"Enjoy The Journey"

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
I love this quote, to me it describes each and everyone’s day in and day out struggle to find their place in this world and move forward. It is impossible to truly live your life to its very fullest while playing the role of the critic. The desire and ability to push outside of your comfort zone and truly explore life’s endless possibilities is only realized by those who demonstrate a willingness to improve themselves mentally and physically no matter what anyone else says.
Starting a strength and conditioning program after a long layoff or starting a conditioning program for the first time can seem like an overwhelming task. Are you someone who has repeatedly started and stopped various conditioning programs due to boredom or maybe time constraints from family and work. Sickness or injury has sidelined many good intentioned fitness programs; the point is we all know that being physically active can improve our quality of life and overall mental and physical well-being. For whatever the reason that caused you to discontinue your fitness quest, I commend you for the time that you spent trying to improve your quality of life and I am sure that by venturing down the road to improved health that you learned a tremendous amount about your strengths and weaknesses during that period of time.
Our goal for this web site is to give you the tools and strategies to empower you to continue, start or restart a life built on a foundation of health and fitness. We can create an interactive network of like minded people striving for a healthier lifestyle. Our goals for developing a powerful network and support system are to eliminate excuses as to why health and fitness goals cannot be achieved and focus on positive solutions for realizing your fitness goals. Together we can create an online society or team that can touch many lives through sharing quality health and fitness tips and strategies, success stories, how too tips, fitness programs with all possible resources to help you be successful.
Consistent effort over the course of a long period of time is the key to maximizing your physical potential. There is plenty of room for error, not every training session or meal needs to be absolutely perfect, but understand the more consistent your efforts the faster your results. The beauty of developing a life style of health and fitness is that you and only you have complete control over the amount of quality activity you participate in and the amount and quality of food you put in your mouth. That should be a comforting bit of control that you can always fall back on; there are no excuses for failure.
Having a plan for success is a tremendously important key to your success. Our website is devoted to assisting you to create a plan that is in line with your needs. I want to emphasize that we want you to be involved in creating a plan for success. Their needs to be an emotional and intellectual investment by you during the development and implementation of your plan for there to be a commitment necessary for your success.
Your plan should always be filled with alternatives or strategies for working around life’s little obstacles. Flexibility in the design and implementation will help to ensure that you will maintain a high level of consistency over the course of a life time. The support and program design help that will be available from our fitness experts and all users involved will help to keep your fitness goals on the right track.
So climb into the arena and prepare yourself for a life changing journey full of daily challenges and daily rewards. Your life of fitness will not be without a few stumbles along the way, but your team at C3i Sports will be there to pick you up, dust you off and help to send you in the right direction. There is no better time than the present to get started.

"Treadmill Interval Runs"

There will always be those days where you just don't feel like doing the same run that you have been doing for the last several training sessions. Or maybe you love to run outdoors but the weather is not cooperating.

Whether you are looking for a change from the same old stale routine or you are stuck in a rut and can't seem to improve, treadmill intervals maybe what you need to revitalize your workouts. Interval training is described as intense bouts of exercise followed by either an active or static rest period. The idea is that you can elevate your heart rate higher by using short intense work periods more easily then you can by jogging for 20 minutes at a comfortable pace. The rest period conditions your body to return to homeostasis and lower your heart rate to a manageable state. This combination of intense work followed by rest has many performance and health benefits.

1- Cardiovascular efficiency is improved by forcing the heart to work harder to bring oxygen to working muscles. The heart muscle becomes stronger.

2- The more intense the work period the more endorphins are released into the blood stream giving you a sense of well being and a positive mental outlook.

3-The more intense the work interval the harder your body has to work not only to complete the desired workload but to bring your body to rest. This intense work burns more calories and you will continue to burn more calories at a faster rate and for a longer duration following your workout.

4-Interval training preserves and develops lean mass. Because the work is highly anaerobic their is generally more muscle being used to complete the work period, therefore developing lean mass. Because the training sessions are shorter in duration and more intense you are not using valuable muscle for energy like you would do with distance running. Have you ever seen a muscular distance runner?

5-Intense interval training promotes the production of testosterone and growth hormone both aid in devouring useless body fat.

6-Interval training is time efficient. The amount of quality work you can do in 20 minutes will far out weigh an hour long session of low intensity work.

7-By using a treadmill you know exactly how much work and rest you are completing, the treadmill will not slow down to accommodate your lack of condition.

Below I have given you an example of a treadmill interval program, use the following guidelines.

*Adjust your speed up or down depending on your fitness level, use the below program as a guideline, make adjustments if necessary.
*Make sure you are comfortable jumping on and off treadmill while it is moving, use the hand rails on the treadmill to assist you.

reps incline Work/Rest

Difficult 8x each @ 9.5, 10.5, 11.5 MPH / 10 degree incline 20 sec / 40 sec
Moderate 8x each @ 8.5, 9.5, 10.5 MPH / 10 degree incline 20 sec / 40 sec
Easy 8x each @ 7.5, 8, 8.5 MPH / 10 degree incline 20 sec / 40 sec

CARBOHYDRATE USE MAXIMIZES THE RESULTS OF INTENSE TRAINING SESSIONS

For athletes participating in lengthy intense training sessions lasting 60-90 minutes in duration and repeated over consecutive days, it is imperative that the athlete’s carbohydrate intake is adequate. If you find yourself unable to recuperate between training sessions, additional calories from carbohydrates may be necessary. If you feel constantly fatigued, are unable to train at the proper intensity level and you are having a difficult time maintaining good sleep habits your carbohydrate intake may be inadequate. You are wasting your time and effort in the gym if you are not following a solid nutrition plan. Your carbohydrate intake during heavy bouts of exercise should represent close to 70% of your total caloric intake. Carbohydrate sources are found mainly in foods grown from the soil. Examples of such foods are whole grains, cereals, fruits, and vegetables. The grains, cereals, fruits, and vegetables are converted to usable energy and stored in the liver and muscle cells as glycogen and in the blood stream as glucose. These are the fuels used during intense bouts of exercise. The most ideal time to replenish your lost stores of glycogen and glucose are within the first thirty minutes following exercise. Post exercise your body releases a greater volume of insulin into the blood stream. The additional insulin acts as a transport system taking the converted glycogen and introducing it back into the liver cells, muscle cells, and blood stream. This process not only helps your body recover from the last training session but aids in preparing you for the next intense training session. Remember that proper nutrition is as essential to your training regimen as the training itself. Without proper nutrition you will never be able to realize your physical potential.

