Thursday & Friday Stuff. Fun bike intervals!

Just had a really good feeling workout. The kind where when you're done, you just feel alive and ready to tackle anything! Today was back to lighter weights and I just did a mish-mash of stuff revolving around legs, but hitting the shoulders and chest too.

Clean & Press
45x10x3 w/ crunches 10x3

Squats
115x10x3 w/bicycles 20x3

Plate Swings (i could really use some db's here, but making do!)
10's x 10 x 3 w/4 position hip flexor stretches

Walking Lunges w/Lat Raises at bottom of lunge (did I mention I could really use some db's??)
10's x 8 x 2
5's x 8
w/ Plate side bends 10's x 10 x 3

Then onto Blaster Burpee Biking Intervals. Yes, here comes another bizarre form of intervals from me. It consists of biking, Mahler Body Blasters, & 6 count Burpees. The biking part is your "rest" period.
Minutes 1-5 Warmup
Minute 6 = Mahler Body Blasters
Minute 7 = Biking
Minute 8 = Burpees
Minute 9 = Biking
Minute 10 = Mahler Body Blasters
Minute 11 = Biking
Minute 12 = Burpees
Minute 13 = Biking
Minute 14 = Mahler Body Blasters
Minute 15 = Biking
Minute 16 = Burpees
Minute 17 = Biking
Minute 18 = Mahler Body Blasters
Minute 19 = Biking
Minute 20 = Burpees
Minutes 21-25 cool down biking
I did between 8-10 reps of blasters and burpees each set. So at about 9/set that's about 72 pushups and 72 squats added into the mix.

Then I did 5 minutes of hip flexor stretches since I just did the worst thing in the world for tight hip flexors - riding the bike.

Yesterday was Back day and it was short and sweet since I had to get out and paint the house.
Lat Pulls 55x6, 65x6x2
Reverse Grip Lat Pulls 55x6, 65x6x2
Bent Over BB rows 45x8, 65x6, 85x4
90 minutes of house painting and climbing up and down the ladder
And 20 mintues of pilates in the evening.

Recap of 4 weeks:
I'm feeling good and consistent with the lifting workouts, so on to the next phase. I'm the same weight or actually even slightly higher because I've been lifting, but haven't messed with the diet yet. I can feel my quads getting harder though so it is working. This next week I start the cleaner eating phase and I am certain that in the next 4 weeks I'll see some great changes if I can stick to that part of things. I'm looking for a 6lb loss in the next 4 weeks. I will also be adding in some cardio to my workouts at this point, but not alot yet. We'll save that for the end of the challenge. What challenge? LOL, well two of them. The 10 week Super Star Success challenge over at the BuffMother Rally Room. And the 12 week challenge over at the Strong Woman Training Room. I need all of the motivation and encouragement I can get to make this happen!

Monday & Tuesday Workouts, 8/25

Monday was chest and it really felt like a rather wimpy workout. But today I'm feeling quite sore so I guess it was better than I thought.

BP
65x8x3
85x2
85x6
Flyes
10's x 10 x 3
Cable Flyes
10x6
10x8
Pushups
10

Today was Leg day! I did all single leg exercises. It was good stabilization work and I found out my left leg is weaker and tighter than my right.
#'s are for each leg, not the total. (ie. 45x5 = 5 reps each leg with 45lbs)
Single Leg Bench Squats
45x5
45x5
55x5
65x5
75x5

Bulgarians
45x5
55x5
65x5
75x5

Step Ups onto bench
45x5
55x5
65x5
75x5

Walking Lunges
75x8x3 (8 steps total, not each leg)

Leg Exts - Left Leg only to give it a little more work
45x6x3

Then I spent 90 minutes removing the ivy from the front of my house - it fell part way down in a storm last week and I couldn't salvage it. It has been growing there for 9 years. It was sad to have to pull it down. And it was hard work too!

Wed/Thurs/Fri Stuff

Wednesday was an off day and we went to a park. We walked about, hmmm.... maybe 3.5 miles. It is hard to calculate because the "loop" we were supposed to walk which was .9 miles was closed halfway and we had to backtrack to the beginning, then start down the other side until we came to the closed spot on the other side. Then all of the sidetrails. But it was close to about 3.5 I think.

