Cabarete – A Runner’s Dream
Running in Cabarete is magical. The trick is to wake up before the heat sets in – which is not that early, only 6:15 or so. I don’t think there exists a more ideal temperature to run in. Warm enough that you don’t have to start with a long sleeve on but also hot and humid enough that when you sweat, you feel like you are working. At 6:15, Cabarete is still waking up–motorcycles and cars aren’t yet flying down the road. That wouldn’t matter anyway though because the eXtreme hotel, where I am living on Kite Beach, is located next to a somewhat hidden running path – a runner’s dream! The path is a dirt road that is located 10-20 meters past the bus station where people wait to go to work west towards Sosua. The path rarely has any traffic–I have only seen a moto a couple of the many times I have run it. As someone coming from the northeast of America, it almost feels cliché how perfectly tropical it is. The path runs parallel to the ocean shore so as you run, the entire time you see flashes of the picturesque crashing turquoise waves. At this time of day, around 6:30am or so, the sunrise makes silhouettes of the palm trees. Even if you are not a runner, it is worth waking up, just to walk it once. You can chose to end the run at Encuentro beach. It is roughly 2.5 miles. A quick turn around and return to eXtreme Hotel makes it a solid 5-mile run. However, if you’re feeling up for it, you can take off your running sneakers and go for a refreshing morning swim or early surf. It is ideal for surfing because the wind speed is typically the lowest it will be all day and the crowds haven’t yet arrived. The ocean is your oyster! After a surf, swim, body surf, SUP, or whatever ocean activity you decide upon, you can wash your feet off at one of the various surf sheds along Encuentro and run back! Alternatively, if your surfing left you too tired to finish, you can always take a motoconcho (motorcycle taxi) back for 100 pesos.
First Things First: Building a Foundation in the Yoga Loft
What is that saying…first things first? Well of course they are – it seems silly and redundant. But in a new place it can be surprisingly easy to get jumbled up and not put the right things first. I have a few weeks of adjusting to internship life under my belt and am trying to gain some traction on completing the “life” tasks (ya know…run errands, cook, do laundry, find the good coffee). Sometimes completing the smallest task in the Caribbean feels like camping, in a sauna, with one arm tied behind my back. Seemingly simple tasks take allllll day. I know in my head that adjusting to life in a new country will take time but feeling ineffective is frustrating regardless of the situation. Heeding the many well meaning warnings from my Extreme family to “take it slow”, “don’t burn out”, and the pointed “get your butt to yoga”, I escaped to the Yoga Loft for a class with Claire. This class was exactly what I needed! Her meditative vinyasa flow class allowed me to clear my head and get back to basics. Claire’s style is perfect for beginners and infuses tidbits of yoga philosophy throughout to create a well rounded experience. This class made me realize how quickly I had forgotten the importance of having a self care practice. First things first, foundation first, put on your own oxygen mask … FIRST. Self care first. For me, yoga is an integral part of my self care routine and it can serve as the cornerstone for building a healthy and vibrant lifestyle in Cabarete. I decided to jump back into this practice with both feet. Molly’s class was next, and traditional Ashtanga is my jam. I left with a big smile while feeling the “yoga high”. Her style is warm and inviting; she has many regular students that she connects with closely. This is a great class to deepen your asana practice, try some new tricks, and be social! A few days later I got to try Bronya’s class. Her style is a slow flow that focuses on technique and alignment. She blends in elements from many holistic healthcare practices including tai chi and chi gong. Bronya’s calming and meditative voice combined with nadi shodhan (alternate nostril breathing) and the sound of crashing waves allowed this class to take on a deep restorative vibe. It’s the yin to the yang of the Cabarete athletic lifestyle. Practicing in the Yoga Loft reminds me that all of the essential “things” I need are right at my fingertips. First things first, and finding the good coffee can wait- at least until after class!
