Popularity: 35% [?]
August 7th, 2010
I Need A Little Help from My Friends
Hey everyone!
I have to apologize – this blog post is a little different from my usual informative, motivational post…
A few weeks ago, my personal trainer approached me about fitnesscheerleader.com. His opinion was that overall it’s great, but there’s one problem – I’m not generating any revenue for the amount of time I obviously put into it. Now at first I was like, who cares? I don’t really want to make money – I just want to motivate people and see them do well. Which is a fine and admirable goal, right?
But of course his comments nagged at me for a few weeks – he suggested I sell a product. I thought long and hard about this, and brainstormed what I could possibly sell. A motivational eBook? A pre-natal fitness eBook? Sorry – I couldn’t see myself spending money on those, so why would anyone else? I don’t want to charge people to visit my site – that’s a quick turn-off in my opinion. (Though I could use eBooks as a way to get people to sign up for my newsletter….). Then I got to thinking about my power walks…..
You see, now that running has become tougher for this preggo mama I’ve begun doing a walk around the park on my lunch hours with hand weights. But I don’t just carry the weights – I do an upper body strength routine while I carry the weights. I need to keep my arms in shape for carrying my baby 
I also alternate some fast and slow walking – adding intervals for additional fat burning. It’s a fantastic workout and keeps my walks fun. So I thought – maybe people would be interested in downloading a walk and tone mp3? You know, an mp3 that you could download (for a small fee) from my site that will guide you through a great walking workout (set to some fabulous music of course)! So I’ve begun the process of recording such an mp3, and building a sales section and affiliate section for my site. As an added bonus, I will throw in a free eBook with every mp3 purchased
My product idea is great right? But now I need some help actually marketing my mp3 – oh isn’t marketing always the fun part?
And this is where you come in…
Below is a sign up form to be notified of when my walk and tone mp3 product is launched. If you sign-up, I’ll send you the download info for a free trial of it (once I’ve finished recording it) so that you can do a review of it on your site – if you like it, perhaps you’ll do a giveaway? I’ll even provide a coupon code for your readers. And because I’m a blogger and I hate doing stuff for free without getting anything in return, I will set up anyone who does a review as an affiliate so that you’ll earn 25% of any sales you generate! Pretty sweet, eh?
So what are you waiting for? Sign up below so we can BOTH start earning some money!
Thanks everyone for your support on this project
All the best,
Janice
Popularity: 36% [?]
August 6th, 2010
Interval Running Workouts for Beginners
This week’s Guest Post is from: Yuri Elkaim who is one of the world’s leading fitness and sports conditioning experts. You can take his Treadmill Trainer interval training running programs for a free test spin by visiting myTreadmillTrainer.com and learn more about the best running workouts to get you fitter and running faster than ever before!
(If you would like to guest blog, then check out my guidelines here.)
iPod Treadmill Running Workouts
These cardio workouts involve interval training which means that you have a bout of higher intensity (ie. running) followed by a bout of lower intensity (ie. walking). Depending on the duration of the workout, this sequence will be repeated a number of times, which allows you to spend more time at faster speeds because we space them out with “recovery” intervals.
So let’s get to it.
Beginner Interval Running Workout #1:
1 minute jogging @ 75% max speed : 4 minutes walking x 5 = 25 minutes
In this workout, you will jog at 75% of your maximum running speed for 1 minute and then reduce the speed to a decent pace walk for 4 minutes. This is then 5 times for a total of 25 minutes. This interval program means that you’ll be spending a total of 5 minutes running and 20 minutes walking.
Beginner Interval Running Workout #2:
2 minutes jogging @ 75% max speed : 4 minutes walking x 5 = 30 minutes
Notice how this workout is almost identical to the first one, except for one little difference? In this treadmill workout, you’ll be jogging twice as long while recovering for the same amount of time (4 minutes) you did in the first workout. The fact that your work to rest ratio is now 1:2 instead of 1:4 makes this workout more challenging because you are spending more of this workout at a higher speed. This workout allows you to run for 10 minutes and walk for 20 minutes.
Beginner Interval Running Workout #3:
2 minutes jogging @ 75% max speed : 2 minutes walking x 5 = 20 minutes
This treadmill running workout is more challenging because you now have the same amount of work as you do recovery (ie. a 1:1 ratio). You won’t have as much time to recover between work bouts and therefore we have reduced the overall time of this workout to 20 minutes, during which you’ll have 10 minutes of running and 10 minutes of walking.
These are just a few running workouts for beginners out of thousands of possible interval running plans. Start with these and you’ll notice a significant improvement in your ability to run.
Popularity: 55% [?]
