Happy New Year!

The new year is a magical time for me. I'm like a little kid during the holidays: I love the wonder, the optimism, and the love. 

We all get bombarded with posts and emails about sales, resolutions, getting back on track with food, budgeting, and everything else under the sun in the first week of the new year (and/or are still recovering from New Years Eve weekend...oops), that I just wanted to stop by really quickly today to drop you a challenge (next week, we'll talk resolutions and why I love the spirit...and how we can capitalize on the mood to keep our resolutions in 2017 and beyond). 

In line with our recent chats about making workouts more efficient by upping the weights and cutting down on the time (because the best results don't come from the smartest workout on paper, but from the workouts we actually do consistently), I came up with a 2017-themed metcon. 

There's a 20:17 (that's 20m and 17s) time cap to the following four exercises, 17 reps each:
barbell back squat
barbell front squat
barbell row
barbell bench press

If the front squats are too much for you, pick up a dumbbell and goblet squat (if they're too easy, or if you've decided you're going totally nuts, upgrade by performing hang cleans instead). If your bench press isn't close by your squat rack, feel free to sub dumbbell floor presses. Pick a weight that you can perform for all exercises; this means that some exercises will be easier than others (spoiler: I was going to prescribe 1/2 bodyweight, but I beta-tested that one and wanted you to still like me at least a little when you were done). The goal here is for the weight to feel heavy AF by the end. If you go through 5 rounds...guess what! You've done 20 sets of 17. :) 

Try it out and have fun! 
We'll get into the nitty-gritty of goal setting & resolutions next week.