Bikini Booty!

The latest addition to Tone It Up's Bikini Challenge is an amazing Beach Bum Workout. This routine focuses solely on your back side to tone it into a perfect swimsuit shape. I've already completed the routine once today and will be doing it a second time after tonight's super sculpt and Zumba classes. :) You can never work your back end too much.

You all already know that I firmly believe that a fitness playlist can make or break your workout. If the music I'm listening to isn't fast paced and keeping me pumped, I'm not going to work out at the level I need to. There are ton's of great places around the web where you can find and download (sometimes even for free!!) great tunes to spice up your ipod. 

• The Nike Women Facebook page has a link on the left side that takes you to their favorite workout songs and even lets you download a couple for free. 
• Certain artists, like DJ Lindsay Luv, offer free downloads of their mixes on websites such as SoundCloud.
• Other mashup artists, like Girl Talk, combine short bits of thousands of songs to create long, party mixes. Since they don't pay to use artist's songs, they have to offer their songs for free on sites such as Illegal Art. Here you add an album to your cart and when you checkout, you can pick the price you wish to pay (free if you want.)
• Other workout blogs post entries of their favorite workout songs.
• Fitness magazines, such as SHAPE, often have online or print articles that include great songs.

Those are only a few places to explore fantastic collections of music that will keep you working hard and enjoying your time at the gym. 

Here's another list of some of my current favorite songs:

1. Snoop Dog ft. The Doors - Riders on the Storm
2. Adele - Rolling in the Deep
3. DJ MZ- Rokin Blanks
4. Girl Talk - Triple Double
5. Tanlines- Real Life
6. Goldfrapp - Ooh la la
7. PILL ft. Keri Hilson - Pretty Girl Rock Remix
8. Nicki Minaj- Your Love (Danny Genius Remix)
9. Miike Snow- Animal
10. MillionYoung- Hammocks 
11. MGMT- Electric Feel
12. M.I.A.- Bingo

I hope you all are keeping your ipods full of the most fun and upbeat music you can find so your sure to get the most out of each workout!

Early Morning Exercise

I'm so glad that I woke up early enough to attend morning flow yoga (finally!)  It's such an amazing feeling to wake up with the sun and stretch your muscles to awaken yourself for the day. I am seriously (I know, I've said it before lol) determined to continue this and make it routine. I felt so much more  focused throughout my day. I highly encourage all of you to wake up a bit early and even do simple stretches in your room to wake yourselves up :)

Image from ToneItUp

I've found another new site for you girls that's full of wonderful exercise tips and nutritional info. Tone It Up has become my latest go to site for wonderful ideas and inspiring updates as I continue on my fitness journey :)  Created by girls for girls, this site has so many exercises, food ideas, beach body inspirations and lifestyle makeover tips.

Karena and Katrina put together their workout and nutrition plan in an effort to help themselves slim down and tone up. Their personal workout routine has now grown into a blog, fitness community, nutritional system and diet plan. And the site is so much fun! Reading it makes me want to work out and really gives me inspiration to get myself in shape and on the right path. Check out their Music Monday workout playlist here!

The site even has fun videos that help you as you learn new exercises to do at home. Their toned and slim thigh video shows a great routine that specifically targets your thighs. It's unbelievable. 



Check out their site for all kinds of fun innovative workout tips to help you get your sexy summer body!

Exhausted but ready for the week!

I never truly realized how exhausted I could become.

After a full day of class on Thursday, I drove 5 hours down to Atlanta, enjoyed a very late dinner with my group, woke up early Friday for the PRSSA Real World Atlanta Convention (which was amazing), gathered my things and drove back to Tennessee. I finally reentered my room after midnight on Friday. After my head hit the pillow, I wasn't awake until around 1 Saturday afternoon. Since then I have spent my weekend in a sleepy haze. Shew. Hard work can really wipe you out. Now it's back to my very detailed scheduled routine. :) And I'm surprisingly excited for it!

The Real World Atlanta Conference was amazing. I thought I knew a lot about PR and communication before I attended, and I was wrong! I discovered jobs that, even though I knew they existed, I never really thought about them and saw them as something I could do. Community events and tourism here I come! I think I have finally found a job that I would LOVE to do. :)

Image from Mizzfit

As I'm sure you all can guess, I did not visit the hotel fitness center as I planned. I seriously believe that they should consider long distance driving as exercise.  :D  It wears you out! I also think that walking trough downtown Atlanta in high heeled shoes is an excelled little workout. My calves were killing me by the end of the day.

Onto the exercise info you are all looking for! Has anyone ever heard of barre3? This latest workout craze combines Pilates, yoga, and ballet to create long, lean muscles. It's hugely popular among celebrities right now. (Madonna is one of the biggest fans of this fitness routine.)  The circuits work your entire body and are great for focusing on toning.

Vital Juice posted an article about the routine and included a video for an at home barre3 workout. This video shows a routine that can be done anywhere, at anytime. For a more intense workout, all you have you have to do is repeat the routine a couple times. You can check out the video here.

I'll be trying the video later today, and if anyone else tries it, let me know what you think!!