Striking a Pose Daily

I’m back! And I’m LOVING being off. My body was shot and I caught up on a lot of sleep yesterday morning. It was glorious!

No I don’t sleep standing up, just being silly! But I look so peaceful and rested 🙂

Phoebe and I decided to work on a new recipe yesterday morning that I am saving for a special project. Yummy french toast that is prep friendly!

And my girl has REALLY been acting up lately. Not sure why. I bought her this new toy the other night as a nice vacation surprise…

And 2 minutes later she killed it 🙁

Phoebe is the only dog I’ve known who loves these rubber toys! I don’t let her have them often because the squeakers are SO irritating. Mommy wanted to give her girl something special though. Even though she broke it, she is still throwing it around and playing with the poor deflated thing. She only gets it when I’m around so I can keep an eye on her.

I headed to the gym in the mid afternoon so I could use the fitness room before evening classes started. I am taking full advantage of this week off to practice my posing as much as possible. I am getting much better at the walk and no longer look like a baby giraffe learning to walk for the first time.

I improve each day I practice and I’m now learning how to make my body POP! Of course this is hard gym work and diet too, but posing really does make a difference in the way your body appears.

You guys know I do A LOT of side bends and now that I am leaning out it shows! Obliques are really making their appearance.

I was able to capture this shot from a video of my T-walk.

Definitely starting to get that bikini girl look! I saw this and said “wow I’m getting close”. Waist needs to cinch in a little bit more, and back needs to come in tighter (I’m looking at this from a judges eye and what they look for).  I still have 7 and a half weeks left and plan on getting sharper and stronger.

And with bikini walks come injuries. During a walk I kicked myself with my heel and looked down and noticed I was bleeding 🙁 oh no! Bikini competitions are dangerous 😉

After posing I hit some cardio and glutes. I have to say it’s a great feeling knowing I have finally started to pop because now people know I’m competing without even talking to me. I’ve talked to quite a few people this past week at my gym and I cannot believe how many people do these shows! I am definitely not a talker at the gym, but it’s been really cool meeting so many great people who understand the process. Some bodybuilders even stopped me yesterday while I was doing cable kick backs because they told me they needed to try that to work their glutes for their show. Bodybuilders stopping me!? Awesome!

Not a bodybuilder bicep, but feminine and strong.

As I was working out, I noticed a lot of the same people I see all the time. I’m a people watcher by nature and if you think I am not looking, chances are I am. Sorry, can’t help it. It’s also the little bit of paranoia in me. I have to be aware of my surroundings at all times.

Anyway, I realized people do the same exercises OVER and OVER. No I’m not talking about reps or sets, I’m talking about the same exercises each leg day, bicep day, etc. I keep to myself of course, but I want to shake these people and tell them to please change it up! I started seeing results when I changed my routine. Even during this prep I am NOT doing the same exercises. Every week I work a muscle group, I do different things and I’ve been making amazing progress doing it this way. I still keep in the basic squats and a hamstring curl here or there, but I try my best to add many different things.

Here are some things I did for glutes yesterday to change it up a bit:

• Good mornings in a Plie stance using a 40-50 lb bar on shoulders. This really worked the SIDES of my glutes (gluteus minimus and medius).
• Kettle bell dead lift pulses using 25 lbs per hand. Dead lift stance, but pulse up and down at the bottom. Kills the glutes and the muffin top area!
• TRX bottom squat pulses with heel squats– Hold the TRX ropes and balance on your heels. Get as low as you can to the floor in a squat position and pulse down and up for 8-10 reps (very tiny movement), then squat down and up (full squat) while balancing on the heels, squeeze glutes tight on the up! I repeated these 2 exercises 4 times.
• Same leg front and back lunge– Large step forward into a lunge, then with the same leg step backwards and lunge. It’s one continuous movement (lunge front, lunge back) on the same leg. I do these unweighted and did 2 sets on each side for 10.
• Smith machine Lunge and a knee up- This is just a step back lunge and as you come forward you bring the knee up to your chest and then back into the lunge. I repeated 12 times, 2 sets each leg.

So some good new things to try!

I had the wavy hair thing going for me thanks to wearing my hair up and using dry shampoo! I’ve been using dry shampoo for years because I have very oily hair and I FINALLY found a cheap drug store kind that works as good as the expensive stuff. I highly recommend Dove’s Dry Shampoo!

Not a sponsor, I just like it. 

A lot of volume too! I love it 🙂

Today I plan on staying super busy. I have some errands to do, some meal prepping in the morning to finish, writing, and of course gym time and posing practice!

See you back tomorrow kiddos

XOXO With a Cherry On Top,

-Minnie