It's a Blogiversary!

Running outdoors results in better views, especially atop towers atop mountainsides ;)



It’s a blogiversary!

What day is it? January 9, 2012 of course, and when did I start this blog? January 9, 2011. So happy one year anniversary to my intangible alter ego Figure Mommy! (Or umm something along those lines, but slightly more sane sounding ;)

It’s been quite a year. I’ve crashed my body fat to 13.1% (and ratcheted it back up to the low normal zone again – unfortunately!), competed in my first bodybuilding competition, competed in my first powerlifting competition, acknowledged my core values, and had loads of pithy randomness along the way.

I’m goal-less as the second year of this blog begins, but I have been trying new things. Today between six hours of straight sitting (aka classes) I asked my friend Hannah if she was game to go workout. She countered by asking if I’d run outside. If you follow this blog you know I don’t do any real running (just elliptical, stepmills and the like), but what the hey so I said okay. We ran up a wooded mountainside into an arboretum with a tower at the top containing half a dozen flights of stairs. So then we ran up and down the tower stairs four times for good measure and then back down the mountain looping around the south side of campus for 32 minutes all told. I was wearing my FiveFingers so I can all but guarantee my calves will feel it tomorrow. This one will be going into the “worth repeating” category of new fitness things tried.

One thing I believed before this blog began and that I still firmly believe now is that if you want to train, you can. Wherever you are, whoever you’re with, whatever equipment you do or don’t have to work with, you can make it happen if you have an honest drive to do so.

On that note, and the blogiversary theme, let’s sign off with a flashback shall we?
This was in December 2010, over winter break, when I found myself stranded far far away from any gym while visiting family in Northern California. Not being able to get in a workout was really bothering me so I decided to improvise. I hadn’t yet put in any substantive effort into getting in shape or even dreamt of bodybuilding or this blog, but a month later I did.



Disclaimer: Now don’t pick on my form, rep quantity, etc. Thirteen months ago I had little clue what the heck I was doing when it came to weight-training ;)

Funny Feet =)

I’ve pretty much abandoned my blog lately. Not intentionally really, I’ve had a handful of post ideas brainstormed or even mostly written, but my lack of fitness focus led me to disregard them. I know I need to blog; it’s a positive outlet for me. When I go too long without doing it I start to notice that I’m posting to Facebook at three times my normal rate, which is a lot less convincing an activity to sell as a positive thing ;)

I have no fitness goal right now. It’s a problem for motivation, especially diet motivation. It’s a problem for blogging – a lack of correlation. I’ve juggled around some prospective goals, but nothing inspiring. I’d like to intentionally shed leg muscle to improve my relationship with denim. I’d like to drop body fat. I’d like to be able to bench press my body weight + 10 pounds. There are a lot of things I’d like to do, but none of these things have a concise specific goal outlined and none of them are set on a strict timeline beyond my control. In short, none of them are a figure competition.

Part of me would like to do another figure competition. This blog and my wild three month ride to my first figure competition began last January. I had 16 credits winter quarter 2011 – I even pulled off a respectable GPA that quarter despite committing 15 hours a week to the gym and strictly dieting. Now winter quarter 2012 has just begun; I have 16 credits again, I have a lot more muscle, I need to drop my holiday poundage, in theory I could compete again. But last year I crashed and burned impressively in school as spring quarter began and the post competition blues crushed me. I can’t afford to repeat that. So . . . what to do?

For a while I focused my training around just being stubborn and seeking to lift the heaviest anything and everything I could. I was proud when I was able to do a 65 pound single arm bent over dumbbell row. I was pleased when I got my Olympic barbell bicep curls up to 70 pounds. I had a ton of fun when I jumped into a powerlifting competition and benched 120 pounds, squatted 190 pounds, and deadlifted 240 pounds. I was my very proudest when I got my dumbbell shoulder press up to 40 pounds. Women aren’t generally known for hoisting the iron equivalent of a sack of dog food in each hand for a shoulder press. I thought it was the best thing ever so naturally I made a movie and blogged it here.

The problem is all that heavy lifting caught up to me. I have minimal flexibility in my neck and upper shoulders. Three weeks ago I got a tension headache that lasted for just under five days despite repeated Advil and Excedrin Migraine intervention. I could feel the tension running up my neck from my left shoulder and encompassing my whole head. It, umm, sucked. Since then I can feel the beginnings of a tension headache in my upper shoulders about two thirds of the times I train upper body so I pop an immediate Advil dose to kill it. You might call this a problem (I definitely do).

