid to get creative and get your hands dirty.

[tweet_box design=”default”]Forget about having to workout, play instead.[/tweet_box]

Any way of moving that makes you to use your full body is great. The more and the bigger muscles you recruit, the better workout you get. Pushing, pulling, flipping, dragging and lifting are awesome whole body exercises that put the majority of the big muscle groups into work.

Tire Flipping

Tires are another really fun tools to use for full body training.

Here's what I love about working out with tires:

* It's location-free. You can flip you tire in your backyard.

* It can be really heavy, depending on the tire, and it requires the full body to work.

* It's raw, dirty and a little bit ugly.

* For the last two reasons, working out with a tires makes me feel like a badass.

[tweet_box design=”default”]Tire flipping is raw, dirty and a little bit ugly.[/tweet_box]

Here's an example of me doing tire flips the other day.

You can use the tires for other exercises as well. For example, I combined it with Tire Box Jumps and elevated Clap Push Ups.

Tire Box Jumps 

Clap Push Ups

In Push Ups, placing the hands higher makes the exercise easier, which I needed after all those flips. My arms were tired! If you want to do a harder version, put the legs up and keep the hands on the floor.

To Flips, Jumps and Push Ups I added dumbbell Thrusters (no video) and ended up doing 5 rounds of the following:

Here's a short example of one round of the workout (without thrusters):

Keep Your Form Good

Today, let's talk about smart goal setting.

But let's start with a failure. My failure in mastering pistol squats, or, in other words, one legged squats.

As much as I would like, I can't give you a tutorial on how to do pistol squats. That's simply because I'm not able to do them myself either. I'm still working on my pistols and can do a couple elevated pistols, but to a real pistol squat, there's some hard work to do.

Why I Want to Do Pistol Squats

I consider myself a fit person, however, I was never able to do pistol squats. It seemed that everybody else can do it (that's what happens if you spend a lot of time on Instagram) so I decided: I want to be able to do that too.

I'm not too patient person and tend to want to get everything as fast as possible. As soon as I decided that I want to be able to do a pistol squat, I searched all the #pistols hashtags on Instagram, watched about million videos on YouTube, read several articles about them and put all the tips and tricks I found in use.

I started working on my pistols every day.

Insane Muscle Soreness

I got extremely sore! After the first day of practicing (too much) and getting super sore, I figured that the extreme pain is normal. And to some extent it is, because every new movement that your body is not used to makes you sore pretty easily. But I didn't give myself a rest but kept practicing and practicing.

My soreness didn't go anywhere but only got worse. I took a rest day but the next day was a sure pistol day again. And I got extremely sore again. It was even hard to walk!

I could do pull ups and get sore, I could do regular bodyweight or heavy squats and get sore, but the soreness I got from practicing pistols was a whole new experience.

At one point I got so sick of feeling sore all of the time so I stopped my pistol practice altogether.

Why I Failed and Why You Should Care

I couldn't keep up my routine because it wasn't sustainable for me. I tend to have black or white, all or nothing attitude that I've paid a high price for before. Instead of taking smaller steps and breaking my goal into smaller chunks, I wanted to get there immediately.

But my story with pistol squats is just one example. I see it all of the time when people, all of a sudden, decide that they will start their new, healthy life right now. They take it to the extremes by making way too many changes in their life all at once.

It's pretty common for someone who hasn't worked out recently (or at all), and hasn't ever paid attention to her diet, to set all or many of the following goals: 

* Go for a run / gym every day, seven days a week.

* Work out at least an hour every day.

* In a fitness class, do the hardest versions of all exercises.

* Obsessively start counting calories and / or macros.

* Never eat junk food again.

* Quit out all sugar.

* Stop drinking.

* etc. etc.

I get it. We want to get healthy, but it's important to take smaller steps, or otherwise, failure is pretty much inevitable.

Willpower is a great thing and it will help us a lot in the beginning, but even willpower has limits. No matter how strong the willpower is, we have our physical body to take care of too.

If our bodies crave food but we give them less than the need, they can't work properly. 

If our bodies are exhausted from working out every day and we won't give them a rest, they will shut down. 

If we never let us have treats, our minds will go insane. 

The end result is the same: We don't achieve our goals and beat ourselves up becaus...

Hi friends!

I'm happy to tell you that I have created my very first online course, High Intensity Medicine Ball Training for Fat Loss.

As you know, I love to work out with equipment that is easy to take with me to my outdoor workouts. Check out couple of items that I have in my home mini gym!

Why I Think You Will Like This Course

By following this course, you really will burn fat and gain muscle. Without a doubt, fat loss is the main goal of 80% of people who start working out.

Okay, many people say they want to lose weight, but what they actually want to do is to replace fat mass with muscle mass.

Here's one example of a high intensity fat-burning workout.

If burning fat and improving your body composition (less fat, more lean muscle) is your goal too, you may want to check this course out.

You save time. So many of us struggle with finding time for working out. You may know that my workouts are rarely any longer than 30 minutes, and the workouts in this course are no exception.

