Category Archives: Apparel

WODs Recaps

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It’s official. I am sipping the CrossFit Kool Aid. And it tastes miiiighty fine.

I really hit a groove this week, and decided that I am thoroughly enjoying this new way of working out that is challenging me and kicking my ass. I’m learning something new every time I walk in the door. All of the coaches are super knowledgeable, but I find myself wanting to record Austin every time he’s leading the WOD. He spends the first 10 minutes walking you through everything, explaining why you’re doing certain movements, what muscles are working together, what the benefits are, how to scale the movements back, how to check your form. It’s fascinating and really makes you appreciate the sport of CrossFit more. Sidenote- since I’m such a newbie, I didn’t realize what a big deal Austin is in the CrossFit world. He’s sort of a beast, and I feel really lucky to be learning from him.

So the WODs. I went Thursday morning. I checked the WOD the night before and saw that it was box jumps and muscle ups. I had no idea what a muscle up was, but I like box jumps, so that was exciting. So then I tried to do a muscle up. And THAT was pretty hysterical. Holy balls. HOW do people do those things?! Olympic athletes make it look so easy!

Oh ya know, just hangin’ out. (source)

Anyways, the WOD was as follows:

Warm Up
Team Sled/Plate Pushes

Skill
Muscle-ups And High Box Jumps

WOD
10-8-6-4-2 Rep For Time:
Muscle-up
Box Jump (40″/30″ Box)

After Bash
Max Distance Med Ball Throws


I ended up using a 24″ box. We did a few practice rounds on the 30″ one, and I failed half of the times, and really did not want to risk f*cking up my legs and face planting into a box. Not a good look. The 24″ was really challenging anyways. The muscle ups were another story. I did “transitions” which are basically doing the motion of a muscle up, but on the ground, and then jumping up at the end. I’m not explaining that correctly, because it was a lot harder than it sounds! I was SOO sore this morning, but I liked it. I was happy that my abs were sore, because Austin kept saying “use your midline” and I wanted to cry because everything else was hurting minus my abs. My favorite part of the workout was the end- and not for the obvious reasons of me practically dying. There were a couple of guys, absolute beasts, who were doing the full muscle ups and 40″ box jumps. Naturally, it took them a little bit longer than the rest of us plebs. But we all gathered around the last two guys who were giving it their all to finish. They would each do 1 muscle up, then fail on the second one. It happened a few times. You could tell how hard they were trying, how hard they were pushing themselves. We were all cheering, clapping, urging them on. Motley Crue was blasting. They both ended up finishing. It was so inspiring and motivating. I love the team mentality that comes with CrossFit. Goosebumps.

Enough emotions. I’ve been so emotional this week! WTF? Moving on. Hot pink and black. The bane of my existence. Reebok sent me one of their new tops, the Poly Play Dry tank, and I was pleased to see that it went perfectly with the rest of my Workout Barbie look. I was pleasantly surprised by this tank- I’m used to working out in skin tight spandex when I’m spinning (sorry for the mental image) and this one had a looser fit, which I wasn’t used to. But I loved it. It was really light weight and airy. I sort of forgot I was wearing a shirt after awhile, which means that it wasn’t clingy or super sweaty. And did I mention it was hot pink? Win.

I dragged my sore ass out of bed this morning to catch a beautiful sunrise and another killer WOD:

“Tabata This!”

Tabata Row
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Squat
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Pull-up
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Push-up
Rest 1 minute
Tabata Sit-up

The Tabata Interval is 20 Seconds of Work Followed By 10 Seconds of Rest For 8 Intervals.
Tabata Score Is The Least Number of Reps Performed in Any of The Eight Intervals. Unit For The Row Is “Calories”.