A five day headache will make one far more open-minded to the notion of change than the societal expectation of setting a New Year’s resolution will. A chiropractor suggested that I do yoga 4-5 times a week to help. I found a Vini Yoga Therapy DVD designed to specifically treat upper back, neck, and shoulder pain with resoundingly positive reviews on Amazon. I plan to start fitting that into my life soon. My approach to lifting needs to change too, by how I’m not yet sure. In the meantime I’m going to be open to trying new fitness adventures and writing about the ones that turn out to be entertaining.

This brings me to my funny feet =) You may have seen Vibram FiveFingers stepping around your local gym or out and about when the weather was warmer and dryer. They’re pretty odd looking huh? When my boyfriend got a pair last summer I thought he was downright goofy for it. I may have even chuckled, teased, and rolled my eyes, but then in the next few weeks he kept talking about how great they were in the gym. He kept repeating how much better squatting was in them so I began to get intrigued. Then my beloved M&F Hers featured a pretty pink pair in the Oct/Nov issue and I was drawn in. Rich got me that pair for my birthday and after two and a half months with them I LOVE THEM. It seriously creeps me out to wear anything else in the gym – it just feels wrong once you’re used to being “barefoot.” As for the tangible benefits (beyond getting to swear off socks – yes!) there are many. Primarily, you build calf strength and ankle stability. When I squat I feel so much more solid and stable. They make walking lunges more challenging (in a good way). They make climbing a Stepmill or running on a Treadmill feel more real and more productive, at least for me =)



Logging a solid 60 minute StepMill session between classes today FiveFingers style.

If you’ve been on the fence about trying a pair head to your nearest REI and go for it. Don’t let the initial try-on thwart you. It took me (and many others I hear) a good 10 minutes to get all my toes in place the first few times, but now it’s as easy peasy as putting on a pair of gloves. If you hate them, REI has an endearingly generous return policy, or if you love them you’ll have funny pink (or violet, blue, black, red, white, yellow, or green) feet like me!

Powerlifting!

Recently I wrote about my wondering if I should try a different sport. I love lifting, especially lifting heavy, and that doesn’t completely mesh with Figure. I like to squat heavy and that builds big quads and hams that are not competitive in Figure. I’ve been lightening up my leg routine with a lot of plyometric based stuff and low weight squats lately to start changing my leg muscle formation. The problem? I have the most fun lifting heavy. That’s what led me to start thinking about powerlifting.

I bench regularly and squat pretty regularly, but I almost never deadlift. I decided to see what I could be capable of two days ago and I managed a 230 lb deadlift, so I decided to check out powerlifting up close and personal. My university’s annual powerlifting competition just happened to be today so I decided to sign up and jump in last minute for the experience.



I hadn’t expected to be competitive today, but I’m happy with where I clocked in. Powerlifting is scored with a ratio. Your cumulative pounds lifted between your best squat, best bench, and best deadlift are divided by your bodyweight and then competitors are scored based on the highest ratio to the lowest. My best squat today was 190 lbs, best bench 120 lbs, and best deadlift 240 lbs (I lifted 250 lbs in my 3rd set, but I made a first attempt, repositioned and then got it off the ground so that disqualified the lift) and I weighed in at 143.6 lbs bringing my total score to 550/143.6 or 3.83. I placed 5th out of the 8 women competing. One of the things that makes powerlifting great is that it’s more about having fun together and rooting for everyone out there than being strictly competitive. I’m proud to say my friend Rachael came in first today though, with a crazy impressive 295 lb squat, 190 lb bench, and a 405 lb deadlift. It’s hard to not get all amped up about powerlifting with a friend who gets out there and rocks it to that degree. Totally proud of her today =)

I’m off to a good start, but I have a long ways to go if I want to become a real powerlifter. I have good squat form, but my bench and deadlift form need a lot of work. You can hurt your lower back very easily with poor deadlift form so my top priority is to start paying careful attention to my form at lower weights and then work up my weight after I have solid form. As for benching I just need to do it more often with Rich there spotting me to lift heavy for low reps. I also need to practice bringing the bar to touch my chest, pause, and then lift. Today we each got three tries at each lift and I failed the first two bench attempts by not being able to get it back up all the way after touching my chest. My third attempt barely cleared the good lift test (aka eyes of the judges). You can’t lift lower on your 2nd or 3rd lift than your 1st so you have to be careful to start with a number you can clear for sure. I started too high with 120 and was stuck with it, but I’m happy, today was a learning experience =)

