I had the pleasure of being invited by Inside Fitness Magazine to their launch event for their new Women’s Training Guide issue launch on Sunday, December 6th. A group of amazing women, including my bestie Eva Redpath and I headed out to Mississauga to beast 3 workouts. We were hosted at Battle Arts Academy which is an amazing new training facility that has strength, conditioning and functional training apparatus, a huge boxing & octagon fighting area as well as kickboxing bags.

We were divided into two groups and we started out by getting our butts kicked by Stephanie Joanne, the resident CityTV fitness expert. I’ve seen her around the gym (the old Extreme Fitness) and on social media so it was nice to see her. She put together an amazing circuit for us ladies that had us groaning, sweating and smiling. Dave Laus was on hand taking pictures and captured Eva and I doing jump squats on the tire & sled pushes. Yup that’s my toosh in the second picture below.

The circuit comprised of tire jump squats, playing on the monkey bars (check out the below pic of the apparatus), TRX push ups, skipping rope with muscle ropes, up up down down planks, incline treadmill running, sled pushes, side runs, ring pull ups with feet on platforms and rope pull up and downs. Then it was time for a quick selfie with Steph, a protein pancake fest with Kasia & off to our next adventure.

I posted on Instagram some of the silliness that occurred between Kasia and I. Let’s just say it was friendship at first sight after stalking each other on social media for years! We have the same dorky humour. It was an epic encounter.

Ok back to our next workout. Next we stepped into Nichelle’s lair for some kick boxing instruction. Here we are intently listening on how to stand and to understand the different kind of punches and kicks.

The only downside to this workout is that they didn’t have extra wraps or gloves for everyone. So Eva and I shared with the girls beside us and had fun doing air speedbag over and over again in the most dorkiest way possible when no gloves were available or just “hanging” out (teehee see below – I’m such a dork). Kickboxing is such a great workout and I definitely wish this was part of my more regular workouts.

The third and final workout of the day was a non traditional yoga class. I’m not sure if it was just the venue but the class was not my cup of tea because I’m sooo used to studio life. I was so excited to take a class with Gillian and definitely learned two new things that I need to incorporate into my practice but the battle arts was such a large space and people were off in the main foyer talking loudly and it just didn’t allow me to focus. I need quiet or my mind wanders. But I love that she had us interdigitate our toes. Which played with your brain but was mind blowing!!! I also love the prana bath she had us do to open up our shoulders!

Thank you Inside Fitness for having me! I had a great Sunday with a great group of inspiring ladies!!

Don’t forget to pick up a copy of the Women’s Training Guide when it comes out on newsstands December 16th!