As the matter of fact, all the workouts here take 16 minutes to complete. You can find this three times a week, right?

It's affordable. If you take this course, you don't need to spend much money on expensive equipment or gym membership. All you need to get is a medicine ball, a wall to throw it against, and a mat, if you'd like to use that.

 

You can get a medicine ball on Amazon or any sports store for less than 20$. Here are two kinds that I have: rubber covered and leather covered balls. Both are good, but the rubber one is a little easier to grip when the weather gets rainy or you get sweaty (the last one will happen, take my word for it).

In general, I recommend 8-12 lbs ball for women and 10-14 lbs for men.

Also, choose a ball that is about a size of a soccer ball or basketball. The ones bigger in diameter (more than 10″) are hard to use for some exercises.

What Do You Get from This Course?

In this course, I will teach you 27 awesome medicine ball exercises that are put together into 9 workouts. There will be video demonstrations for all single exercises and workouts put together of them.

 

They are high intensity workouts, so they will rise your heart beat and you will break some serious sweat.

Be ready to work hard.

High intensity workouts don't last long (as promised, you'll be done in 16 minutes) but they are tough. Because of a great afterburn effect, high intensity workouts are awesome fat burners. You will stay in fat burning state for hours after finishing your workout.

To help you get the most out of it, I have made you a 6-week plan where I teach you exactly when and what kind of exercise to do during 6 weeks.

When you follow the plan and do the workouts as shown, you will lose fat, increase muscle mass and improve your endurance. How much your body will change is hard to estimate, because there are many factors that the results depend on. Good nutrition and proper less definitely help to maximize the results.

How Much Should You Work Out?

When taking the course, you should aim to do a medicine ball workout at least 3 times a week. That will take you less than 1 hour a week. Yes, a week, not a day!

I give you an exact plan to follow.

In the days between your workouts, choose whatever you want to do: Go for a walk, run, do yoga, ride your bike, or take a rest day if you need to. But you need to do at least three medicine ball workouts every week.

You can increase the results by getting good sl...

I moved to my new hometown El Cerrito a little more than a month ago and I'm really loving it here. The weather is bright and sunny most of the time, which allows me to exercise outdoors in the fresh air, basically whenever I want.

A luxury like this was pretty rare back in Northern Europe. They say that there is no bad weather, only the wrong clothes.

I agree, no excuses…right?!

That being said, it's just so much nicer to workout when the sun is shining. There's no need to dress in seven layers of clothes or jump over piles of snow (which, I must admit, is great exercise) that can stick around for up to five months.

In this post, I'm going to give you my overall favorite exercises and why I like to do them. Then I will show you my top two favorite places to workout in El Cerrito and some workout routines that I like to do there. 

As always, consult a physician to find out of these workouts are for you. I do workout pretty hard. 

Long Runs and Short Sprints

Running had taken a backseat in my workouts for a few months, but lately it has made a strong comeback. Longer runs keep my stamina high and sprints improve my speed/agility and are great for fat burning.

There are so many places to run around El Cerrito.

I've enjoyed hilly trail runs in Wildcat Canyon Park and Tilden Park, long flat runs with some awesome people along the Bay Trail and sprints on Ohlone Greenway or nearby hilly streets. There are many other great trails on East Bay, and I still have a lot to discover. 

But in addition to running, it's very important to vary your workouts and pay attention to strength and conditioning training too.

The Importance of Strength and Conditioning Training

There is no question about the importance of strength training and conditioning workouts. Lifting weights and getting your heart beat up help you to grow muscle and burn calories.

But strength and conditioning are not only about getting toned body, getting lean and burning fat. 

They're also about preventing injuries, strengthening your bones, keeping your metabolism functioning and improving your overall well-being.

This type of training is also about making your everyday life easier and more fun. You want to be able to climb those stairs with grocery bags in your hand, without it leaving you huffing and puffing.

You want to be an active and fun mom or dad who can climb trees and play football with your kids.

The great news is that you don't need to go to a gym to get all that, especially if you live somewhere where the weather lets you workout outside. That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm using every opportunity to take my strength and conditioning workouts outside.

My Favorite Places for Strength & Conditioning Workouts

Working out outside means no sweaty and musty gym air. While living here, my workouts have taken place mostly in two parks in El Cerrito: Cerrito Vista Park and Castro Park. I spend there about 30 minutes, which is the perfect amount of time to get in a great workout.

Cerrito Vista Park

Cerrito Vista park has a big field where I do my bodyweight exercises. There are also several stairs in the park that I've used to get my heart rate up.

In the following video I am doing my Fast Legs Workout. 

1. Narrow Jump, Wide Jump – I alternate the width of my stance on every other step of the stairs. 

2. Sprint – I run up the stairs as fast as I can!

3. Wide Squat Jumps – Starting from half jump position, I explosively jump up, landing into a wide stance.

4. Tap Toes – I alternate left and right foot as fast as I can.