Quickie Post for a Quickie WOD

It's cold in Boston -- colder than normal.  It reached a high of 12 degrees.  Thankfully, years of living in the Chicagoland area trained me for the ridiculously cold, but it's one of those day where you don't really want to do much.
It was also a busy day, full of grading/getting grades submitted/finishing writing reflections on my students.  It was one of those work days where you could easily justify skipping the gym.  I didn't want to take the almost hour it would take to get back and forth to the gym, but I needed something to break up the monotony of staring at papers/my gradebook/my computer.  I needed to get some blood flowing and feel a bit more energized.

Thus, the quickie winter workout of the day, where you don't need to go anywhere!  Any living room/family room will do:

Three rounds of

-2 minutes jumping jacks
-1 minute plank
-15 push ups
-25 squats

Definitely enough to get you sweating and moving in 15 minutes.

Modifications:
If you can't do the push up, do 5 to 8 push up negatives instead.  It's not worth doing "modified" push ups, and it will help you get to push ups faster!
If two minutes of jumping jacks is a bit much, do jumping jacks for just one minute, or break up the two minutes -- have one minute before the plank, 1 minute after.

Enjoy!

WOD and dinner ideas

Happy Friday!

Today, I thought I'd share my WOD along with my quick and easy dinner.  (I promise to come up with some more interesting dinners in the future).

After work and some errands, I went to the gym (not CrossFit.  Aside: I met my trainer through the gym where I've been working out, and she decided to open her own CrossFit, so I'll be there starting January 15! So, my CrossFit experience so far has just been with her.)  Anyway, I was originally thinking of doing some deadlifts, push presses, and kettlebell swings, but I changed my mind last minute.

I started off on my quest to learn how to do a pull up.  I started by trying my hand at kipping, hoping that the momentum could help me pull myself up.  I wasn't that successful, but I definitely had the "kipping" part down!  So, I decided to try negative pull ups.  I wasn't very good at slowly lowering myself down.  I think I'll have more success this way, but it's going to take time.  I could definitely feel the burn, though!  Awesome.

I did the rest of my workout on the track at the gym.

WOD (3 rounds):
spiderman crawls
(bicycle crunches
jumping jacks
push ups
squats
v sit crunches
wall sits (almost did burpees, but changed my mind))
400 m run

How I did it:
For round 1, I did a spiderman crawl 1/4 of the way around the track.  I stopped there, and did bicycle crunches in place for 30 seconds (I used my ipod as a timer).  I continued on with the spiderman crawl for another 1/4 of the track and did 30 second of jumping jacks in place; 1/4 spiderman crawls with bicycle crunches in place, 1/4 spiderman crawls and 30 second jumping jacks.  I then ran 400 meters (about 5 laps around the track).
For round 2, I followed the same pattern, but replaced the crunches and jumping jacks with 10 push ups and 20 squats, and followed it with another 400 meter run.
For round 3, same deal, but I did 15 v sit crunches and one minute walls sits and finished with another 400 meter run.  It was a very exciting work out, and what's great is that it is really customizable.  One problem:  I have short hair, and it's hard to pull back.  I have these really thin, stretchy headbands, but they're too big for my head and keep falling off.  Any suggestions on how I should pull back my hair?

For dinner, I threw together what I had in the house.  I cut up some peppers:

Put this rub on some chicken breast:

(I love it because it has very simple ingredients, and it's not too salty);

and I steamed the last of our green beans.  I grilled the chicken on the stove top, sauteed the peppers with a smidgen of olive oil, and read E.L. Doctorow's "Homer and Langley" while I waited for everything to finish.  

Final product:

Yum.

FYI -- the green beans are pre-cut.

Today, I saw this great NY Times article titled "Sustainable Food" that basically said that while everyone knows that successful dieting starts with eating real food (which we need to cook ourselves), that people today are less willing to cook than ever before because we feel we don't have enough time.  The author thinks a lack of time is a bogus excuse for not cooking (he cited the latest Nielsen ratings which revealed that the average American watches 35 hours of TV a week).  He also provides some basic, easy recipes (they aren't Primal, but they look pretty good).  I feel slightly vindicated in my desire to eat tasty, colorful salads for lunch.

What was the best part of your week? Any great workouts?