My BIG Decision and Kettlebell Conditioning Workout | Free Home Workout Videos

Hi everyone,

What a time of it I had last week! I don’t know what happened, but major fatigue came out of nowhere and I had ZERO energy to train and I could bearly get out of bed to go to work! To make matters worse, I had 3 night shifts to do in a row, train clients both Online and Offline and make time to work on other GGS-related projects – all in the space of 4 days!

The good thing is that this has help me arrive at a very important decision, one I have been somewhat afraid to make. And it’s scary even for me to mention it here as it kind of makes it very final; but for the past year, I have not been happy in my nursing job.  I LOVE being a nurse, but the circumstances are not what they should be to allow for optimal nursing and I do not have the time with each patient I would like in order to make a TRUE difference to their care, bar covering the essentials. For me, that is not enough! Also, I am becoming more and more disenchanted by focusing on sickness, symptoms, medications and people’s gravitation towards the “sick role” once they step through the hospital walls.  I have heard such a mind-set being branded “Pajamaitis”.  I cannot fix this! To make matters worse, it seems many staff in the health service do nothing but complain – and I can’t be around this anymore … I want to be making a difference to people’s HEALTH and WELL-BEING! It is such an irony that this cannot be done as a nurse in an acute care setting, because everyone is “sick”.  So what is my big decision??

I am applying for a career break to explore my fitness calling.  For the past 2 and a half years I have lead a double life; one in which I nurse the sick, and another where I nurture the health-seekers to become more healthy and take ownership of their fitness and well-being. Guess which one has the highest success?? And the great thing is that what I do here should impact positively on, as a friend put it, the “sickness industry” – as more people reduce many risk factors for potential diseases such as cardiovascular disorders, Type 2 Diabetes, Obesity-related diseases, osteoporosis (reducing future admissions to hospital with fractures, especially in the over 60’s), immune diseases, arthritic conditions AND MANY MORE!

It’s the same principle I am applying to the rest of my life. Focus on what you want to happen, not what you don’t want. So, by focusing my energy on HEALTH rather than SICKNESS, I help people create healthier lives and all the wonderful things that come of that.  It’s not that I no longer care about sick people, of course I do – but I need to follow what I love to do more and follow my passion . When you do that, you never have to work a day in your life 🙂

When everything is pointing towards making this break, I would regret not putting my full effort into it. Right now, I feel I am unable to do that due to my ONLY tie here – Nursing! As for where I will base myself, in relation to my fitness career, that has yet to be decided.  But something inside me is drawing me to San Diego! I have no idea why, as I have never been there, but I am planning a visit there in September and will suss it out as I go 🙂  This plan is subject to change of course, but it’s been such a strong desire for a while now, I cannot ignore it any more!

Now that I have that update out of the way I want to direct you to a couple of articles from last week that I contributed to. They were shared on Facebook and Twitter, but I know some of you do not have accounts in Social Media, so I will link to them here:

My Journey out of the Vortex ~ by Yours Truly

What do you eat? ~ by Jen Comas Keck (with lots of contributions, include one from moi)

Now on with business

The Workout

After a 4 days break from training, this was my workout to get started. Two rounds of only 10 exercises LOL!

Set your Gymboss Interval Timer for 10 cycles of 15 seconds rest and 45 seconds effort (I recommend a longer break between rounds), and complete 2 – 3 rounds of the following (my reps per exercise and weights used are in brackets as always):

1. Goblet Squat (20kg) (20, 16)
2. Vertical Pull/Swing Burpee (20kg) (11, 10)
3. Renegade Row (2 x 16kg) (18, 17)
4. Two-Handed Swing (20kg) (32, 32) – I need to progress
5. Spiderman Push Ups (16, 15) – this annoyed my SI a bit)
6. Stand-Kneel-Stand (right) (16kg) (14, 14) – also felt this in SIJ
7. S-K-S (left) (16kg) (14, 13)
8. Weighted Side to Side Step Overs (6kg) (44, 41) – SIJ 🙁
9. Burpees (11, 11)
10. Alternating KB Swing (20kg) (30, 30)

It seems that ANY unilateral exercises annoy my SIJ/back issue. So I need to stick to Bilateral stuff for a while longer – which is PANTS, because I miss my reverse lunges 🙁 🙁 🙁

As you can see, I did 2 rounds only, but this was enough for me, because I was super tired again!

Hope you enjoy the workout.

Remember that I am now offering a variety of great Training Services both Online and Offline.  For further info, check the following link:  Training Services.

Cheers
Marianne

PS – I am by no means discrediting or belittling the work done by the nursing and medical professions, as we do indeed need them. However, I feel a draw to do something else now, and I am very grateful that I have my nursing experience. Without it, I would never have developed my skills in communication, teamwork and many other things.  I am also so grateful to have such a bank of humorous, encouraging, inspiring and proud memories and stories to hold on to.  Let’s see how it all pans out 🙂