This past weekend I was at Auburn University for the third ever Evolve Fitness Conference! Evolve was actually started at UF two years ago and travels to different southeastern schools every year.

There was a group of 30 from UF this year and we all packed into mini vans to make the six hour drive on Friday at noon. We made it into Auburn at around 5 p.m. and registered for the conference before figuring out what to do for dinner. Eating plans are always on the forefront of the minds of 30 college-aged fitness crazed human beings. We are like eating machines.

Once we registered at Auburn's facility, we went to check into the hotel and decided to eat at a local burger joint called Niffer's. I was starving and got the grilled chicken, avocado and jalepeno burger with steak fries.

We all got quite the laugh on Friday night. We couldn't stop talking about how good the water tasted in Alabama compared to the Gainesville water. So much so, that Tracy, a fellow Zumba instructor, asked for some water to go and the waiter brought her an entire gallon of water, no joke.

And then there was a balloon magic man who made us a balloon gator...

We arrived back to the hotel around 11 p.m. and my room passed out. Needing to be at the gym at 8 a.m. the next morning, we needed to prepare for a full day of fitness.

I was lucky enough to snag a bike in a master spin class taught by Robin Dayer, a master Schwinn trainer. It was such a blast, her energy was incredible.

After the class, the keynote speaker was Martin Rooney, a highly accomplished athlete, businessman, coach, you name it! It was a really inspiring speech all about how bringing out the best in others as a coach will bring out the best in yourself. He focused on the importance of this characteristic in fitness and sports, but I also feel it's extremely relatable to any industry or job, really. When Martin finished, I opted to take a tour of the facility, which is beautiful, but UF's gyms will always be my favorite!

The rest of the day consisted of some more presentations. Saturday night we went out to the Bank Vault and Skybar - both awesome bars in the Auburn area!

On Sunday, I presented on a class specific to UF, iBurn. I taught this class for more than a year and couldn't wait to share it with student instructors from other schools. It's an awesome and challenging strength-based format. I had a short introduction, but the majority of my presentation was a demo iBurn class! It was a lot of fun and a great way to close out the conference.

I was glad to be back in Gainesville after a full weekend and back to cooking my own food! It seems ironic, but always at these fitness conferences, there is limited time to eat, and the majority of our meals are fast food. Plus we were on the road for a total of 12 hours, and the best options were Wendy's and Subway. I was craving greens and glad to be back in my kitchen for Sunday night dinner.

I'll have some more recipes & workouts to post later on this week. Now to go to work, study for my exam tomorrow and apply for a million jobs. Do all the things!!

Happy hump day y'all!

Rach

Hello there! I have another great workout for you today. This workout is adapted from a class that I teach on campus called Cycle Circuits. It mixes cycling and strength work on the floor for a sweaty total body workout. For the class, I alternated between two drills on the bike (about seven minutes) and the total body circuit on the floor. You can use any type of cardio for the workout though! I would do about five minutes of cardio and then complete the circuit and complete those two portions three times in total. This class always flies by. You could even give it more variety by switching up the type of cardio you do in between circuits. For example, five minutes running, five minutes on the bicycle and then five minutes jumping rope or battle rope intervals.

The best part is that for the circuit portion, all you need is a set of dumbbells. This workout can easily be done anywhere!

For the squat with a press and twist, you literally just squat, overhead press and pivot one foot to twist to one side - this exercise is great, it works the entire body and engages the core. Alternate sides!

If you have not heard of a renegade row, it looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gja70kgtvoQ

A spiderman plank looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvAm7Gw0klA

Enjoy!

Happy Monday! I taught a 6:30 p.m. Total Body class tonight and formatted it like one big Tabata workout! I mixed strength and cardio intervals to work on muscle endurance and get the heart rate up. This workout flew by because before you know it, it is time to move on to the next pair of exercises.

Set a timer for eight rounds of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest (this will add up to four minutes in total.) You will complete the pairs of exercises in order and only move on to the next pair once you have completed all four rounds of both exercises. This workout should take about 45-60 minutes depending on how much rest you take between each pair. I tried to stick with only 30-45 seconds of rest in between because I always like to have a solid warm-up and at least 5 minutes to cool my class down (everyone's favorite part.)

Some things to note:

I used dumbbells and a light barbell for the strength exercises. Try to go at a quick tempo for the entire workout since there is only a 20 second interval to push yourself! It was a sweaty one, try it out if you need a quick-paced full body burn.

Good night!