Cardio Trek - Toronto Personal Trainer

Family Fitness

Things to do in 2016

Spend more time with family...

Lose weight...

Why not do both at the same time?

The Pet Project, Part Six - The Bouncy Mousey

If you have not been following along, "The Pet Project" is my humourous yet somewhat serious project to help our cat, Victoria, to lose weight through a combination of exercise and diet. You can catch up on this by reading the posts in order:

Part One - "Our Cat is Fat"
Part Two - "Kitty is on a new Diet"
Part Three - "Cat Walking"
Part Four - "Conquering Failures"
Part Five - "The Scaredy Cat"

During this past Christmas we received a new toy for Victoria - which works surprisingly well at allowing her to exercise when we are not home to play with her, and unfortunately also means she can play with it late at night, making all sorts of racket as she scampers about batting at it.

I call the toy "the Bouncy Mousey". Basically all it is is a fake mouse stuffed with catnip, on a stretchy cord from an attachment that meant to attach to the top of a door frame. However I have attached it to my chin-up bar instead. Due to the stretchy quality of the cord, it bounces and flies around easily when batted by Victoria, causing her to scamper after it, trying to snag it - which she does only rarely as it is set to a height which makes it necessary for her to either stand up on her hind legs or to jump in order to make contact with it.

Ultimately it means Victoria is getting more exercise. But how much is she weighing in at? Today she weighed in at 11.8 lbs. So a marginal improvement. We should check again a month from now and see if anything has changed.

Archery Christmas Ornament

Saw the Christmas ornament below while visiting relatives. Can you tell our family is really into archery?

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!

Five Rules for having a Merry Christmas from Cardio Trek

Below is Cardio Trek's Five Rules for having a Merry Christmas...

Rule #1. Eat lots of carrots. And veggies in general.

Rule #2. Enjoy the little things, no matter how small.

Rule #3. Reward yourself for all your hard work during the holiday season.

Rule #4. Pay attention to things that don't make sense. eg. Why does the reindeer in the image below look evil? You should avoid evil things during the holidays. Krampus for example.

Rule #5. Have a sense of humour. Because laughter is the best medicine.

Five Ways to do Weight Lifting Outdoors in the Winter

#1. Build your own outdoor gym equipment, including:

Bench Press
Bench with Free Weights
Bulgarian Training Bag
Chin-Up Bar
Farmer's Walk Bars
Incline Bench
Kettlebells
Medicine Ball
Obstacle Course (Strength Based)
Parallel Bars (Gymnasts)
Rope Climbing / Rope Ladder
Rowing Machine
Stairs (for Leg exercises, or as an Incline)

eg. To build a rowing machine you will need: Rope, a wood or metal bar as a handle for pulling, a stationary metal bar that is elevated off the ground, a heavy weight attached to the far end of the rope, and something to brace your feet against.

#2. Shovel Snow out of the Driveway - and if you have extra energy, clear all the snow from the backyard and front yard too, so you have frozen grass to workout on.

#3. Fill sandbags with snow and build a wall of sandbags... Or a bench made out of sandbags, and use that bench as a bench press, an incline bench or for using free weights on.

#4. Build something out of the snow - snow man, snow fort, ice rink, hockey rink, ice sculpture. Does it really matter as long as you are exercising?

#5. Clean out the garage and turn your garage into a gym.

Examples:

That old broken air conditioner? Use it as a weight for a rowing machine.

Old furniture / chairs? Add some wood and make a bench for using in combination with free weights.

Old scrap metal you aren't sure what to do with? Check out the dumbbells further below.

Old broken bicycle? Make a training bicycle for building leg muscle.

Old patio umbrella with metal pole? Get rid of the umbrella part and use the metal pole to make yourself a nice chin-up bar.

Old junk that you really are not sure what to do with? Take it to the curb for garbage collection. Clearly if you can't use it for weight lifting, then it probably isn't good for much else.