A Pain-t-ful Night! Of Squat jumps

Yay! 9 amazing GoodGymmers smashed a 3km run with an epic painting session AND an epic fitness session.

It was another fine turn out in cold and frosty Ealing, some terrific runners arrived wrapped up warm and ready to get shiz done! And the GG Legend EMILY THOMPSON returned from (some of) her adventures, thanks so much for coming to see us we miss youuu!

Not only that we had three awesome newbies, Shona, Kathryn and Chris who came for their first ever goodgym run and did a bloomin awesome job of the painting. If it weren't for Kathryn there is no way I would have maintained squat jumps for the full tabata hehe...so thanks for helping me to push myself!

AND, Ankit, ever the dedicated runner, came along and ran in a shirt having forgotten a tshirt hehe. (Un)Luckily it was hidden by a jacket but I am still super impressed and you are such a great part of GGEaling!

Also big thanks to Emma for the cleaning wipes which I have managed to apprehend for myself :) I will take them along for future GG tasks! You lovely person!

And last but definitely not least, thanks to Manvir and Alex for coming back and just generally being mega awesome!

So, we set off into the frosty night aware that the ground was actually a bit slippy underfoot! We went for a quick warm up in Haven Green as it is so important to dynamically warm up the muscles before setting off for a run, especially if your muscles are already cold thanks to this wintery weather! So it was heel kicks, toe taps, squats and lunges FTW! Followed by my fave 10 seconds fast feet countdown and we were warmed up and ready for the hill!

Last week we had painted half a room in the sheltered accommodation so we were back to finish what we started! As there were a fair few of us we split down into 2 groups to get a good shot at painting and FITNESS WOOP each. Everyone made fast and excellent work of the room, it looks sooo much fresher and brighter and you once again did a really great and helpful thing for someone. You are all just too awesome.

Meanwhile, outside, the fitness sessions were occurring. Of course we had to do my OTHER fave, single leg deadlifts! This are an excellent exercise to help strengthen the posterior chain of calves, hamstrings, into glutes and also help with balance and to strengthen core. These are all sooo important if you are going to run! Of course, the first time you try and single leg deddie, it will be difficult! We then did a bit more balancing and, as Ankit said he had never done yoga before, a few simple yoga balance poses which TBF where made much more difficult by the fact it was a little bit dark outside! So excellent work all round. And Ankit, now you've done some yoga!!

Then came the MAIN EVENT, squat TABATAAAAAaaaa woo! 20 seconds on, 10 seconds rest x 8. With a mixture of squats and squat jumpers, my quads were on fiyahhh by the end of it! TABATA is an effective high intensity style exercise and can be used to do short sprint bursts too, try that at maximum capacity and you will be VERY glad when it's over! and of course, Squats are an amazing functional exercise which, quite frankly, everyone should be doing!

Then there were a few super cold walk outs, take note do not do walk outs on a cold ground haha! And we were done with fitness for the day!

So, after a bit of tidying, a few paint bums (hehe Shona) we were all finished and back off down the Castlebar Hill this time, ahhh and back for a few well earned stretches.

I had an absolutely amazing evening, it was so good to see and meet you all and I hope you can all make it for next week! Sign up to next week here.