Having a fitness partner can motivate you to workout even when you don’t want to simply because you know someone is counting on you or simply because you have an audience. They can also motivate you to work harder then you would by yourself.
Today was a long day. I was stuck in meetings and out of my normal routine. At the end of the day I found myself wanting to eat dinner, have a nice cup of hot chocolate, and a nap. What kept me moving was knowing that I would be meeting two friends at the gym.
At 5:45 I walked in energized and excited to workout. To be honest, at 5:45 on my own I would have been dragging through the door. Ashley and Theresa definitely gave me an extra boost of energy.
Our workout, Fight Gone Bad consisted of 21 minutes of box jumps. jump rope, squats, sit ups, push ups and burpees.Our goal was to try to beat our previous score with each round and to give each round everything that we had.
Round 1: The box jumps begin and we are starting out strong! I am feeling like a champion and then all of a sudden Ashley yells out, "30 seconds." I begin to think to myself that we are only at 30 seconds. I am already out of breath and I am only halfway through the first exercise. The only comfort I have is that I know that the Frederick County YMCA has AED machines on had.
By the end of the first round I feel a burning in my chest. Although, the thought of another two rounds seems like torture, I know that I had a better round because the girls are here. Ashley telling me that I need to get more in and giving me time checks made me push further.
Theresa does her first round and I realize something about my workout gal that I have not known before. It turns out that Theresa is pretty good with a jump rope. We will be adding more of this into her workouts. WATCH OUT THERESA! She is zooming through that part of the workout and making it look easy. She is showing so much strength through her round. (My huge regret is not getting a pic of Theresa during the workout because the thought came to me after Theresa had to leave. I am sure that there will be many other photo ops)
Ashley hits it hard, as always,and takes off running. Pretty soon she is feeling the same way that we all feel. The first seven minutes seem long. With encouragement she preservers and keeps going even when her body is telling her to quit.
Round 2- Exhausting. We are fighting hard to beat previous scores but we are more and more tired. In many of our areas our scores do improve. Ashely pushes me and although I do not beat my push up score for round two I am able to get five more out before the buzzer because she tells me that she expect them!
Ashely begins her round and leaves her old box jump score in the dust. At the end I encourage Ashley to give me three more burpees. This sweet Oklahoma native,while fighting her way through the burpees uncharacteristically says, "That's all I got B##ch." However, she proves herself wrong and gives me one more burpee then she was asked to give, hence, beating her score.
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| Work it Ash! |
Round 3 is only bearable because of the encouragement and the fact that we are competitive by nature. Each one of us is thinking that we can not let the other one beat us. I have Ashley's burpee score in my mind and I am thinking that I have to get a least the same number if not more. Ashley's mind is thinking the same thing. This pushes us further then we thought possible and with the encouragement from each other we area beating each others scores back and forth and still genuinely thrilled at the success each of us has made.
When it is all said and done we are sweaty, exhausted, and unable to breathe. We are also proud, strong, and satisfied. Even though we have not regained our breath we make plans to workout again together because we bring out the best in each other.
It turns out that our workout, Fight Gone Bad, turned out to be Fight Gone Good because of the two strong women beside me.
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| Theresa and me at Ragnar. I needed to add her picture so you could see this strong diva! |
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