Let’s talk boobs

That’s right folks. This blog post is going to be all about boobies — more specifically taming them.

For me, it’s difficult to make the time to do all the exercising activities I want to in the run of the week, and since I’m not willing to do it in the morning I’m left with working out after work, or on the weekends. I find that most people stick to what they love, whether it be running or going to the gym. Not a lot of people cross train, which I think is important to prevent injury. I learned that the hard way two summer’s ago when I busted up my ankle at soccer.

My battle as I said, is trying to find the time to do all of the sports I enjoy. I received an e-mail recently from my former soccer team mate asking me if I was going to jump on board and sign up for outdoor this season. After a weeks thought, I declined. The primary reason that I decided not to go into it this year was I felt like I wasn’t bringing anything to the team last year. I wasn’t pushing it hard on the field, I generally wasn’t happy even being on the field whatsoever. Legs (my favorite nick name ever) lost her mojo.

Soccer used to be “my” sport, until I discovered CrossFit that is. Climbing is still hovering in a close second place, but since I’ve been climbing since 1994 I feel like it will always be there and it doesn’t need to be a front runner. I’m juggling between getting in enough days at the CrossFit box, and climbing. Some days I’m sore from CF, and can’t climb. Oh, it’s a vicious cycle.

All three of these sporting events have something in common. No, not indecent exposure, in fact it’s the opposite. If you’re female, you’re probably going to want to wear a bra while working out, right? Tank top, optional. At least at the places that I seem to frequent. Don’t worry Mom, I wear clothes over top of my bra’s.

Or bra’s over top of my clothes. Because you know, that’s normal. It was for a Breast Cancer cause I organized. Most women nowadays wear bras, unless … you don’t need/want to. That’s cool. But I like to wear them all the time, especially when exercising. Let’s take running for example. We do a lot of sprints and 1km loops around the block at CrossFit. Wearing a supportive bra when you’re going all out trying to catch the person ahead of you, you’re going to not want to have any bouncing issues. Not like it happens to me with the size I am.

A few weeks ago I was in contact with a representative from Under Armour and got the chance to review a brand spanking new bra from them, the Armour Bra.

The most expensive bra I now own. It better be good! It retails for $69.99.

I can’t believe I’m modeling a bra on my website. But hey, it’s pretty full coverage and you’re not seeing much. I cropped it because you know, you don’t want to see too much sexiness going on here. Ya know what I mean? Uh huh. That’s what I’ll keep telling myself. This is a family safe blog after all.

All of the Armour Bra’s are color coordinated to the cup size. B cup’s are blue. C’s are pink (I kinda want the pink!!).

So, what do I think of the Armour Bra? The compression bra was something I thought I had to get used to but it wasn’t bad at all. I have a few sports bras which are difficult to get off over my shoulders but this one isn’t thanks to the adjusting band on the back like a regular bra. While I felt secure in the bra I didn’t feel like it had an exact fit, and I can’t exactly pinpoint why. Under Armour has amazing potential and already works for so many people. I’m an in between size and it’s difficult to get things to fit me properly. I measure at 33 inches around, so I went with my safe bet at a 34B. Apparently (and I believe so because I own both sizes) 32C and 34B are the same bra cup/size as one Victoria’s Secret consultant once told me. So I’m not sure if I would’ve done better with the 32 or not.

Inside the bra there are modesty cups, which are removable for quick drying if you had a hard workout session. I definitely took advantage of that feature after a few CrossFit WOD’s and had swoob (sweaty boob) happening. Doesn’t everyone? Too much information? Sorry. I’m like that.

I ended up wearing it to CrossFit a handful of times and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a 100% on this $69.99 bra. The most irritating thing about it is the height of the back straps. I’m pointing to them in the second photo of where I had the issue.

I was doing a workout which consisted of a lot of push-presses, toes to bar, and box jumps. Any time I jumped up to the bar and started doing T2B’s I had to step down and readjust the bra to pull the straps back almost like I was re-adjusting my shirt so the seams would sit in place. I’m not sure if it’s because I got a size that didn’t fit me perfectly (but I’m pretty sure I know my bra size). The back strap around the base of my neck rose up making me feel like I was hunched. It was a strange feeling and I tried wearing different tank tops with it, and I still had that same issue.

That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to ever wear this bra again. I loved the coverage, and it stayed in place when I was jumping on and off the 20 inch boxes when doing the box jumps at CrossFit, the tata’s felt secured that way. The bra is seamless so no irritation or rubbing on your skin when moving about and sweating. It didn’t give me mono-boob. You know that typical sports bra look where your boobs look smooshed together? They didn’t look that way with the Under Armour bra. They separated and looked as if I was wearing a regular bra. It’s the little things that matter. It had me feeling assured, except for that riding up issue. But those exercises don’t happen very often at CrossFit, so maybe on the days I know we’re doing more strength or cardio and not doing pullups or toes to bar exercises, I can sport it.

Thanks again to Under Armour letting me have this opportunity to review the new Armour Bra!

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I am…

I am a FitFluential Ambassador. What does that mean for my website here at spiffykerms.com?