How to Do a Muscle-Up
Bitches they be Musclin’ Part I (Part I of III – Genevieve learning How to Do a Muscle-Up) Disclaimer: I am not a fitness professional, nor am I trained in health in fitness. I am a fitness junkie who geeks out on reading about health and fitness, and love I to learn and challenge myself. I enjoy researching about health, fitness and our human body. I enjoy working out, working out with others and setting goals. I am not responsible if you hurt yourself – train smart and train responsibly. When you’re in elementary school your learn how to write down goals. When you’re in high school, you learn how to write short and long term goals. When you’re in college, you learn how to write Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Time-bound (S.M.A.R.T) goals and objectives. When you graduate into the school of life, hopefully you can do this without being told. Most people are used to setting career, educational, financial or personal goals, but I think it’s also really important to have a fitness goal. I find that it helps me stay active, makes things fun, and keeps me passionate. When I completed my first 10K race, I was SO pumped! When I completed my first half marathon I cried. I did it! I flippin’ did it! Nobody else did it for me and nobody else can take the credit from me. I put in all those hours of running, sprinting, and training. I’m the one that got my ass out of bed at 6am to practice before school. I’m the one that tied my laces to go run in the cold Vancouver rain. I owned every decision and nobody but I was accountable. Fitness goals are extremely rewarding – they’re almost two fold. You work hard to attain a goal, and when you do, your body has also transformed into something your mirror can’t stop staring at. You’re like “damn, I’m dedicated and smokin’ – nuff said. So my most recent fitness goal was to accomplish doing ten pull-ups. Considering girls generally have t-rex arms, gaining enough strength to do ten strict pull-ups with over-hand grip is very difficult. I when I started a few months ago, I was able to do 4. After 3 months, I am now able to complete my ten. Still hard, but I can do them on a good day. My new fitness challenge is to complete one kipping muscle up. When I was doing my research on how to do this extremely difficult move – I took note of the prerequisites Must be able to do a standard chest-to-ring pull-up – CHECK Or nip to bar pull-up Must be able to do a standard dip on rings – FAIL Sit in the very bottom of a dip without straining your shoulder – CHECK Ok, so I know where I stand and what I need to work on. Nowadays, I keep up with my pull-ups but I’m also doing a lot of dips on bars and trying to hold a stabilized position on the rings. My arms are really shaky on the sings and I definitely can’t dip in them yet. I also started practicing my muscle up technique on the rings. I lowered them to hip level and practiced the grip and the back and forth movement. I need this to be in my muscle memory so that I don’t injure myself when I attempt a full, unassisted muscle-up. So, my job now is to keep up my pull-ups, keep up my dips and get more comfortable on the rings. I need to improve my control and start slowly dipping. I’ll keep you posted on my progress, until next time! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFGA9eG-JaA Genevieve
How we celebrate birthdays at Extreme Hotel
How we celebrate birthdays at Extreme Hotel The manager of Extreme Hotel is a 6ft tall Canadian goddess. She’s been part of the team that has transformed the hotel over the last five years and has been a main fixture on the site for the last year and a half. She works as hard as she plays, so on her 26th birthday we celebrated in true Genevieve style. She concocted a “dirty 26” workout and invited all the gym regulars and Extreme guests. The result: we had three separate heats of people all sweating their brains out in celebration. 26 Exercises, 26 reps for each one. Number 26 was a shot of rum to finish :) Thanks Gen, I could barely get out of bed this morning – although I’m not sure if that’s from the pre-party workout, or the party itself.
