After crossing off a large part of my 101 in 1001 in 2015, a brief look at the leftover ones made it clear what my focus needed to be on: my fitness. So I decided to raise the bar when Beachbody released The Master’s Hammer & Chisel and jump back into strength training. Here’s how I got started with Hammer & Chisel and why you might want to.
The last two years have been a time of slowly chugging, slightly stuttering personal growth. Underneath all of the smaller, more easily achievable tasks that I set for myself was the need to get control of my health, improve my fitness and lose weight. It is so very easy to let the hard things that I need to do for myself slip by.
“Oh, but I need to go grocery shopping, and munchkin isn’t feeling well, and there’s all this work I should probably get done…I’ll just workout a little extra tomorrow.”
Day after day slips by. Or maybe I do workout. And my husband wants to go out to eat or we get caught out late running errands or I get sick and its just easier to eat the over-salted supersize restaurant portions. Ya’ll, I’m right there with you. I totally get it. Even while I made tremendous progress on my goals – crushing my horse show season and professional goals – workouts and nutrition remained a tough one.
It’s time. I’m ready to do whatever it takes. I need to lose weight for both my health and riding goals, but I’m choosing to focus on my actions instead of the number on the scale. To start with, I’m focusing on the 60 days of The Master’s Hammer & Chisel. I’m sure there will be workouts that I miss and days that my nutrition isn’t completely correct, but that’s ok. Every day, I’m going to commit to doing it RIGHT – no matter what happened the day before.
I’m worth the hard work that’s going to take. So are you.
Stepping Up
Last year, I alternated workouts between PiYo and the 21 Day Fix. I found both to be beneficial to both my riding and overall fitness levels, but I feel like my body adjusted to them relatively quickly. I’m still working on my form with PiYo and LOVE the direct positive improvement on my riding and body control – but it’s time to get serious about my weight loss goals. I knew that to break the plateau that my sub-clinical thyroid function creates I would need to give my body a considerable challenge.
Enter: The Master’s Hammer & Chisel.
From a nutrition standpoint, Hammer & Chisel is pretty simple for me. It uses the portion control containers and system developed for the 21 Day Fix, which I had already used. The formula for figuring out your portions is a little more customized with H&C depending on whether your goals are to lose weight or gain muscle.
The focus is on foods that fuel your body – intentional, thought out eating. You can divy up your portions in whatever way works for you and there are options for adjusting up and down based on how you feel. I like the combination of flexibility (there are huge lists of foods you can put together how ever you want) and structure (very clear guide on how many portions of each type and easy measurement).
When it comes to the work out, H&C is tough. Insanity and P90X are higher impact. The flows and pace of PiYo are tougher. 21 Day Fix & Fix Extreme are more non-stop. But H&C is a steady, consistent challenge featuring mostly traditional strength training movements. The modifications are sinple to follow and appropriate. The structure is more like the workouts I grew up doing – so many reps, 2 sets, which I found comfortable and easy to follow. There were some of the movement so far that I couldn’t quite keep up with but I simply did fewer reps and kept on going. Even with doing quite a few modifications, I was tired and sore in the good workout kind of way. It pushed my body from both an endurance and strength perspective but I haven’t had the sore and achy joints that I did with some of the higher impact workouts.
Equipment
I enjoyed the minimalist aspect of PiYo – all I needed was a yoga mat (and if I was in a hurry I didn’t bother with that). The equipment needed for H&C means that I have to be more intentional about my workout but maybe that’s a good thing at this stage. I schedule time for it and make sure I have everything I need out in the morning so I can use my lunch break to workout.
Recommended equipment:
- adjustable bench
- weights (I’d recommend 2 sizes – one comfortable and one challenging)
- pull up bar
Now, if you don’t have those things or don’t have room for them or aren’t prepared to buy them right now, no sweat. I’m planning on adding an adjustable bench in the next month or so but I went ahead and jumped in using weights I already had. I’m using a balance ball and an ottoman in place of the adjustable bench and a door mounted resistance band set that I already had in place of the pull up bar. We rent our current home so I don’t want to take the chance of using an in home pull up bar (plus I’ve never been good at them.
Want To Get Strong?
I know that focusing on this goal is going to be a challenge. But it’s better with friends. If one of your goals for 2016 is to lose weight, eat healthy or just take better care of yourself in general, drop your email here.
To help you get started strong, I’ll send you my two week clean eating menu along with guide to meal prep to make the healthy choice the easy one!
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