Oh man. This was actually one of my favorite workouts so far. I was drenched in sweat, and I like to be constantly moving. I did well with the squats, sit ups, and the rowing, but the pull ups and push ups were a struggle. I’ve never been able to do a full pull up in my life, so I used a resistance band, but even that was hard. And we did chest to floor to full extension on the pushups, something I’ve never done before, and holy balls. I was shaking like a crazy person the whole time. Clearly, I need to work on my chest and build up some strength there. Setting goals, people. Setting goals

The 6:30AM crew. Love working out with these guys and girls, such a strong group of people. Missed that “wear all black” memo though.. womp womp. Image via Reebok CrossFit One.

CrossFitters- what’s your favorite movement/WOD to do? Any tips for attempting to do a pull up?! How’s everyone getting after it this weekend? I’m teaching tomorrow morning, then am having myself a big ass rest day on Sunday. CAN’T WAIT. :)

-Emily

* I received this gear at no cost from Reebok as part of a campaign with FitFluential LLC. I am not getting paid or reimbursed to give positive feedback, all opinions are my own. 

 

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Life Changing Discoveries

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I’m really sorry we’ve been slacking all week. I hate making excuses, but work has been really hectic, and there’s been stuff happening every night. We’ll be resuming our normal blogging schedules next week! We’re also going to get to hang out in person, which is a rare occurrence. I legit don’t think we’ve seen each other in a month! Anyways.. sort of toying with the idea of doing a vlog… I’ve always been against them, because I think I would feel super awkward in front of a camera, but it seems to be the “it” thing to do these days. What do you guys think? Tons of FitFluential peeps vlog (what a weird word)… do you feel odd when you do it? Would you actually want to see Erica and I live in action or will you gauge your eyeballs out in boredom? Let us know..

So, I discovered some life changing things this week. Products that I want to share with you (disclaimer: I am not being endorsed by ANY of these brands!) I am just genuinely psyched about these and want to share with y’all. Apologies if you follow me on Instagram and have seen these before. And if you don’t follow me on Instagram.. get on it! @Emboslice.

The Back Bay Micro Chopped Salad from Met Bar: Holy crap. I can’t even tell you how epic this salad is. It has SO much goodness in it- broccoli, beets, tomatoes, bacon, corn (I know, not Paleo.. sue me) an ENTIRE avocado, and your choice of protein (I got salmon). Obviously, a salad like this would be easy to replicate at home, but we’ve been going here after spin for our Social Sweat. If you live in Boston, I highly highly recommend it!

Stronger Faster Healthier Protein: I’m in the market for a new protein, and my friend Lisa highly recommended this. Since she’s a badass CrossFitter, I took her word for it. It is AMAZING. I preferred the chocolate flavor over vanilla (duh) and I mixed it with my normal shake.. coconut milk, bananas, strawberries, etc. I don’t know the science behind protein, and won’t pretend like I do, but I felt really incredible after I drank it, and I wasn’t as sore as I normally am the morning after a workout. SFH is a family owned company from Maine. Check out more of their products here!

Terra Sweet Potato Chips: Sorry for the crumpled picture- I had to retrieve it out of the trash after I inhaled the whole bag. These chips are SOO good. And all natural. Give me a bag of these and some guacamole and I am a happy girl.

The Way I Push It: Timbaland AND Salt N’ Pepa remixed? I let out a little yelp of joy when I heard this at my desk, and immediately started booty tapping.

Tide Febreze Sport Laundry Detergent: I am a total sucker for advertising (good thing I work in the industry.. if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em) so if I see something that tells me it’s going to make my clothes not smell like the inside of a septic tank, I am down. I did my first load last night, and this lives up to the label. Just to give you a little perspective on my laundry situation- my hamper is full of plastic bags with my spin clothes. If you’ve ever been to Recycle, you know that you sweat. A LOT. Literally my clothes are soaking wet after I finish a class (whether I taught it or took one) so I throw them in a plastic bag after class so it doesn’t contaminate everything else in my gym bag. I do laundry a couple times a week, but let’s just say that sweaty, wet clothes don’t smell any better after 3 days. I am SO thankful and appreciative of this new discovery. My workout gear smelt so fresh and so clean clean this morning. This is an ESSENTIAL for sweaty beasts!