Thursday was Back:
Lat Pulls 55x8, 65x6x2
Rows 65x8x3
Supine Pullups 6x3
Mil BB Press (shoulders) 45x10x3

Friday Legs:
DL's (conventional)
45x10 wu
95x8
115x6
135x6
155x4

Leg Exts:
65x10 wu
90x8
105x6
140x5

Squats
95x8
115x8
135x4x2

RDL's
95x10
115x6x3

Leg Curls
20x8
45x4x4

Mon & Tues Check In

Monday: Chest
Monday was chest day, and my first day of boosting.

BP
45x10
65x8
75x8
85x4x2

Around the Worlds & Flyes mixed in
10's x 10 x 3

Inc Press, Narrow Grip
45x8
55x8
65x4

1 Arm Cable Flyes
10x10x2

Ok, so here's where it gets a little crazy. I wanted to make butter. I thought to myself..."if I just strap the jars under my bike pedals (indoor bike of course!!) then it would just agitate it enough as I rode to maker butter. Then I could kill 2 birds with one stone. Not that I would want to kill even one bird. After 15 minutes I looked and it just wasn't working. So I thought... "if I strap it to the elliptical beam it will shake it more of a front to back motion and surely that will do it". So I hopped over to the elliptical with my jars of cream. Five minutes later I looked and one of them was thicker, but the other just wasn't getting anything. So I quit that crazy scheme and went to just shaking. Consider it tricep burnout after a good chest workout LOL. But even 15 minutes later it wasn't becoming butter. Well, I was so close. I tossed it in the mixer and not 30 seconds later it separated LOL. Anyway, 20 minutes of cardio trying to make butter. :)

Today was Leg day. I split it up since I ran out of time in the AM. Found myself with some extra time in the PM and decided to do a few more things.

AM:
Squats
95x10
115x8
135x6
125x10

BB Stationary Lunges
45x10
65x10

Bulgarians
45x10
65x10

PM:
Leg Exts
65x10
90x8
115x6
135x4

Leg Curls
20x10 standing
45x6x2 lying down

Friday's Super Duper Leg Circuit ~ The Remix

Here's my new super duper leg circuit. It's a shorter version of my old circuit, meant to squish in under 30 minutes. I wasn't sure how long it would take so I just pushed through as efficiently as I could. I had extra time today so planned to let myself go past 30 minutes if I needed to. Setup & cleanup take a few minutes as well. Here's how it went!

Exercises all in a row. 1st circuit is 12 reps (for abs this means 12 reps each leg if doing things like bicycle, scissors, etc), 2nd circuit 10 reps, 3rd circuit 8 reps. Don't change the weight. Rest 2-3 minutes between circuits.

Squats @ 95 lbs
Walking lunges with 10's
Knee Ups
Leg Exts @ 75 lbs
Walking Lunges with 10's
Bicycle Abs
Deadlifts @ 105 lbs
Walking Lunges with 10's
Scissors
Leg Curls @ 30 lbs
Stretch legs and rest. I took about 2 minutes to stretch, then reset my bench with the weights for the exts to start the next circuit.
So how long did it take?? 23:01 ! Yes. 23 minutes WITH the rests between sets. I was ON FIRE today!! It felt good. I really thought it had taken longer. Had some great Newsboys going, the GO Remix.

If you want to do this circuit, setup looks something like this:
Choose a weight that is slightly challenging, but not too intense. This is a light day and you will be struggling on circuit 3 if you set it too high.
Take your bench and set it 12 walking lunges away from your rack. For me this means the bench goes out to the family room and I do my lunges from the living room through the kitchen, into the family room. These are rather short stride lunges, but that's what you want for round one anyway. By the time you hit circuit 3 you will only be doing 8 lunges and you will take longer strides. That way you hit a good mix of stride lengths.
In your main room set up your bar with weight on the rack. Also set up another bar with weights for your DL's in that same room.
On your ext's & curls do the ext's first so you can just pop the extra weight off for your curls at the end of the circuit (if you are weak at leg curls like I am LOL).
Do your squats, then do your lunges out to the bench, do your ext's, then do your lunges back to the other room and do your DL's, then walking lunges back to the bench for your curls. Abs are after each set of walking lunges to give your legs a few seconds rest before starting the next leg exercise.
Have fun! I love this workout. It keeps things interesting. :)

Today's WO - back and some shoulders

It's a busy day, but just the perfect amount of busy. I squeezed in my 20 minute workout today. I love that I have put a time limit on my workouts - I have no excuse to not fit it in.

Back/Shoulders
Lat Pulls 50x8x3 w/ Ab flutterkicks 30x3
Cable Rows 50x8x3 w/ scissorkicks 20x3
BB bent over rows 35x10x3 w/ jump twists
Upright Rows 35x8x3 w/cats
Lat Raises 10's x 10 - time up!