August 5th, 2010
On Monday I Saved A Life
I’m breaking away from my usual blog and fitness format because this is an important story that needs to be told:
I love having a backyard pool – just like I love my Rottweiler, but of course both are dangerous. My dog LOOKS more dangerous than my pool, but truthfully, I know my pool is a far bigger cause for concern. Afterall, it’s already claimed the life of a poor unsuspecting bird.
Unfortunately, on Sunday I had to put my lifeguarding skills to the test again – thankfully more successfully than when I tried to save the bird My neighbour’s niece (appx. 10yrs old) was visiting her, and I invited both of my neighbours kids (ages 8 & 9) over to swim, and her niece too. My neighbours SIL told her that the girl could swim. I’m not sure if there was a communication error between them ie: allowed to swim vs. is a competent swimmer. It doesn’t really matter.
So the kids all came over, and my hubby went into his speel about the buoy line, here’s where the pool gets deep, and to stay in the shallow end if you’re uncertain about the deep end. I love him to bits for doing this each and every time someone comes over ‘cause it means he totally gets how dangerous pools can be.
Diving Board
She missed the side of the pool and can’t swim.
She had seemed somewhat hesitant to get in (all of the other kids were already in by this time) so I was watching her like a hawk. She came up slowly and her arms weren’t moving in a breast stroke kind of way like you would do to get to the top of the water – instead she was moving them in a front crawl kind of way (like she was climbing a ladder), indicating to me before she even reached the surface that she was a non-swimmer. She got to the surface and I was already sitting at the edge with my leg extended for her to reach it. (I can’t lie on my belly with a reaching assist because I’m 6 mos preggo). We shouted at her to grab it, but she didn’t hear us and went under 2 more times. I got up as fast as a very pregnant lady can, and did a stride jump into the pool next to her (while wearing all of my clothes). I got behind her, and pushed her hard to the edge, where she was able to grab hold. Because I can’t even pull myself out of the pool at the edge anymore (darn swollen pregnant belly), I asked her if she could slide along the edge to the shallow end. Thankfully she could. I then slid along behind her to make sure she got there ok. After that she played happily in the shallow end.
This could have been yet another summer tragedy – but I was paying attention. I can’t wait to register my kids for the next session of swimming lessons – I never want them to be in a situation like this little girl was in.
Please folks, teach your kids to swim, enroll them in swimming lessons and be diligent about taking them – you never know when they may need to have this important life skill.
Popularity: 27% [?]
July 22nd, 2010
The 5 Year Old Hypochondriac
I love my 5 yo, Sierra, and am impressed with her interest in the human body and the way it functions. The other day she was telling me all about breathing and eating and how there are two tubes, one for air and one for food. I’m sure she gets her love of anatomy & physiology from me, though my hubby was also a Kinesiology major and has an aptitude towards understanding those things as well. Unfortunately, sometimes she arms herself with too much knowledge and constantly worries and complains about nothing. Often I will pick her up from daycare and her teachers are concerned about Sierra’s ailment du jour. Eye infections, ear aches, sore tummy etc… Hubby has actually been called to pick her up for an ailment. I usually just tell the teacher to pay her some attention and see if she’s the same in an hour.
Sierra claims she has allergies – her latest is she’s allergic to pasta with sauce on it. She says she can eat pasta, and she can eat the tomato sauce, but that she’s allergic to having them together. In fact she loves both the pasta and the sauce. There’s a little girl in her class who has a lot of severe allergies and I’m sure Sierra wants to be like her – imitation is the highest form of flattery. Sierra really likes this girl and has a lot of compassion towards her. I think that’s where her sudden “allergies” are coming from.
This past weekend we were up at a friend’s cottage. Our friend had surgery on her throat to relieve a constriction. One of the kids must’ve told Sierra about it, or Sierra overheard a conversation about it because for two days we had to hear about how Sierra couldn’t eat because her throat was sore. Oddly enough she had no problem swallowing ice cream, yogourt, cookies and brownies…
It’s tough being the parent of a hypochondriac. I want to believe her, I really do, but I take everything she tells me with a grain of salt and do more digging. Who at school hurt their foot? Who got stung by a bee? We took Sierra to the dentist because her teeth were hurting – Sierra was convinced they were falling out and that she had cavities. Instead her jaw is growing, making room for her adult teeth.
Is she doing this for attention? Are we not paying enough attention to her? Will this get worse when the baby comes? (I suspect it will during an adjustment period). Have your children gone through this? Do I foster her interest and teach her more about the human body? That would be attention right? And a learning opportunity?
Sigh – this parenting stuff isn’t easy. I feel a headache coming on…
Popularity: 46% [?]