Fitness Vacation: How Flexibility Promotes Strength
Fitness advise is abundant in this day and age, but not all of it we can trust. Here is a post from guest blogger and fitness instructor at Rogue Fitness Cabarete, at Extreme Hotel in Cabarete. Fitness camps and fitness vacations are a part of the Extreme lifestyle, so this is a hot topic of conversation amongst our guests: We know the same muscle fibers that stretch and lengthen also shorten and contract. What’s really cool is the way stretching muscles can lead to more strength than if they weren’t stretched. First lets explore strength: how is it gained? Strength of a muscle group is directly related to the amount of muscle fibers a muscle can recruit for a contraction, it’s not how strong the fibers are, it’s how many your brain was able to activate. So using a lot of muscles in a lot of ways is the best way to strengthen. By applying this knowledge we can stretch deeper while getting stronger by using cooperating muscle groups. We won’t get too into the relationships between muscle groups during a contraction except that related to stretching. So what’s important to touch on is that for one muscle group that is contracting, or being the agonist (Oh! the agony!) there’s his BFF close by playing the role of the antagonist just stretching and basically being forced to relax due to the contraction and later helping return the limb to where it started. So if you want to stretch the hamstrings, do it more effectively by flexing the quadriceps so they force your hammies to relax and take it. Quad workout, hamstring stretch; win, win situation! The biggest way stretching helps muscles grow stronger is when it is applied throughout a workout. Old school mentality stretches before a workout, sometimes as a warm up, sometimes after. More and more it’s nice to see stretching applied before AND after exercise but where it’s really at is stretching in between sets, especially when the movements require great strength or speed (fast-twitch muscle fiber.) Here’s why: Let’s say you do 25 sit ups, that’s about 45 seconds of consistent shortening of a muscle. Think 25 times that your CNS received information regarding the shortening of fibers. It’s almost like the Doers forget that they can lengthen as well. That’s why big dudes are so inflexible. We don’t need to be contortionists but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to get that itch on your back. Not to mention the build up of lactic acid in the muscle that can greatly be reduced if we just strain it out by stretching and lengthening that muscle. It’s been said that 80% of your gains at the gym are made in that last rep that you don’t do, if you stretch in between, your muscles aren’t as inflamed, therefore not as fatigued so you can get that one more rep, or 10 more seconds that make the biggest difference. In a gym environment, there’s always a lot of talk about strength and flexibility sometimes seeming as if one doesn’t have to do with the other. Really though, strength and flexibility are a married couple bonded by their devotion to the health of the musculoskeletal system and we should fill our workouts with stretches to promote muscle growth and repair.
Surfing With The Sun
I don’t often get to see the sunrise, but when I do I get a chill running down my spine. It’s a special feeling that I liken to taking off in an airplane, or the first day of a new job. Like you are living and breathing ‘beginning’. So the idea of getting to see a sunrise is pretty cool, but actually getting out there and doing it is another. For starters if you want to see the beginning rays of the day, then you have to get out of your cozy bed before that day has even begun. While your laying there in a half wake state there are tones of reasons to NOT get up. Living here at extreme for six months I’ve managed to find a few more reasons to get up with a pop. For one, our slogan is live by the sun. So once I see those rays coming through my curtains, I know its time to go…. And when the sun starts to set at night I begin concocting my plans for a wholesome dinner shared with friends and an early tuck in time. This past November I went surfing more times than I did in all of 2011. Or for that matter the entire rest of my life. Surfing is a pretty cool sport. We all know that. But the reason that its cool to me is that there are so many elements that line up to that perfect wave. And getting up early is one of them. I stood at the shores edge at 6:45 this morning staring at the massive rippling grey soup of swell wondering why there were no other surfers in the water. All the other surfers had a similar stance to me – standing, watching, calculating….. except I didn’t know why I was doing it. So I said to hell with that and went and got my board ready. By the time I got in the water I was about the fourth person out there. 30 minutes later once I’d battled past the break (I’m totally still an amateur) there was probably 20 people waiting for their perfect wave. Beating the crowds. Now that’s a reason to crawl out of your covers before the sun. When we say live with the sun, maybe we actually mean live ahead of the sun. Maybe set an alarm, or mark on your calendar – “today is the day you tell the sun what to do”. When you have a fierce desire and attachment to a sport/ hobby/ game – whatever it is that drives you – it doesn’t really matter where the sun is, or the wind or the powder… you have to put yourself there and be ready for whatever mother nature will give you. Big, small, gnarly, suave … its all a part of the challenge and the reason to get out and play.