I see that I tend to be able to fit in 4 lifting exercises and 4 ab exercises, 3 sets of each, during a 20 minute workout. Once I have my new equipment all figured out I will be a little faster and putting on weights and knowing how well each thing works. Might be able to hit 5.

I'm baking bread today so I'm off to get more things done!

Tuesday's Legs

Still trying to stay accountable on my workouts - and hopefully make some progress. Here's today's wo:
Squats
45x10 wu
95x10
115x10x2

Good Mornings
65x10
95x8x2

DL's
95x10x3

Leg Curls (ALWAYS my weakest exercise LOL)
20x8
30x8x2

Leg Exts
30x8
55x8
80x8

Then we went to a new park today. The site said they had an archery area so we brought our bows and arrows. When we got there as we went down the road a deer hopped out in front of us and trotted along. So cute! Then we got back to the archery area and it was so neat. There were trails leading to different targets throughout the woods. We had alot of fun going from target to target. Then we went for a swim.
That's all!

Weekend Catchup

Well the activity I thought I'd get this weekend didn't happen. The most I did was yardwork and walking the dog. Oh well, maybe next time.

Yesterday was chest day. I did my first chest workout on the new equipment and it was terrible. Very unstable. Rack too narrow so that I had to do a very narrow grip bp. The way the seat inclined I couldn't even get the barbell out of the rack for incline presses. I decided that piece of equipment had better go back!

Here's what I ended up getting done.

BP 55x8x2, 75x4, 65x8 w/ knee ups between sets 20x3

Inc Flyes 10's x 10 x 3 w/ crunches between sets 15x3

Pushups 15x3 w/ bicycles between sets 20x3

Tried to do inc presses, messed with bench settings, etc., finally decided to just be done and move on!

Then I scoured the internet for some good used gym equipment. Found this great deal!!

Bench, rack, lat & row pulley, 430 lbs of weights, oly bar, curl bar, leg developer attachment. Sweet deal! And very nicely taken care of by the previous owners. Fits just right between the elliptical and rbike. I'll get a leg workout done on it later today - hurray! Catcha later!

Friday Legs! Quad dominant

Leg day! It has always been my favorite day when I'm on a workout split. I'm not sure exactly why, except that I feel very strong on a leg day. I think I was extra excited to get started because with the new bench setup I can do a little extra on legs. Before I had the rack I could only squat what I was able to shoulder press in order to get it from the floor to over my head to on my shoulders. AND more importantly I had to be able to get it OFF my shoulders and over my head and back to the floor. That was always the hard part. I was pretty much limited to 60lbs.

Today's Legs:
Squats
55 x 10
85 x 10
105 x 10

DeadLifts
85 x 10
*Got out the Step so I could get a deeper squat with these new larger weight plates*
105 x 10 x 2

SLDL's
105 x 5 x 5
I think I should go lower next time. I was having grip problems

Ext's - testing the waters. Haven't done these in years!
30 x 10
55 x 10
65 x 10 - I can start at 65 next time

Walking Lunges
10's x 10 x 3

That was all, time was up! My goal in a workout is to go no more than 30 minutes. If it doesn't get done by 30 minutes it doesn't get done at all. That's why I'll be starting with all of the bigger moves and saving things like ext's till the end. The lunges I like to do after I've done my other moves and it totally kills the whole time LOL. Oh, I did throw a few abs in here and there, but nothing special.

I'm fortunate to be the right height to be able to use the bench rack as a loader for squats too. I just fit down into that little spot to get it on my shoulders. I have to start from the bottom of the squat, but that is ok. One thing I found out. You cannot load that bar from empty while it is on the rack. If you put a 25 lb plate on one side the other side will fly right up and try to knock you out LOL. That bar just does not weigh enough (it's like 3lbs total). I may look into getting another standard bar that is heavier. I just load up 50lbs on the floor then put it on the rack. The rest can be loaded without trouble.

Thursday - Day 3 Workout

Here's what I got done this morning: Thursday 8/6

Paired Sets (wt x reps x sets)

Bent Over Barbell Rows 65 x 10 x 3
w/ Bicycle Abs 40 x 3

One Arm Barbell Rows (LOL, yes I had to use my barbell, no db's!) 45 x 6 x 3 ea arm
w/ Rope Climbers on Ball 20 x 3

Upright Rows 45 x 8 x 3
w/ Knee Ups 10 x 3

Reverse Flyes 10's x 8 x 3
w/ Reverse Crunches 10 x 3

Front Raises 10's x 10 x 3
w/ Plate Side Bends 10's x 10 x 3

That's all! A quick 20 minutes and it felt good to get it done. After that Jake and I went to a local park and walked around the garden paths and the boardwalk.