Any other must-have products that I’m missing from the list? Sidenote- we talked about poop on Wednesday and now my horrible laundry situation today. I really feel like we’ve grown a lot closer. For better or for worse…

Have a great weekend!

-Emily

Party, Yoga, Love, Neon

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In honor of opening their new store in Newbury Street in Boston, Lululemon hosted a huge outdoor yoga party in Copley Square on Friday night. I’m not a huge yogi, but wanted to go and support because a) I’m slightly obsessed with Lulu and b) two of my kickass friends, Aly and Lisa, were involved in promoting and organizing the event. I’m trying to find the words to describe how incredible it was..

First of all, we couldn’t have asked for better weather. The yoga was taking place from 7-8 on Friday night, but tons of people showed up around 5:30 to bask in the late afternoon sun. The temperature was perfect- high 60′s, slight breeze, perfectly blue sky at dusk. As hundreds of yogis began gathering, the event coordinators had to ditch the plan of giving out headphones because they only had 500 sets. So the DJ went into full effect, bumpin’ beats as everyone started warming up and settling into their mats. I went with a few coworkers, and it was incredible to watch what some of these yogis could do. I mean, I give myself a pat on the back for being able to touch my toes.

Oh you know, just hangin out..

The whole night was amazing. Not to sound like a total cheeseball, but there was so much energy and positivity flowing through Copley Square (did I just sound like a total yogi or what?? Wow..) Having this really upbeat music blasting and reverberating off the walls of the Hancock tower was pretty cool, and it was amazing being outside, surrounding by hundreds of other people all doing the same motions (some more gracefully than others.. what’s up almost falling onto my face 5 times) Not only was this a huge homage to Lululemon and the yoga practice, but it was a huge tribute to Boston. I truly love being part of a city that is home to so many health conscious people, there’s literally inspiration everywhere. I wish we could do this every week! Here are a few pics from the event from me and from the Lululemon Newbury Street Facebook page 

I’m in the green headband.. pretending I know what I’m doing..
Photos via John Reardon

Overall, an incredible experience. Thanks so much to Lululemon for putting it all together and to the people of Boston for being wicked awesome :)

-ES

ActivewearUSA: Product Review

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The lovely ladies from ActivewearUSA were kind enough to ask me to test out and review one of their workout tanks from the Margarita Activewear line. I was really excited because a) I’ve never been asked to write a review before and b) I have a hard time finding workout tops that fit well, so I was looking forward to trying a new style.

I chose Margarita Activewear Top #928 because I liked the shape of it and the simplicity of the lines. Naturally, I chose black. Shocking!

I rocked this top last Friday, when I did back to back spin and CrossFit (bad decision) but I wanted to test out how the top felt during cardio and during cross training. This baby definitely held up to both tests. It’s made of a Supplex and Lycra material, and did a great job of wicking away my massive amounts of sweat. It also had a tight fit (in a good way) with a longer length, so it wasn’t riding up at all on the bike or during my 7 minutes of Burpee hell. I absolutely LOVED the fit of this top too. I have really broad shoulders, but am smaller everywhere else in my torso and chest, so usually when I find a top that fits my beastly shoulders, it’s huge everywhere else. And vice versa. So I was thrilled that this one actually fit well everywhere.

My only complaint about the top? It’s such a tiny thing.. but coming from a designer..

The logo. I had major beef with the logo. Albeit it was super tiny and at the bottom of the tank, I felt non-badass with a little daisy on my hip. I know a lot of women are into girly looking things and want to be as feminine as possible when working out (maybe I should get into that mindset…), but I prefer to not have flowers on my workout attire. Like I said, this is such a dumb complaint because everything about the top that’s important (fit, sweat-a-bility, movement, etc) was A+, but the logo just goes against my personal design taste.

I will definitely be scooping up a few of these babies, and perhaps just folding the bottom of the tank underneath to disguise the flower :)

What are your favorite workout tanks? Any thoughts on the daisy?

-ES