Monday, March 31, 2014

Hey 21 ..I feel ya :)

Hey Fit Fam ...

Today is my birthday. I am not going to be the typical 30 something year old and whine and cry about getting older.  I promised myself I wouldn't beat myself up about a number. Why would I?

You always hear about people celebrating their "Forever 29". But you know what...I could run circles around the 18, 21, 24, 29 year old me!! So am I upset about being "older"? Nope not one bit! Am I sad that I didn't start trying to be THE BEST me that I could be at a younger age .. of course!! Do I have regrets and wish I could go BACK to a younger me and do things differently .. heck yea I do! But I'll take the 34 year me ANY DAY! So I will NOT let myself be upset about "getting older" (not this year anyway, lol).

There is no doubt that I would have spent my Saturdays at a bar back then. I'd be lying if I said I still don't spend some weekends in them from time to time. We don't have kids, my husband owned clubs for years and we love the social scene. BUT .. especially since I've started training hard .. most my Saturdays are spent ... at another bar :) Oh and hey .. look what song came on during my final days as a "33 year old"! The "Birthday Song" - haha - pretty fitting!



gotta have some hard tunes when I workout .. it's what pushes me to do "just one more rep". However .. one more isn't needed with these .. 21 is enough 

!!n honor of thinking back to my 21st birthday .. I'm sharing with you one of my FAVORITE leg exercises. They are called ...."21's".



21's  (I did mine on a Lying Leg Press. However these could work many different ways)

Starting from the bottom (heels to butt) ... push only half way up to the middle (little mini presses). 7 reps. No rest ... Then press starting from the middle (your ending spot previously) and push to the top (little mini presses) 7 reps. Then .. you guessed it .. no rest .. and go straight into 7 FULL presses. So .. from your butt .. extended all the way up.

7 .. 7 .. 7 = 21 reps .. hence the name! You WILL feel the burn!

* I keep my feet pretty wide. Much wider than what is pictured. I do 3 full sets of "21". Resting for 1-2 min between each set.  I sometimes super set these with 12-15 calf raises in between each set. But you don't have to super set. These are hard enough alone. *

A lot of you ask about super sets. What they are .. why I do them, etc. I blogged about that earlier this week - Click Here :)

Oh .. and "21's" don't only apply to legs! I do them on bicep day too! Same concept. Half up .. middle to top .. then a full curl. The big thing with these is they are REALLY easy to do wrong. Especially if you haven't built up your bicep strength yet and no one is there to tell you that you are doing it wrong.  Elbows have to be in ..  you can't use your body to help you .. you gotta focus on using your bicep only. I don't put much weight on there at all (5-10 on each side) so the bar alone is likely enough and may even be too heavy for beginners? DO NOT judge this based on your first couple reps. It gets tough .. trust me! I sometimes do this mixed in with a super set (Of a different body part. It would be tough to super set all bi's on this in my opinion), doing it my typical "three times". Other times I do this as my LAST workout and usually only do ONE set .. kind of a BAM at the end when I would normally be done! Burrrrrrrrrn baby .... burrrrrn!!!

Eat Clean. Train Dirty. Happy 34th to ME :)
Stacy


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