Bye bye Figure Mommy? Hello Power Mommy? Maybe...We'll see! ;)

Shoulder Strength! =)

Shoulder Strength

My shoulders are one of the main muscle groups I’ve been seeking to build both strength and mass in. One of my favorite things about training is getting my numbers up. Getting a new “heavy” (a new max weight for a particular exercise) pleases me like nothing else in the gym. This is what sometimes leads me to wonder if I should give up the notion of competing in Figure again one day and train for power-lifting instead. Power lifters compete on their max bench, max dead lift, and max squat. Maybe someday =)

When I first took up with weight-lifting I could only hoist 15 lb dumbbells, alternating arms, for the shoulder press. I then got stuck on 20 lb dbs for months upon months and worked up to a simultaneous shoulder press (both arms moving together). I was proud when I started doing 25s here and there. Then, 6 weeks back I said to heck with it it’s time to jack my weight up and worked through 30s to 35s. I’ve been able to do sets of 6-8 reps with the 35s for 5 weeks now. I tried last week, after a few sets at 35, to go for the 40s and could only get them up to 60% of one rep, fail. Today, I decided to go for the 40s fresh. I warmed up with cardio first and a quick 12 rep pump with 15s to prevent injury and then it was time to go for it. Success!!!




Nutrition thought of the day:

Do you go grocery shopping in November? Oh, say, in Trader Joe’s? And get a craving and a half for a huge plate of Thanksgiving helpings thanks to the elaborate pie ingredient displays, turkeys all lined up in refrigeration, and delectable cornbread stuffing with cranberries, chestnuts, and gravy being handed out at the sample table? Find yourself thinking it would be a good idea to make a “trial” Thanksgiving dinner now and subsist on the leftovers for the next 2 weeks? Nooooo. That didn’t happen to me on our way home today. Why ever would you ask? ;)

Solution:

Buy turkey breast tenders and sear them off with salt, pepper, and Pam Spray in a 450 degree oven for 12-15 minutes (until cooked through). Let cool and slice to apportion into Tupperware along with a handful of steamed asparagus, green beans, or broccoli, 2 tablespoons of cranberry sauce and ¼ cup of Trader Joe’s turkey gravy drizzled over the top. 4 oz. of turkey breast tenderloin packs a lean 28 grams of protein for 120 cals, the veggies are innocent bystanders, the gravy is 20 cals of negligible macros, and the only naughtiness involved is the 12 simple carb grams of the sugar laden 50 cal portion of cranberry sauce. If you want to get hung up on that aspect make your own cranberry sauce with Stevia. I didn’t though; I just bought it at Trader Joe’s with the rest of the stuff. That’s what I had for dinner and I have 3 more servings all Tupperwared up and ready to roll in my fridge. Turkey is regarded as lean all year long until November hits, but with a little savvy you can keep that bird, and yourself trim!

The Bulking Season

You may call it the holiday season, but Gaspari (the maker of my favorite protein powder, Myofusion) aptly calls it “The Bulking Season.” First comes:

1)Halloween – the holiday so oddly reminiscent of a figure competition. There are big bowls of candy everywhere just like in the backstage dressing rooms at a competition. Fantastical costumes, fake eyelashes, mass makeup, and fake nails abound on stage and on the streets of Halloween night alike.

2)Thanksgiving – Yoga pants are recommended wear for this holiday, not for their gym practicality, but for their easy waist expansion capabilities. M&F Hers and other fitness minded mags are happy to offer up turkey day trimming ideas, but apportioning out 4 oz. of white meat turkey, skipping the mashed potatoes and gravy, the green bean and sweet potato casseroles, the rolls, making your cranberry sauce with Stevia or Splenda while skipping dessert altogether does not sound like any fun at all! A true Thanksgiving meal should not be avoided, but ideally, the leftovers thwarted.

3)Christmas – The catalyst of the January gym joining rush. If only Christmas was but a day, but it is holiday parties galore, treats at the office, secret Santas bearing edible gifts, two days of decadent meals and the days of leftovers to follow.

