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Beth’s Weekly 2-2-2 Fitness Training Plan
Are you familiar with the growth-mindset practice of adding the words “right now” to the ending or beginning of sentences? For example, with more time at home due to governmental restrictions on activities, the following 2-2-2 fitness training plan is working for me right now. It keeps me exercising in purposeful, structured ways for 30 minutes per day, 6 days out of every week, and my body is reaping the rewards of being consistent. Watch this video and read about it below!
Here’s how I came up with my 2-2-2 Principle: About three weeks into the initial “2 weeks to slow the curve” phase of “stay home, stay healthy” orders, I realized all my linchpins were gone: My usual activities that anchored my fitness and even my family’s food schedule were no longer in place. I had been teaching 2-3 classes a week in the community, doing a resistance training circuit at home 1-2 times a week, and walking 1-3 times a week. Suddenly, we were home a lot, sitting around a lot, eating a lot… , and my body was showing the proof of my schedule going POOF!!!
My 2-2-2 Fitness Training Plan
Basically, I went back to my personal drawing board and took the opportunity to retrain myself. I treated myself like a client starting over and asked myself what I needed. Since I wasn’t building a schedule around the classes I was teaching for others any more, and my 40+ body was clearly corralling quarantine calories, I decided to lean into the following fitness training plan:
2x Weekly Arm Workouts
2x Weekly Leg Workouts
2x Weekly Walk or Yoga/Pilates
Keep reading for more details, but here I am – seven months later – still sticking to this routine + using “Trim Healthy Mama” for most of my meals. It’s simple, and it works for me right now.
My Arm Workout Training Plan
I usually do my arm exercise circuit on Mondays and Thursdays. Muscles need at least 48 hours to rest and rebuild after strenuous, loaded workouts. I don’t avoid moving my lower body on “Arm Day.” I still move my legs, but the weight work is focused in my arms. Here are some of the upper body workout videos we offer here on Fit2B.
Upper Body Workout Videos
My Leg Workouts
When I do upper body workouts on Mondays and Thursdays, I’ll do lower body workouts on Tuesdays and Fridays. This gives me MORE than 48 hours to rest and rebuild my muscles after using weights and other forms of resistance like stretchy exercise bands. My body appreciates this right now. Here are some leg workouts that we provide here on Fit2B in our video library.
I really love implementing circuits to train my upper and lower body at home (click here to read about circuit workouts and how to set up your own circuit) because they can be metabolic workouts, interval training, cardio, and weights all at once AND they make the time fly! We have two circuit workout videos here on Fit2B.
Lower Body Workout VideosThe Other 2 Days: Cardio or Yoga?
I follow my intuition and my body’s needs as I decide what to do each day. I choose my intensity and workout style depending on where I am in my menstrual cycle and what the other physical demands will be on my body that day (we live on a small hobby farm). If I am buzzing with extra energy, I’ll go for a brisk walk, practice the next Fit2B aerobics routine, or hop on my spinning bike. If I’m lower on energy and feeling tight or stressed, I’ll choose to work on my personal Yoga practice for 20-30 minutes, picking more gentle poses and stretches and avoiding inversions if I’m on my period.
How has my 2-2-2 home fitness plan worked out?
What are my results? Well, it helped me lose the “pandemic paunch” while gaining more muscle mass. I dropped the extra body fat I gained while stress-eating during early lockdowns, and I now weigh what I did before my son was born! My Diastasis Recti has been firmly closed and healed for years, but I still implement “tummysafe” strategies into my workouts.
You can see the change for yourself if you compare me in the video above to this silly screenshot pulled from a video in “The Blues” which we filmed seven months earlier for our color series of home workouts. To be clear, I wasn’t “feeling fat” or like I needed to lose a bunch of weight. I simply knew I wasn’t eating very well, wasn’t getting as much exercise as I had been prior to lockdowns, wasn’t in the most healthy body-fat range, and overall I just felt different and bigger in my own skin. Eating better and being consistent with this 2-2-2 fitness training plan has clearly made a big difference in my tone!
What about now? Is this home fitness plan still working?
Yeah, how about an update, Beth? Well, I’m still doing it and still sharing this plan with my clients, but I shift it as needed. Some weeks, I use the outline I offered above. Some weeks I do something more like this as a variation of my 2-2-2 home fitness method:
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2 weight sessions per week (at least 48 hours apart)
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2 cardio sessions per week (walk, aerobics, dance, bike)
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2 whatever sessions per week (pilates, yoga, general stretching, more cardio, more weights, whatever)
Did you know that – even if you’re not a member of Fit2B – you can use our workout sorting grid to find new workouts that meet your daily needs + reduce decision fatigue? Click this button and go play around with choosing different types of workout videos at different levels and times right now!
Sort Our Home WorkoutsLEAVE A COMMENT
What has worked for you and your fitness lately? What do you do for arm workouts? Leg workouts? Would you rather go for a walk or use a spin bike or do yoga? What do you think of this 2-2-2 fitness training principle?
P.S. This next image is NOT me (in case you can’t tell) but rather a nice stock image that we hope you’ll pin to Pinterest if you’re into that 😉
