Thursday, September 28, 2017

Discipline > Success

"Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace."- Mike Ditka


Every small act of discipline adds up to a successful outcome whether it ends in a win or loss. I have often told my kids that winning is always fun and exciting but losing is where the learning happens. Figuring out what needs to be done to improve oneself or team. Self reflection, recognition of imperfections, peace with oneself and a drive to improve is the total package of an athlete at ANY age. 

 I have never been a big fan of the flashiest athlete, the strongest or even the fastest. Nothing is more inspiring than someone who has incredible discipline to better themselves and shows up at every opportunity with the mindset for improvement. Humble, honest, hard worker who recognizes that success isn't always what you see.


The simplest of posts with the most basic message. Discipline and attitude need to be recognized more in our society. 

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Three Moves You Should Be Doing

Over a year ago, I tweaked my lower body training sessions a bit. What lead to the change was the fact that I always felt I had a hard time making that mind muscle connection with my Glutes when training lower body.

I laid off on any heavy loads of Squats and decided to consistently hit my Glutes with Mini Band Walks, Shoulders Elevated Glute Bridges and Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats. An incredible effect has resulted a year later. I can now Squat and feel it in my Glutes!

I firmly believe some women need to Squat less and do more movements that teach your Glutes to fire.

A circuit from today's lower body session:
A1. Shoulders Elevated Glute Bridge, single leg- 15 each
A2. DB Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats- 15 each leg
A3. Mini Band Walk- 10 each way lateral/fwd/bkwd
A4. 40 second Reverse Sled Push (Matrix S Drive)
rest and repeat x 3


Bikini season is fast approaching ladies. Let me help you!

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Prioritize Your Workouts

When you prioritize your workouts, good things happen. I don't mean make it is the most important part of your day. To clarify, it means decide your health and fitness purpose and input strategies based on that goal. Are you trying to lose body fat and inches? Are you looking to be a faster endurance athlete? Did you decide this is going to be the best year yet health wise and want to look and feel amazing? Whatever your driving force is, your workouts need to be prioritized to meet those goals.


Personally, I have rollercoastered through life wanting to be a leaner, faster distance runner, leaner, faster distance runner.... always pretty happy after achieving my goal at the time. But what I learned from my own experience, as soon as I achieved one goal I was ready for something different. Which meant time to shift gears a bit. 

First time I decided I wanted to be much leaner, my workout priorities shifted to lifting weights and short bursts of high intensity interval training.  I wanted to lose body fat, lose inches and have more definition in my lower body. Initially, that meant my week looked like 3 full body workouts with intervals at the end. As the weeks and months went by, that changed to an upper/lower split. That meant training lower body one day and upper body the next. Again time passed and my program shifted to full body workouts but with a change in the conditioning component. 

The point is that when I had a game plan, everything began to have a clearer purpose and motivation skyrocketed. 

After a few years, my priorities shifted to becoming a faster distance running. Then again the layout of my workouts were based on the miles ran that week. Strength training became less of a priority. Definitely still a big component but not the overarching goal. It was getting the miles in for the week. The weeks priorities included; shorter runs, speed/hill work and resting before the long run of the week. After those key pieces were laid out, then I would input where strength training would help me improve as a runner and not hinder my results. 

Again, having that clear priority list helps make the goal game plan have a greater purpose and simply better execution.

What lead me to this post was a conversation with a female discussing what her goal was regarding the fitness aspect of her life. She knew she wanted to lose some body fat. She wanted to feel great for the summer months ahead. She had been doing the same thing for a few months. She'd attend exercise classes here and there, run on treadmill some days, try a few workouts she saw some fitness professional posted on social media... point is no real set expectations for each workout or overall game plan. She admitted that if she saw something new and looked exciting she would ditch what she was doing to give it a try. To me it was obvious the reason for her lack of results. She didn't have a plan or priorities set in place which lead to inconsistent results.

Simply put ladies the fitness aspect of your life needs to be prioritized. Set your goal, construct your plan of action and be consistent in your efforts.







Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Create Your Curves

Transformation Tuesday, today I would like to call it Train Your Ass Off Tuesday.

Buttocks/glutes, the area that gets a lot of attention lately in mainstream media and in the fitness industry. When a woman has definition in her glutes and has a strong shapely back, the illusion of an hour glass shape and tiny waist is so attainable.

Personally, I never had a tiny waist. I had to create a stronger back and add some size to my glutes to attain an appearance that I desired. While striving to achieve that, I learned I love to do chin ups and even more than that was to train my glutes. Twice a week I train both those areas using different exercises.

I like to use with clients and myself: Front Squats, Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats, High Step Ups, Shoulders Elevated Single Leg Glute Bridges, Ball Leg Curl, TRX Leg Curls, Resistance Band Walks, Landmine Deadlift, and Landmine RDL.

I love when a client says her goal is to perform 1 bodyweight chin up. That quite possibly is my favorite thing to help a client work towards. Ladies, it is possible. I have met many women who couldn't budge to being able to knock out multiple reps. Myself included in that group. Use single loop bands to help you get over the bar. Don't be afraid to ask for a spotter to get you to the top and slowly lower to the bottom. These negatives will help you get stronger and be able to eventually pull yourself up there.

Add some TRX Inverted Rows, Seated Cable Rows and DB Rows to the mix. These movements will help make you stronger and make your waist appear to be smaller.

Focus your attention on getting stronger in these areas. Set a goal. Break it down into smaller goals. Once you hit that first small goal, the fire inside to hit the next one will already be sparked.

I will leave you with my favorite workout finisher from last week. Instead of jumping on the cardio equipment after your lift, try this and modify the duration as needed.

Location: Track or area to move
Interval Timer App or stopwatch: set for 45 seconds work, 15 seconds rest, 10 cycles

1.Walking Lunges, 45 seconds
rest/walk 15 seconds

2. Mini Band Lateral Walk (placed above knees, weight on heels, stay low, switch which leg is leading lateral step half way through), 45 seconds
rest/walk 15 seconds

Repeat cycle for 10 minutes or modify to abilities.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Skahan Fitness

I have not written a blog post in YEARS! It had been so long that I actually had to change the name. Fit OC Women was a wonderful thing and still holds a piece of my heart. An amazing group of ladies that allowed me to be a part of their lives and in return helped me grow professionally and personally.

I am not quite sure why I stopped blogging. Easy to assume it started to fall to the bottom of my life priorities. Chalk it up to other responsibilities taking up greater amounts of my time, big life changes and moves or maybe just not inspired to put my thoughts out there for anyone to read.

Regardless the reason for the blog drought, I have a renewed sense of updating it more frequently once again. I plan to include some personal updates, bits of info I feel women need to think about regarding fitness and hopefully some inspiring posts to motivate you to reach those "someday" goals.

I love feedback so please feel free to email me with any questions or comment below.