Some days I wake up craving a workout on a fake turf field. I'm sure that sounds weird, coming from me. But here's the thing: astro turf is squishy, it warms in the sun, and the surface is predictably smooth. It's perfect for a barefoot workout (as long as it's not too hot outside). All this, and it's outside. Mm-mmm!

Location: Local Track (with football/soccer field)
Weather: Blue sky!
Equipment: We used the football sled, at the track, timer on iphone, and one stretchy band
Buds: Marty
Highlights: happy toddler on the grass, doing her own version of jumping jacks. Cute!

This workout uses the length of the football field. It's especially great if others are using the play field or the track because you can easily use the edge of the field

Start at the goal line ("zero" yard line)
20 jumping jacks
Run to 50 yard line
20 mountain climbers
Run hard to far end goal line ("100" yard line)
10 squat jumps
Sprint 100 yards back to start

The first time we did this we timed it, and it took us 2 minutes, 7 seconds. So we set the timer on my iphone for 2 minutes and did the next 3 sets with the goal of finishing before the bell. Fun!

After that, we took turns, one of us pushing the sled for 1 minute while the other person did lunges. A minute of sled-pushing is like sweat juicing!

Tip: you can also push the sled together with your bud. It's still plenty hard!

A set of variety abs moves and some rows with the band finished off the work out. 

Sandbagging hiding the difficulty of something early in an engagement- Wikipedia
Example: "Hey Marty, let's go do a sandbag workout! It'll be a piece of cake!

Location: Mount Baker Beach and Dose Staircase
Weather: Cool and overcast after a hot night
Buds: Marty
Highlights: Great Blue Heron sighting, hello from Peter, a lovely meditator sitting lakeside, soaking up the calm

Sand. It's such a wonderful thing.
Today we grabbed a couple of old duffle bags and went to the beach.  We lined our bags with kitchen garbage bags this time. Why? because if you don't, the sand will stream out bit-by-bit during the workout. This is not a big deal, unless that gritty feeling of sand in your hair bugs you.  It was an experiment that totally worked. Sand stayed in place, no escapees.

The best best best thing about sandbags, in my opinion, is that you decide how heavy you want them. Marty had done a huge run and core workout yesterday so she sanded up accordingly.  I wanted a bag that I could lift..barely. A bag that would make doing 8 military presses  grimacingly hard.

The Sandbag Workout
Holding sandbags as pictured, above:
10 Bent Over Rows
10 Squats
10 military presses
30 Lunges Down the dock (hugging sandbags)
15 squats moving sandbags from left to right
15 squats moving sandbags from right to left
30 squats, tossing the sandbags from between legs, forward
50 paces walking with bag at left side
50 paces walking with bag at right side
Wall sit with bag, 1 minute
Stairs with bag over shoulders
Top of stairs: bicycle crunches
Stars with bag over shoulders
Dropped bags, 
Sprinted to top of stairs without sandbags
Grabbed Bags to come down
10 military presses
Wall sit with bag, 1 minute
4 short beach sprints (so bags)
Dumped Sand
Out to end of dock: lunges and sit ups

Sand is such a wonderful thing.  Natural, available gear you can borrow anytime. So much better than unwieldy, expensive, in-the-way weights. So much more convenient than those weights you can only use at the gym (when it's open, when you can get there, when your dues are paid up, when somebody else isn't using them). Sand is beautiful! Why not pick it up?

 

Location: Hunter Boulevard, so grassy and lush this time of year!
Weather: Cool and overcast, perfect burpee weather!
Buds: 2, Teresa and Marty
Willing Buds: Zero!
High points: Hellos from Gretl and Erin!

Today we did a bastardized Tabata workout (What are Tabatas? Check out our Tabata video, here!). We used the Tabata timer to complete 9 sets,  followed by three sprints. The emphasis, as you can see, was burpees. In the end, we managed to do 112 burpees. OMG. I'm so proud of us!

Tabata Sets:
1.  All burpees
2.  twizzlers and hip thrusts
3. Burpees and push ups
4. Jane Fonda leg lifts (various)
5. Burpess and mountain climbers
6. Lunges and squats
7. Burpees and ski-skates
8. Jane Fonda leg lifts (you're welcome, Teresa!)
9.  All burpees

I don't want to belabor the point, but that's 112 burpees.  112. Did I mention, one hundred and twelve burpees? Right off the bat, I told Marty and Teresa that maybe I wouldn't give them the entire rundown of the workout up front, because really, who wants to know that they're about to do 112 burpees?

The Trick
Instead, I asked them (and myself) to do just 4 burpees for each 20-second period. A Tabata has 8 periods so we did 32 burpees in the first and 7th Tabatas and 16 in the 3rd, 5th and 7th Tabatas. Voila! 112 burpees!

Notes
It would be crazy to attempt 9 all-out Tabatas. In fact, we used the Tabata timer but paced ourselves through those burpees, doing just 4 per 20-second period. Also, we chilled by doing things like Jane Fonda leg lifts between sets. (Still, we did 112 burpees. Yes!)

Warning
Don't rush out and do 112 burpees. Also, it's important to do burpees right. Take a look at this from The New York Times.

Okay, folks! Here's the latest from my workout log. The Brutal Bowl is a hill sprinting workout that takes advantage of a quirk of Seattle geography: streets that run alongside a hill that, instead of running strictly parallel, form more of a bowl shape. This creates an awesome loop for running, because you have a long, intense hill on one side, An even longer flat recovery jog, and a rather steep, somewhat shorter recover walk back to the lowest point of that hell hill! It makes for a great HIIT workout. Marty and I did five of these and finished with a few sets of arm moves featuring a glorious view of a very sparkly Lake Washington. Whew!

Have you got bowls where you live? Try the Brutal Bowl and report back for some hearty congratulations!

Today's workout was such a doozy, I had to share! Tabatas really keep things interesting. If you haven't done it yet, download a Tabata timer on your smart phone, and go! This workout requires no gear at all. We used a park bench for dips, a wall for wall-sits, stairs and grass and that was it! SO MUCH FUN.