Beyond the holidays Mother Nature and your own biology are seeking to bulk you up. As temperatures dip to frozen it becomes instinctual to crave comfort foods. Your body is purposefully seeking to increase body fat to stay warm. Not quite like a bear preparing to hibernate for winter, but close enough! This is warranted and healthy. Walking in the cold this morning I recalled how cold I was all the time last April when I’d plunged to 13.1% body fat for Emerald Cup. If I was at that composition currently I’d be too cold. One can see why there are hardly any bodybuilding competitions in the Northwest November – February.

Bulking has its purposes. It’s far easier to put on new muscle mass without trying to lean out at the same time. Really, there is no solidly merited reason to detest bulking. You can gain new muscle if you structure your workouts right. You can enjoy some foods, albeit in moderation, that you wouldn’t normally be allowed to touch. You can stay warm for the winter (that one’s making me laugh).

The drawbacks? You can’t wear your favorite jeans. You start to worry that you won’t ever get back on track. You realize you need to get a plan and set some goals.

The Plan

Constraints:
Limited to 5 – 50 minute workouts and 1 – 90 minute workout a week. Only working out once a day. Refusal to cut calories substantially.

What I’ve been doing:
Skipping cardio altogether most days of the week, only doing it 2x week, to allow more time to lift. Not counting calories or tracking macros at all, a don’t ask don’t tell policy of sorts, haha. Not packing meals every day, or in some cases, intentionally carbing up what I do bring. Bringing tasty cheeses and Wheat Thins into the house. Those are my #1 snack weakness and I know better than to make them accessible, but I’ve been disregarding better judgment. Eating a handful of Halloween candy most days. Shhhhh.


What needs to change for the next 4 weeks:
1)Each week 5 of my 6 workouts need to begin with 30 minutes of cardio and then have my weights session squeezed (through super sets and very short rest periods) into the remaining 20 minutes. The sixth workout will make up for the lack of traditional cardio with a plyometric and track workout session targeting the lower body.

Mon: Chest & Triceps
Tues: Shoulders & Abs
Wed: Legs
Thurs: Back & Biceps
Fri: Plyos & Shoulders
Sat: Legs
Sun: Off

The most ideal training split is to hit every muscle group twice a week, but by putting cardio back in the picture I won’t have time. Continuing to build shoulders and working on leg shape are my key work areas so they’ve been left in a 2x week split format while abs, back, biceps, chest, and triceps will only get hit once a week.

2)Nutrition. I’m going to be super lazy here and go in with the 40/40/20 macro split for my 1,800 cal budget. I’m going to throw allowances for a 10% macro variance and a 200 cal variance as the benefits of perfect meal planning don't surpass the costs.

What, by the way, is a 40/40/20 macro split?

40% of your cals come from protein
40% of your cals come from carbs
20% of your cals come from fat

1,800 cal budget x 40% = 720 cals for protein / 4 cals per gram = 180 grams protein
1,800 cal budget x 40% = 720 cals for carbs / 4 cals per gram = 180 grams carbs
1,800 cal budget x 20% = 360 cals for protein / 9 cals per gram = 40 grams fat

How do you catch and redirect yourself when you veer too far from your goals? What works? What doesn't?

Built to Last

C and I getting ready for our new routine.
















Built to Last - a book that applies not only to corporations, but to anything worth building.

Built to Last

Anything that is not “built to last” will eventually fail. I’m about 30 pages shy of finishing the book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras for a seminar class in cost accounting. The book details a six year study of eighteen corporations that the authors have deemed “visionary companies” They rigorously compared each company to a comparison company in the same field. The comparison companies selected were also successful, just not to the same degree as the visionary companies. The authors sought to ascertain what ideologies, traits, and practices were exhibited in the visionary companies alone. What ideals made (and continue to make) them timeless and stoic in an ever-changing business environment?

In the preface, Collins and Porras offer that the operating principles found in the visionary companies should not only be applied to the management of corporations, but to the personal lives of their readers. I wholeheartedly agree.

When it comes to the maintenance of a fit and healthy lifestyle there are those who seem to lead such a life effortlessly. For many though, it requires a concerted, even forced, effort where success is achieved in spurts without a feeling of sustainability.

