Workout Challenge Of The Week: The Squat Pyramid

O.k. you guys, here is the deal, every other week we will have a workout challenge posted for you guys to do during the week. This way you can get some extra calorie burning exercise in! They will be simple challenges that you can incorporate into day, maybe even at work.

So, for this week I want you all to do squats.  This is perfect because you can do them anywhere, even at your desk! But here is the twist, you will need to pick a number (that has to be 15 reps or higher) and then every day you must complete 5 more squats for 7 days straight.  So, you start with 15, then tomorrow 20, then 25, and so on.

If you aren't sure how to do a squat or if your form is correct please refer back to the Move Of The Week: The Squat.


Good luck this week you guys and remember that we are always here to help out. :)
Committed to your health and fitness,
Justin and Angie LaPointe

Great Total Body exercise and ab toner!

We all are rushing around these days finding time to work out hard to come by or we feel too tried to workout. BUT there really is no excuse for not working out if your workout only take 20 minutes or less. This is done by combining exercises that work large muscle groups. As mentioned earlier, one of the best is the Burpee but surely there are other exercises that can have the same affect? Well, there are. The Inchworm is another great total body exercise that will work all the major muscle groups and help tone and strengthen your core.

The inchworm is done by starting out on your feet standing. Then you bend forward at the hips with your legs straight, as best you can, and place your hands on the floor in front of your feet, engage your core and slowly walk your hands out till you are in a push up or plank position. (Now, if you are wanting to make this move more advanced add a push up, refer to number 4 on the diagram.) Pause for a second in the plank position, make sure the hips and back are in line with with floor and that they are not sinking. Then walk your hands back towards your feet keeping your core engaged still. Then repeat this move 10-15 times.

Try to insert this exercise into your workout routine to add some spice and to make it more challenging. Hope that you all have a wonderful week!

Committed to your health and fitness,
Justin and Angie LaPointe

Move Of The Week: The Plank Row

We are on our third exercise already! How exciting!  It looks like you all are enjoying the  Move Of The Week as much as we are. Anyways, to the point of the matter, the new move for this week is called the Plank Row.  Now, the reason this exercise is so great is because you are exercising and engaging your back muscles, your core and even your legs by holding plank. In addition to this, the move will also work on your core and arm stability because at one point you are only holding yourself up with one arm!

To start, get down on the floor in a plank/ push up position. Your core is tight (belly button is drawn into the spine), shoulders are active and your hips are level.  Now, slowly lift one hand off the ground and bring it to your shoulder to tap it and then slowly bring it back down.  You can also do this from a kneeling position if you are a beginner, progress to being on your toes, and then finally being on your toes, adding a pair of dumbbells to help add resistance is the final progression.  The final product of what this move should look like is in the picture below.

For some, this may be a new move, or for others they are advancing this exercise to make it more challenging.  Either way, you need to start the plank row in your regime at lower repetitions to get a good gage of how you are doing with it based on how your form looks and how your body responds to it. So, starting with about 10 reps total (5 on each side) and progress your reps from there.

Hope that you guys enjoy this exercise as much as we do and good luck with this week’s new move. Let us know what you think about it  and how you did! Have a great weeke eveeryone.

Committed to your health and fitness,

Justin and Angie LaPointe

The BEST Total Body Exercise

So, out of all the exercises that are out there we all want to know which one is “The Best Total Body Work Out.” One that is efficient, portable and something that you can do anywhere and that will work everything. In one word that exercise would be called: THE BURPEE. Now, for those of you that don’t know about the Burpee, we have added a picture to show you  what it looks like so that you can see just how amazing this exercise is, but also, it works almost EVERY muscle in the body! That is pretty awesome considering just how many muscles there are in the human body.

It will work your legs, arms, core, and get cardio too! What more could you ask for? It will build you strength and will have you burning a bunch of calories too help you lose weight. Adding this into your workout routine will also help make things more challenging to help you progress to the next level or even just spice things up a bit.

How do you do a Burpee, you ask? Well, take a look at this image below to see how.

The person shown here is hopping into a push up position and hopping their feet forward and then does a jump when she comes up. You can vary the difficulty of this move by adding a push up or having your stomach touch the floor and then press yourself up to come up. For first timers or beginning level exercisers, doing the hop into the push up position would be best till you get used to it. It will be more than enough to make it challenging and difficult. Now, we challenge all of you to try and do just 10-20 of these little guys in your workout or just try it out at home.  They don’t take up much space at all. So there is NO reason not to do them! Before you know it, you will have a love/hate relationship with them and you will be amazed at how they work everything in your body.   Just be sure, like with any other form of exercise that you stretch out after you are done.

Committed to your health and fitness,
Justin and Angie LaPointe