Fitness Friday: Gold Medal Fitness

Yes, it's only been five days since The Games ended (you know the ones - with the rings, the ones that you can get sued for using the name without paying royalties).  Despite the fact that, every time I turned on NBC's coverage, some iteration of volleyball seemed to be on (nothing against volleyball players - it's just that, were I from a different planet and relying solely on American TV coverage, I would have sworn that was the only sport), I'm having a little withdrawal.

One of the great things about The Games, though, is that it makes us mere mortals want to give our workout routines a little boost.  While training is surely tailored to a competitor's individual sport, two areas of training are pretty universal:

1) HIIT - High Intensity Interval Training (Cardio)

HIIT (generically speaking, short bursts of very intense activity followed by a brief recovery, rinse and repeat) really deserves its own Fitness Friday Post.  And there are TONS of HIIT workouts out there (free and paid) of varying degrees of difficulty.  Here's one by Kristen of Perfect Fitness TV inspired by The Games and do-able for us mere mortals



2) Abs/Core

You saw the six-packs.  I don't think I really have the sell this one.  

I was delighted to see that Lolo Jones singled out one of my favorite YouTube exercise instructors, Cassey Ho of Blogilates, as the creator of one of her go-to ab routines!

I used this one a lotbit.ly/NJsPIERT @sarahdaignault: @lolojones what is your favorite ab workout?
— Lolo Jones (@lolojones) August 16, 2012

And you can do it too!

Go you!  

(And afterward, maybe treat yourself to a Gold Medal pedicure!) 

Do The Games make you want to take your fitness level up a notch?  

Image credit: McKayla Maroney