In reading Built to Last I began to relate the business principles presented to my own attitudes about fitness and nutrition. Adhering not just on paper, but in action, to your core ideology is the essential basis of sustainability. Your core values, your personal acknowledgements are meant to get at the gut of who you are and stand the test of time and change. Mine are:

1) I am better at everything else in my life when I am training.

2) I am what I eat.

From your gut-level values stem your core principles, the guidelines with which you apply your core values to life, day in and day out.

My primary operating principle is:

To have time to work out no matter what else is going on. There is no time constraint or excuse to the contrary.


Fall quarter is less than two weeks old and I am already stretched thin. My class load is the most demanding, in terms of time commitments, since I began college. My time deficit is substantial. Nightly unwind time has already hit the chopping block, posts to my blog will be very sporadic, and I’m already shaving down to six hours of sleep to make it work. If I gave up working out I could gain a much needed six to eight hours a week to allot to other demands. Yet I don’t even view that as an option. The times in my life that I have given up regular training I have floundered. Built to Last lends clarity as to why. A fish without water cannot swim. Likewise, a corporation breaking from its core values will stumble, just as a Figure Mommy breaking from hers will.

We all have individual values beyond those of society’s accepted moral and ethical behaviors. We all have something that makes us tick, makes our hearts smile. Mine happens to be the endorphin rush, the stress relief, and the tangible reward of new muscle built from hard work and discipline that, to me, defines bodybuilding.

For a corporation, a clock must be built that can tick on, not missing a beat, through changes in leadership. For a person, a clock must be built that can tick on, not missing a beat, through changes in life.

What are your core values? Do you hold true to them?

This quarter has already thrown me curveballs. My son caught a cold and couldn’t start preschool when I started classes. My mom saved me there. I hurt my right heel, although I’m not sure how. It has been tender to any pressure for five days now, a bone bruise I’m guessing. If it doesn’t go away within a week I’ll go see a doctor about it, in the meantime I’ve canceled cardio to not aggravate it. I still get in and do my weights. I lessen rest time and focus on super-setting and giant sets. These tactics can get your heart rate up and sweat flowing. You don’t have to have traditional cardio to get your NO2 max up or burn fat. All things are adaptable…when you have core values to guide you.


Today’s 55 minute Chest & Triceps Training Session

Warm-up: Don “weighted vest” aka 4-year-old child in piggyback stance and proceed to jog from commuter lot to preschool entrance.

Chest and Triceps:

4 sets bench press maxing out at 100 lbs for 7 reps

Giant Set (repeated 4 times): dumbbell kickbacks 10-12 reps, dumbbell flies 10-12 reps, weighted bench dips 10-12 reps, push-ups to failure.

Super Set: (repeated 4 times: Barbell skull crushers 10-12 reps s/s with dumbbell incline bench chest press 6-8 reps.

Triceps Polish: One-armed dumbbell overhead triceps extensions to failure alternating arms for 3 sets.

Cardio: 2 laps...realized it was aggravating heel (still, ugh) and off to the showers

What Keeps You Motivated?

I had some friends ask me about getting some diet advice recently. It led me to reflect and realize that I haven’t been eating well at all lately. At first it’s just a weekend of baked goods and barbecuing. Then it’s a few days with not much protein, and then all of a sudden you’re only eating three meals a day instead of the usual five or six. At first it’s fun to eat whatever you want, but then you realize why you’re not feeling your best: improper fueling.

The three big taboos of food land (in my opinion) are:

1)Not eating enough protein. If you’re going to turn body fat into lean muscle you need adequate protein to do it, weight training alone won’t complete the job. The rule of thumb is 1 -1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. I weigh 140lbs so that dictates 140-210 grams of protein daily. You should ALWAYS know what your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is. That’s how many calories you would burn in a day if you stayed in bed and didn't move an inch all day. My BMR, for example, is 1,439 calories. Add calories to your BMR to reflect your activities throughout the day. While training for The Emerald Cup my workouts burned 800-1,100 additional calories most days. If you’re looking to lose, maintain, or even gain weight you want to eat fewer, the same, or more calories than you burn. That being said, 1 gram of protein is 4 calories, 1 gram of carbohydrates is 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat is 9 calories. So if you plan to eat 140 grams of protein in a day that will use up 560 calories of your total calorie “budget.” When I’m looking to lose I aim for 1,800 calories daily. The rest you make up with carbs and healthy fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated).

