What is Your Most Important Fitness Tool

I salute the master of the no-slip hair clip! Do you think that wire leads to a battery pack?

What is the one thing you absolutely cannot workout without? Working out as long as I have and in as many different situations as I have (and losing as many brain cells as I have), I have forgotten pretty much every conceivable item. Yes that includes underwear. But I have learned that almost always there is a way to work around what you're lacking.

No sports bra? Your regular one or even your cami with the built-in shelf bra (which honestly is only a "bra" for 12-year old girls and is a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen for the rest of us) will do in a pinch.

No heart rate monitor? Take your pulse the old fashioned way on your neck. (Just don't press so hard you pass out.)

No shoes? My friend Leah once famously did a TurboKick class in her socks rather than miss her workout. My husband has run a mile in his work shoes. And just last month I lifted weights in my snow boots due to my keys making an impromptu trip to work with my husband.

No deodorant? Make some by making a paste with your spit and some diaper rash cream. Yeah, I actually tried that once. I can't say that it didn't work though - my armpits definitely didn't smell like sweat! Not that Desitin is preferrable to b.o.

But there is one thing I simply cannot exercise without: a hair tie. I can't stand having hair on my neck and in my face. I'll use bobby pins, head bands and flower clips as well but always in conjunction with a rubber band. Gym Buddy Krista once asked me if I was into Kabbalah because she thought the red ponytail holder that I always wore on my left wrist was a red Kabbalah string. Being as attached to hair ties as I am, I've tried them all and they've all been okay but then the other day Gym Buddy Allison showed up with these:

These do not fall out or slip at all! You know those cute ponytails where you pouf it up a little bit at the crown but they never stay without booby-trapping them with 100 bobby pins because the hair band doesn't hold tight enough? My poufy pony lasted all day today! (I cannot believe I just wrote that.) No bobbies, no slipping!

They may look like the jelly bracelets of your youth but these Scuni "evolution" bands are actually the cutest tightest don't-get-stretched-outiest hair ties you have ever used! And they come in clear in case you don't like looking as Rainbow Brite as I do! I can't believe I'm this excited about a rubber band but there you go. It's the little things in life.

What's the one thing you can't workout without? Have you ever done a crazy "fix" because you forgot something important? How do you keep your hair out of your face?

How (Not) To Use a Sandbag [Gym Buddy Workout Videos!]

Daria and I model our sandbags. Hers is leaking black coal dust down her back and yet she's still smiling. What a trouper!

Ever had your butt handed to you by a piece of fitness equipment? Well I sure did. Our very first day of the Sandbag Experiment ended with sandbag: 20, Charlotte: 0. One of the first moves we attempted is a clean and press. I've been doing those for years with the bar so I figured it wouldn't be too bad with the sandbag. I was so so wrong. The shifting of the weight really threw me off (literally). Lest you think I'm good at everything I try, behold the blooper reel:

Gym Buddy Allison comes in at the end to show me how it's really done and of course manages to not only do them perfectly but also makes them look like a piece of cake! That bag may look small but it's 50 freaking pounds. I still haven't managed a decent clean and press.

Here are the Gym Buddies demonstrating a few other moves that are particularly challenging with a sandbag:

Making Your Own Sandbag

While I got my nifty sandbag (best part: all the handles!) from Ultimate Sandbags, we need more than one bag between all the Gym Buddies. So today Allison and I both attempted to make our own. I took an old school backpack and filled it with 30 pounds of wheat poured into smaller sacks and sealed off. Any of you who are Mormon will immediately understand why I happened to have 30 pounds of wheat lying around my house but for the rest of you, you can fill it with whatever you have handy: kitty litter (unused!), rice, beans, a wiggly toddler, gravel... very small rocks. Allison made hers by filling a duffle bag with an old leaky sandbag the Y happened to have and wrapping it in a garbage bag. Two free sandbags, 10 minutes! Now you have no excuse for not doing this Experiment with us!

Extra Credit: The Crazy TRX Move You Must Try!

This is what we do to bad Gym Buddies - we hang them up in a TRX and leave them. Just kidding! Megan's demo'ing a crazy move I found on the TRX website. You know you want to try it!

Have you ever had your butt kicked by a piece of fitness equipment? Have you tried a fun or crazy move that we should try? Have you made a piece of equipment yourself?

The Power of a Good Gym Buddy

Tuesday was a very special day here at the Great Fitness Experiment. I got to do my second-ever blogger meet up! (Kara of Mama Sweat was my first.) Katie of Making Food and Stuff was up here in the arctic wasteland visiting family and she generously (naively?) offered to come do a workout with the Gym Buddies and I. I should have warned her: we love an audience! The girls and I pulled out our best party tricks and put her through one the strangest - yet still crazy tough - mashup of a workout we've ever done.

We started out the day by me throwing myself around her neck for a sweaty hug (I start sweating waaay before my workout starts). Not a hugger? Too bad -you are when you meet me! Then I took her upstairs and introduced her to about 20 people in 20 seconds who then further confused her by trading treadmills. Follow the birdie!

This is how we initiate new gym buddies: by forcing them to perform cheerleading stunts with no safety mats. How come two of our "bases" only have one hand on the floor?!

First up: Tabata sprints on the treadmill. As our warm-up. (Dear Charlotte, next time maybe actually warm up before sprinting, ok? Kicks and hugs, your calves.) Katie was a Tabata virgin but she took the 4 minutes of hell like a champ.

Second: We had day 2 of Lindsey's workout which was some stair running and rope jumping... which of course I had to amp up by tacking on Zuzana's "suicide workout". (What? We had a guest to impress!)

After getting good and sweaty and vowing to never do another ninja tuck jump again (P.S. Katie and Gym Buddies? Um, I got that first interval backwards. We weren't supposed to be doing 15 rounds of 3 jumps and 3 slow-mo pushups. Just 1 jump per round. My bad.) we decided to do a little TRX ab work. Katie was also a TRX virgin so we showed her all the many ways it can smack you into the wall if you're not careful. Supa fly!

And just when we thought we were going to get to sit, stretch and discuss things totally inappropriate for the gym, Allison decided we needed to do towel-pull races. Which we did. Over and over and over. Girlfriend loves her towel pulls. Probably because she always wins!

You like my water skiing maneuver? And then how I totally cheat on the way back? In my defense, this was like the 10th round of these we'd done and my quads were toast. (Reading this in a reader? Click through to see the video.)

After this we finally got to sit down and stretch for a few minutes before scattering to do the preschool rounds. And since Katie missed out on our weird gym convo, here's one of my personal faves in which Daria instructs the rest of the Gym Buddies in the art of The Epilady! Yes, we are actually in the gym and not in the locker room.

All that screaming? I'm such a wuss. You guys that told me to try this thing must have legs of steel because it felt like getting shocked with an electric cattle prod over and over again. How do you ever use that thing on your armpits?! Yeowch.

Speaking of bloggers I'd love to meet, Averie of Loves Veggies and Yoga reviewed my book today and not only said a bunch of totally sweet things that made my whole week but included lots of fun pictures - including one of her "keeping it real" with her hair in foils. Gotta love a girl who blogs through a plague of rain and a hole in her ceiling!

Thanks for the great time Katie - come visit us again! And that offer extends to any of you as well - if you're ever in the Minneapolis area, you're always welcome to come workout with us! Now I'm going to take a page from Katie's book and ask you guys: do you normally prefer to workout alone or in a group? Do you have a beauty routine that's painful but worth the results?