"Ketttlebell Blowout"

Here is a Kettlebell routine worth a try. Find a kettlebell weight you can handle with moderate difficulty for twenty double hand swings. Make sure you are properly warmed-up before you begin this protocol.

This kettlebell routine should be completed with as little rest as possible. Use a stop watch to give you feedback on duration of program. Each time you complete this workout try to reduce the amount of time it takes.

*22 KB Double Hand Swings
*11 KB Single Arm Upright Rows (each arm)
*11 KB Single Arm Snatches (each arm)
*22 KB Alternating Arm Swings

Repeat with these rep combination's:

*18 *15 *9
*9 *7 *5
*9 *7 *5
*18 *18 *9

Go through the entire regimen twice, Try to complete under thirty minutes.

If this sounds like fun, come out and join our team, we would love to have you!

"The Track and Kettlebell Session"

It's Tuesday morning after a day of rain, which left the weather perfect for a great training session. I have always enjoyed working in the heat and this Tuesday morning there was a combination of moderate heat and humidity.

Our session took place at Newton Lee elementary school, at 5:45am in Ashburn. We created a work/run interval protocol using the schools oval track, kettlebells and mats for body weight exercises. We set up six exercise stations evenly spread around the oval track. The track is slightly less then a quarter mile around. Exercises used were as follows:

*KB Dead Lift to Upright Row x10
*Supine Toe Touch x20 or Leg Lowerings x20
*KB Single Arm Swings or Double Arm Swings x10
*Rockies or Reaches x10
*KB Push Press x10 or KB Rows x10
*Mountain Climbers x16 or Burpees x5

The idea was to complete each exercise and sprint to the next station completing the entire oval as fast as possible. A one minute rest interval was given at the completion of each lap. We managed six laps before reaching exhaustion. I loved it and you will too. If you enjoy pushing yourself and motivating others this is the Bootcamp for you. Come out and join us, we would love to have you as part of our team.

"Another Day To Get Better"

The rain finally gave way so we could get back outside and do some serious kettlebell training. We started our session using the weighted jump ropes. Everyone in the group loves the weighted ropes, they are much more physically demanding on your hands, forearms and shoulders. The group started out with 100 revolutions using the three pound jump rope. The jump rope elevated our body temperatures and increased our heart rates for sure. We calmed our heart rates a bit with some active and static stretching. We elevated the heart rate again and fatigued our lower bodies with 50 prisoner squats.

Once we were all sufficiently warmed up and ready for more we turned our focus to a few upper body and core strengthening exercises using the the Slastix resistance bands. The following exercises were used.

*2x20 partner high rows
*2x20 rotational rows
*2x10 external rotation
*2x15 bicep curl
*2x15 tricep extension
*2x10 push-ups

The meat of the program consisted of 10 rounds of 2 minutes. Each series of exercise or super set started every 2 minutes. After the completion of the super set we had the remainder of the 2 minutes to rest. The faster you completed your work, the more rest you would have, and conversely the slower you worked the less rest you had between rounds. The exercises and repetitions used for each round were as follows:

*30 revolutions with the 1 pound jump rope
*10 KB push presses
*20 KB swings

Try this one at home or come by and join us, we would love to have you as a part of our team.

"The Gloria Special"

Another great day for Kettlebell Bootcamp! Wait a minute, everyday is a great day for Kettlebell Bootcamp! We started the session warming ourselves up with weighted jump ropes.
*60 revolutions with a 3 pound rope
*60 revolutions with a 2 pound rope
*60 revolutions with a 1 pound rope

From there we used a KB for chops and lifts.
*10 chops and lifts elbow to shoulder
*10 chops and lifts waist to shoulder and
*10 chops and lifts knee to shoulder
Each set of chops and lifts were performed from both sides, left to right and right to left.

We elevated our heart rates once again with
*60 KB swings

Onto the god father of all upper body strength development exercises the basic push-up. We split the team into 2 groups, 1st group worked while the 2nd group rest and then switch, 2nd group worked while the 1st group rest. Each group performed
*30 push-ups
*25 push-ups
*20 push-ups
*15 push-ups
*10 push-ups and
*5 Push-ups
To make this routine even more difficult while each group was resting they had to keep their hands in contact with the ground.

We elevated the heart rate once again with a series of lateral line hops.
*30 seconds of lateral line hops followed by 15 seconds of rest. We completed four sets.

It was time for a water break and a teaching sessions on how to properly complete exercises that were going to be used in the final minutes of this training session.

Each exercise was performed for one minute with 20 seconds rest between each work interval. The exercises we used were.
*KB dead lift with an upright row
*KB single arm alternating swing
*Sit-ups
*Fighting rope double arm and single arm swings
*KB figure 8's in a squat position

This session kept up a fast tempo from the first jump rope to the last figure 8. Everyone definitely took a huge step toward realizing their fitness goals.

If this sounds more interesting then spending 30 minutes on the elliptical, give me a call and we will get you started on one of our teams!