Smitten Life

 1. Reverse Lunges 12 per side 

Start with feet shoulder distance, step back sink into your hips and then press through the front leg and return to standing. Bring the knee all the way down, and focus on squeezing the glute when coming back to standing.

 3. Single leg hops 12per

Drive one knee up and hop bringing opposite arm up. 

 5. Single Leg Squat 8per 

 Sink into one leg bringing the bum to the ground and press up through the leg to standing. If this is too difficult, just do squats to the bench and jump up (12x)

1 set of stairs!

1. Single Leg Lateral Hops  10per leg

Try to stabilize the core and then sink down into the standing leg, press up and jump. Keep a soft landing, ensuring that your knee does not fall in. 

2. Squat jumps 15x

Sink down into hips, jump up onto next stair, stabilize the core. 

3. Farmer Carry Weighted plate 1/2 set per side

Keep core tight and chest upright, ensure your traps don't creep up, keep your shoulder blades pinched together. 

4. Walking Lunge with a twist 10per side 

Sink into legs, ensure your core is tight press plate out to the side. Alternate legs as you go. 

5. Around the worlds 10per direction

Hold plate in front of chest, feet shoulder distance, core is tight bring the plate up and around head. 

6. Curl to press with plate 15x

Hold plate in front with both hands curl towards face, and press up overhead ensuring the 

7. Walking Lunges 1 set stairs

Squeeze your butt as you go! Keep the knees from falling in and body upright 

1. Set of Stairs

2. 10 Dips

Slowly lower down, keep core tight, both feet on the ground (or elevate one to increase difficulty)

3. 10 per side Split Squats

One foot on bench, slowly lower into both legs, ensure knee does not come over foot. Squeeze glute to come back into start position, keep core engaged.

4. 10 Push ups (incline or decline)

Hands shoulder distance apart, lower slowly down and press straight up.

5. 10 per side lateral step hops

Side step up and hop up, come back down to start position.

6. Side plank 30s per

Ensure body is in a straight position, keep hips up and hold. 

There are some things that are just better with friends & that definitely extends to working out. Especially stairs! I honestly don't think I would ever run stairs if it weren't for my fitness minded amazing friends. It's really awesome to have friends who are just as passionate about getting fit and being healthy as I am so we can be social, catch up & get our workout in. We're good about pushing each other and after each set of stairs saying "just one more" until we're out of breath and ready to take a nap. Andrea is another personal trainer in Edmonton and is an amazing person and trainer. 

Challenge: Find a set of stairs to meet at, here are a couple good sets in Edmonton. We used the glenora ones, set a timer for 30 minutes and see how many sets you can run. Up & down count as 1! 

Don't forget to stretch it out afterwards, Andrea & I demonstrate some easy partner stretches. First one for the groin, make sure your feet line up grab wrists in the middle, one will pull the other forward until they feel the pull and hold 30s.  

The second is the assisted hamstring stretch, support friends leg with your body, ensure they keep their knee straight and push forward until they say it's good enough. Hold 30s