When Brandon and I arrived home on Sunday evening I was itching to move my body after a couple of days of rest and a five hour car ride. Brandon encouraged me not to run even though my back was feeling better because of the pounding. I actually listened (that is rare) and we compromised by going to the Y together to elliptical and foam roll.

The next thing I knew I was being persuaded by a fitness floor staff member to try the new Precor Adaptive Motion Trainer (AMT) that they just got in. I take back all the bad things I’ve ever said about elliptical machines. This thing owned me!

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Within the first five minutes on the AMT, my heart was beating hard and I could feel the lactic acid building in my legs. Honestly, I don’t spend a lot of time on other cardio machines at the gym because I usually go straight for the treadmill.  I thought it might be helpful to provide a quick overview of the Precor AMT for those of you who might have access to one in your gym.

The coolest thing about the AMT is the ability to change the length of your stride. You can go from climbing strides (similar to stairs) to short strides to mid-range strides to long strides and you monitor the length of your strides using a visual on the console. This allows you to target and train different muscle groups all on one machine.

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You also burn more calories on the AMT compared to a traditional elliptical due to the “dual-plane resistance.” Precor has designed a system that applies resistance on both the horizontal and vertical plane. Brandon said that he burned a about 10-15% more calories on the AMT than he does on the elliptical. I attribute part of my getting my heart rate up so high and burning more calories due to how much I had to use my arms to keep a good pace.

I will definitely be making a beeline to the AMT next time I want to do low-impact cardio!

Has anyone tried the AMT? If so, what did you think?

After the Y we decided to use a Groupon and go out for sushi at Pisces.

I’m not going to go into a full review but we were impressed by the quality for the price. Cyros still holds the place of our favorite sushi in Charlotte but Pisces was a good slightly more affordable option. My favorite thing about Pisces was their serving dishes – I loved the handmade pottery style.

I taught BodyPump this morning and we had a very small crowd due to the President’s Day holiday. My Y is located in a bank building downtown so anytime there is a bank holiday, our numbers are down. I felt really good throughout the workout and didn’t have any back pain. I opted to sit out of the back exercises and let my co-instructor lead.

I had apple cinnamon oatmeal at my desk for breakfast and Brandon and I went out to lunch at Common Market due to a lack of groceries in the house and the beautiful weather outside.

We split a turkey sandwich with sundried tomato spread, goat cheese and spinach on sourdough. I had a kombucha and Terra Chips on the side. The high in Charlotte today was 75 degrees and it was so nice to eat lunch outside.

I had a busy afternoon at work and then came home and immediately changed into my running clothes to take advantage of the beautiful day. Sullie was excited to run with me!

We ran an easy three miles and I felt inspired by Jen’s recent post and didn’t wear my Garmin. It was SO nice. This run just really reminded me how much I love running after the cold, dark winter. The weather was gorgeous and Sullie was on her best behavior and being a perfect running partner.

While discussing our menu plan for the week (yes, I planned this week…such a relief), Brandon and I discovered that we were both craving eggplant parmesan.

I made my favorite Baked Eggplant Parmesan recipe with a side of whole grain spaghetti, mixed greens and French bread. We finished it off with a glass of red wine. Such a delicious dinner!

Bed time. Attempting an ashtanga practice in the morning. My first yoga practice since last week’s disastrous practice. Fingers crossed that my body is ready.