Calculate your BMR here: http://health.discovery.com/centers/heart/basal/basal.html

2)Not eating often enough. Eating 5-6 times a day better supports your metabolism, prevents you from feeling totally ravenous when you do eat, and maintains your blood sugar at a more even level throughout the day to prevent an energy crash.

3)Justifying the crappy food splurges as ”I deserve it because...” Yes, when you’ve been getting to the gym daily and watching your diet it is easy to convince yourself that you deserve a donut, or chips, or a cheeseburger or whatever your weakness is, but how is going against your goal a reward? If you feel the need to reward yourself after behaving for a month buy yourself a cute new piece of gym gear. Alternatively, you might think “I can get away with it.” Yes, you can get away with the occasional food splurges, but mentally utter that thought pattern too often and lo and behold, you’re not getting away with it anymore, it’s getting away with your skinny jeans ;)

I’ve been committing all three food land taboos lately. To start getting back on track I went out and stocked up on some of my staple proteins: lean ground turkey, Isernio’s chicken sausage, water-packed tuna, and tilapia. For an on the go snack I like to carry raw almonds and sliced strawberries.

My favorite Tupperware packing recipe is pictured above. It’s an easy batch recipe; one package of the turkey will net you 4 meals. I like to buy the frozen microwave steamer bags of rice at Trader Joe’s. Each bag is 2 cups and thus perfect to get divided and used up in this recipe, plus, no dishes ;)

1 serving:

5 oz. Jennie-O Taco-Seasoned Lean Ground Turkey
½ cup rice
½ cup diced tomato
1 cup mixed greens
1 T salsa
1 big squeeze lime juice

Stats: 354 cals 29 g protein 12 g fat 33 g carbs

It’s a splurge, albeit a healthy fat packing one, but I added ¼ cup diced avocado this batch which adds 60 cals 1 g protein 5.5 g fat and 3 g carbs.

Dependent on if I’m on a 5 or 6 meal split I like to make each meal 250-350 cals with protein allotted evenly and carbs stacked earlier in the day.

Today was rest day aka cardio only day (60 minutes on an elliptical) so I thought I’d post yesterday’s workout. Normally, I’m my own motivator, but yesterday I wasn’t. Trying to justify not going I had told my son I wasn’t feeling that good to which he replied, “We should go to the gym.” He was right and I’m glad I listened. I was never fully in the mood, but I know I would have felt worse had I skipped it

The “I don’t wanna workout I’m grumpy, tired, and the little voice in my head saying I won’t feel better until I do workout isn’t loud enough, but my kiddo’s voice is” legs and core workout ;)

I find that when I’m headed into the gym with a bad attitude and in stressed / tired / grumpy mode the best thing to do is to hit it hard.

I’m anti-cardio lately so when feasible I try to integrate cardio into my weights so as to justify avoidance of the elliptical, stepmill, etc. Running up and down real stairs will take your breath away and make you sweat much more quickly than a stepmill will anyways.

1)Run the Stairs
20 flights up 20 flights down

2)Parallel Squat in a Rack
Set 1: 95 lbs x 8 reps
Set 2: 115 lbs x 8 reps
Set 3: 135 lbs x 8 reps
Set 4: 135 lbs x 8 reps

3)Walking Barbell Lunges (these are equal parts cardio and weight training)
Set 1: 40 lbs x 30 reps
Set 2: 40 lbs x 30 reps
Set 3: 40 lbs x 30 reps
Set 4: 40 lbs x 30 reps

4)Machine Kickbacks (I prefer the cable kickback, but there are no straps for it at Gold’s right now)
Set 1: 40 lbs x 16 reps each leg
Set 2: 40 lbs x 12 reps each leg
Set 3: 40 lbs x 12 reps each leg
Set 4: 40 lbs x 12 reps each leg

5)Decline Bench Dumbbell Crunches
5 sets x 20 reps x 10 lbs

6)Run the Stairs Again ;)
20 flights up 20 flights down

7)Abs Giant Set
Shoulder Crunches 15 reps R 15 reps L, Vertical Leg Reverse Crunches 20 reps, Mini Crunches 20 reps
Repeat Giant Set 3X with no rest in between.

8)Last Round Abs
3 Sets Medicine Ball (10 lb) Side Twists x 30 reps superset with 3 Planks (45 sec hold)

What keeps you motivated?