New Start - Workout One & Overcoming Obstacles.

Yesterday I did my first workout toward my new goal of losing 12 pounds in 12 weeks. It was a wimpy one as far as workouts go. One of the obstacles I'll be facing this time is equipment. I sold off almost all of my workout equipment last year when we needed the money. No more nice Smith Machine, no nice db set of 5's to 25's. No more power tower. No more treadmill. No more #300lb oly bar set. Ok, let's stop focusing on the "no mores".
Let's work on what I DO have.
I have a barbell with weights up to 100lbs. I can get another 10 pounds on it when I hang my ankle weights on the sides LOL. 110 max isn't very much, but it will have to do for now.
I can use the weights for some db exercises because they have holes cut in them that work good for handholds.
I still have my elliptical.
I still have my recumbent bike.
But I'm not concerned about cardio because I have legs and a sidewalk outside to run on. I have a bicycle to ride around the neighborhood. No, my concern is the weights and being able to get heavy enough to make it worthwhile.
So for now, I will work with what I have and make the most of it. And maybe check Craigslist and the used sporting goods store.

On to yesterday's first workout. In honor of the current Rally Room challenge of 40 Days to Fit, I started out with a little "40" theme. I would have only lifted 40lbs too, but I was too lazy to take off the extra 5 pounds. I am a lazy workout girl LOL. So I kept it all at 45lbs.

Here it is. All in a row with little to no rest between sets. After all, I'm on a buffing phase and won't start my heavy lifting phase until the end of next week. I can't wait!

Deadlifts (conventional) 45x40
Crunches 40
Bench Press 45x40
Bicycle Abs 40
Bent Over BB Rows 45x40
Knee Ups 40
Walking Lunges 40
Ab Adductor V's 40
Pushups 40
Ab Flutter Kicks 40

That was all. I guess it is as good a start as any. Definitely better than no start at all! Today is just cardio. Tomorrow I'll do back & shoulders. Friday will be legs. Saturday & Sunday will be active days and cardio. Then next week I'll start up on my old usual split - except I will be focusing on big compound movements this time around.

I also put in my order to bodybuilding.com for my protein powder. I haven't ordered in almost 2 years. I wonder if they are still as fast as always? I might get it tomorrow if they are still that efficient!
Catch ya later!

Starting Over - 2009

Here I am, starting over on my fitness journey (like so many others!). And while I'm not starting from as bad a place as my original beginning (in 2006), it's still another start. A fresh start! I can do this. Why blog here? I don't know. I just need more blogging outlets than I already have? LOL. What, a garden blog, and adventure blog, Facebook, and the BuffMother Rally Room, and sometimes BodySpace, isn't enough? hehehe. I guess I felt that if I put myself out here for more people to see what I'm doing, that I'd feel more motivated, accountable and compelled to actually reach my goals.

So let's recap. Here I am in January of 2006 when I bought the e-book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. I really thought that would be a waste of money. I was wrong.

BEGINNING - 2006: I weigh 129 at this point.

Here I am in 2007: Weight is 120 (muscle rocks!)

Here's 2008. Weight is 126

And here we are in 2009. Weight is back to 129.

Ok, now that I have the photos up here are a few things to mention.

1. In June 2006 I found the BuffMother Rally Room and began to lift heavy. It pays off! As a woman, you just cannot bulk up like a man. Don't be afraid to lift heavy and build muscle.

2. What happened in 2008? Well, let's see. My anxiety attacks came back, depression set in, my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer, my husband lost his job due to the horrible economy. 2008 was not a good year. But it is done and over! And God is good and He was (and is) with me through every moment. No desire to workout and eat good through that year though.

3. 2009 - Tentatively reaching to see how things go. And now?? I am ready to start again.

4. The hardest thing will be pushing past my fear. My fear of failing. My fear that something will set off the anxiety attacks and depression again. I cannot be afraid. I have to push past it and continue forward.
5. See the first pic and the last? I weigh the same amount on the scale. Build muscles girls!! You will not regret having a faster metabolism and a lean shape.

6. I got in this shape from solely working out at home. I never set foot in a gym. I just like it that way. Nothing wrong with the gym, but if you think you can't get in good shape at home - you can!!