it’s year round) but spring is usually the worst. Since I can’t control all the different pollens in the air amongst the already existing allergens that my body reacts to, I can only control how healthy I keep my immune system. Especially now that I am training everyday and can’t afford any setbacks with not feeling 100%. Just as religious as I am about my physical recovery days, I am also diligent about preventing a weakened immune system. Aside from taking my daily dose of Dr. Feel Good, I also drink a Green Supreme Fusion each and every morning with breakfast.

We’ve been seeing more abdominal injuries over the past 10 years. The term that came out of them—sports hernia—really doesn’t tell us much, if anything, about the injuries. That’s because the injury isn’t a hernia but a tear, or overstretch, of the rectus abdominis muscle.

The injury started to be recognized in the late 1980’s and only recently is being readily acknowledged. The two sports with the most prevalent ab tears are hockey and soccer, even though they’re seen in football and basketball, and I’ve seen cases in weightlifting and marathon running. The reason I decided to address it is a recent case of a weight trainee who has been dealing with the symptoms for three years.

The trainee stated he felt the pain shortly after performing crunches. He said he was performing three sets of 70. That certainly didn’t seem to be enough to cause the injury. Still, he became unable to run due to his abdominal pain.

As it turned out, the trainee had suffered a right shoulder injury, which prevented him from performing much of his upper-body training. So he’d been concentrating his time and energy on ab training. He was performing flat crunches, crunches across a Swiss ball, side crunches and several other exercises. He’d suddenly increased his volume of ab training, added new exercises and wasn’t getting much recovery. The result was that he tore his rectus abdominis.

Even though I’m an Arizona girl with all the sunshine we get, I absolutely love the fall, and I’m looking forward to playing in the snow this winter. This is my break time, but I still have to be purposeful in my actions during the offseason, especially when it comes to my training. My offseason is very short—around 8 weeks, so eating everything in sight and not training with intensity would only put me behind schedule in preparation for my next competition. I don’t necessarily follow a diet during my offseason anymore, but if you’re someone who’s just starting out, or if you have other goals in mind, I highly recommend following a diet plan to make sure you reach your goals.

Now that the 2015 competition season is over and our team photo shoot is finished, I’ll be giving my mind and body a break. For me, it’s actually pretty tough to stay away from the gym because training is also a BIG release for me.

We just finished our Team SAN video and photo shoot last night, and I can’t wait to see the final images.
It was a twilight shoot that ran from 9:00 P.M. til 3:00 A.M., but it was so much fun, and I was amazed at how much energy I had! Well, I took 2 Tight Xtreme Reloaded thermogenic capsules, so I shouldn’t be too surprised. LOL! They kept me awake, alert, and energetic, plus I was burning fat, so I was sweating, too! The glistening skin mixed with oil spray was a bonus for the grungy-style workout shoot.