Yay for everyone being health-conscious! I applaud you all.

I'm on my university's rowing team (I don't actually row because I'm a tiny person, so I'm a coxswain) and I get to force my teammates to do physically demanding tasks every morning (not now during the summer though). I thought some of you might like to try out the way we start off our workouts, which happens to be with a really solid core exercise:

Super Penguin's Super Core Exercise
Make sure you do the following while engaging your core muscles (think of it as pulling your abs in towards your spine.
1 minute each (DO NOT REST IN BETWEEN) of:
Crunches
Side Crunches - pick a side
Side Crunches - other side
Reverse Crunches
Forearm Planks (add in leg lifts if you can muster it)
Side Planks - pick a side
Side Planks - other side
Push-ups with Rotation (nice and slow, you're still focusing on working your core muscles here)
V Ups
Bicycles (not actual bicycling, it's a type of crunch)
Penguins (my favorite hehe)
Then take a five minute break and repeat as needed (until you feel like dying).

This will feel like death the first time you do it. When I started doing these everyday I could barely make it through one set. After a couple of weeks your body should hate you less and you should be able to keep adding sets on. A good way to do this would be to do one set in the morning and one at night. It takes less than fifteen minutes to do and if you do them right you'll see some serious results.

And I'm more than happy to explain any of those exercises in detail if you need me to.

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As for food, a gluten free diet has a TON of health benefits. Our bodies aren't really prepared to properly digest gluten, and it does crazy stuff to us. That said, this is a really difficult diet for people to do, it takes some serious willpower, but you will be more healthy once you've adapted. I haven't been able to try this one out, but some of my relatives have thyroid problems and switching to a gluten free diet has fixed things that medications could only suppress. I advise you look into it more on your own first though before making a leap like this.

OMG I love this!! Thank you Super Penguin! I'll have to look up a couple of these (like Penguins. Never heard of that core workout, but I must know more!) but other than that I know and can do all of these. SWEET! Totally adding this to the daily routine!

I actually had the opposite effect when I when gluten free (Duck has Celiac's Disease, so he has no choice) and I actually felt waaaay worse. I felt heavy and weighed down. I did, however, cut down on the amount of gluten I eat and I try to stick with whole grain or quinoa pasta when I do eat it. To each their own, though. It's worth a shot if you've had issues with wheat products or, like you said SP, thyroid issues.

Have you heard much about eating for your blood type? The trainers of my favorite NBA team swear by it, and considering how healthy our old players are I'm leading towards their suggestions. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't... Always worth a shot, right?

Came back from a 2.10 mile hike with Duck. Good times! Had to head home early because the sun was setting though. We probably could have gone a couple more miles. Maybe tomorrow. :)

Teehee. I love that penguin crunch! I assume penguin-esque noises are optional while performing this exercise? :P

Meh, I'm pretty happy with very light use of grains and breads. It seems to work for me. I prefer chicken, fish and lamb for my meats although the later two are more expensive. Bummer. :/

Did a bunch of hiking/jogging/running this weekend and started getting my old pal shin splints. Good times! I'm headed home for the weekend anyway, so I'll just switch from jogging to swimming for a week or so (which works out because home is AZ and it's been in the 100 and teens for a while now). No use getting injured so I can't even attempt my 5k.

Okay, I got to the V Ups in the middle of this and didn't know what to do, so I skipped them. And I don't know what a side plank is, so I did a plank in static position.

Oh, and yeah, true to my 10-sec post, I ONLY DID 10 SECONDS OF EACH INSTEAD OF A MINUTE.

Holy crap, that hurt. And I think I was only exercising for like less than two minutes.

I'll do it again in an hour, but I I know I'm going to be sore. Not doin that for 15 minutes.

More power to you SP.

-And I challenge any of you to do the above for just 10 seconds at a time. -To start of course.

Yep, they can hurt your elbows since there isn't really any natural padding (muscle and/or fat) there, so it helps if you use a pad or something.


This site looks like it has a pretty good explanation of V Ups. Hope it helps! BuiltLean.com - V-ups Lower Abs Exercise I forgot to mention that this one can be pretty strenuous on the lower back, so if it hurts that area when you do them, just do more crunches or planks during that interval.

Keep at it gang, I'm glad you're trying it out!