I’m not going to change who I am, and what I blog about. But I’ve joined a group that influences people to be fit! Since I already am a CrossFitter, Rock Climber and Soccer player I thought it was the perfect edition to my website. Here’s a quote from the website:

FitFluential is a nationwide network of fitness enthusiasts sharing their journey both online and offline through multiple social media platforms.

Go ahead check out the site, and check out all of the people who are also Ambassadors! Or if you’d like to become a FitFluential Ambassador like myself who is interested in fitness blogging, chatting on YouTube  or use FaceBook and twitter. Whatever you do, FitFluential would love to welcome you into the family!

FitFluential members are eligible to receive exclusive discounts and giveaways from their partners. Even in your area. FitFluential is based out of the USA but they welcome their Canadian neighbors like myself. You can take advantage of events in your area, or even take everything to the next level and earn some income by working with the FitFluential partners.

Sounds fun, right?  Signing up to FitFluential is free. Just say I referred you! Remember though, you’re not obligated or committed to do anything, therefore you can cancel your FitFluential membership at any time. 

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Tour de Bloc. December 3, 2011

On December 3 I entered my second Tour de Bloc boulder competition. The first Tour de Bloc I attended was in 2003 when a few of us Newfoundlanders flew up to Toronto to compete in the 2nd season of Tour de Bloc in 2003 at Joe Rockheads. There were only 8 women in that competition — on Saturday there were 200 men and women! People came in from all over. I only knew one person in the entire boulder competition and that was my buddy that I climb with. Some people came in from Detroit, Quebec, and all over Ontario of course. Crazy right? It ended up getting way more packed than this! I haven’t been in a climbing competition since 2005, and thankfully I wasn’t too nervous. You can bet your bottom dollar that I was certainly nervous leading up to it, and the morning of. But when I stepped into the local gym where I always climb, I felt comfortable again. It was an amazing day, so I wanted to share my recap with you all.

My buddy Dave and I sitting down listening to the rules of the comp.

I didn’t scope out the problems very well within the three and a half hours that I had to climb. I just wanted to do a few easy one’s then work on a few balancy or crimpy problems.

Here I am working another semi-easy one. I love it when I find problems that have a similar style to what I like to climb. Thanks for the photo Christine!

Scott came to support me and gave me some pointers on some routes, even though he doesn’t climb – it was helpful! Here’s a video he took of me while I was climbing the orange problem above. Thankfully he stopped the video right before I do my signature move when coming off a route, or boulder problem. Tumble to the ground, fall on my butt and stumble to get up, lol!

Then I ended up staying on this one delicate boulder problem for over an hour until I got it. Getting up to the big sloper with a few nice dents in it where I could place my fingers, you had to really balance your left hip/thigh on the hold and balance all your weight up right so your weight is on your right foot. Let go with both hands and place them in the above taped red box.

Not quite up there yet. Taking a deep breath before I mantle on the monster sized hold.

My bosses daughter/my co-worker ended up coming out to say hello for a quick minute during the competition and snapped this awesome photo of me. My left foot is swinging free, I don’t have a foot hold for it. My right leg is on that same hold as the photo above. Super balancy, super awesome. Unfortunately I don’t have a video of anyone attempting this. It was definitely a fun route. I ended up banging my right knee to get hoisted up onto the big ol’ hold that I didn’t notice I was giving myself a dirty bruise.

The bruise showed up just hours after the comp was over. I’ll spare you details on how it looks now. Let’s just say it’s bigger and uglier. Ha!

This was my second boulder problem I was working on for a while.

I didn’t finish this problem, I was on this one for about a half hour or more. Scott got a video of me attempting this one. But I popped off after a lame attempt. Too bad he didn’t get me on one of the better tries. See below:

Now onto my favorite photos of the day, even though I didn’t succeed at finishing the problem. This was at about a half hour til the cut-off time. Three hours into bouldering. Super tiring. I saw the guy in the grey shirt working this red taped orange hold route. It was #24 (out of 50) on the ‘scale of difficulty’ for the Tour de Bloc, so kind of up my alley. It started off with the sloper with the V-shaped tape in the bottom right hand corner. I tried my luck with the route and didn’t get any further than in the photos you see, lol. I just didn’t know how to get off those two holds! I think the photo above is one of my favorite climbing photos. Such a weird position.

Where to go? Ahhh!

The comp ended at 4:30 and by that time we were starving. We drove over to Boston Pizza to stuff our faces.

Man, their pizza is good. I vote you get a Deluxe, the cheese was ooie gooie and perfect for a long day of bouldering. We ended up coming back an hour after the Finals started. We watched part of the Women’s Finals and caught the tail end of it. I did end up watching all the Men’s Finals and took videos of it all which you can view on a YouTube channel that has my full name in it. So, if you want the link just leave me a message in the comments below and I can send you the link. I just don’t want my full name out there ;)

Alright, so here is one simple photo of the 8 male finalists! So fun. :)There’s another Tour de Bloc stop at Climber’s Rock in Burlington in January. I think I’m going to attend. Are you?

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