Thursday, October 14, 2010

Workout Wednesday

The holiday on Monday has thrown me off a day. It's a little sad that I'm this easy to confuse.

Sigh.

The last couple weeks, I've been following a pyramid weight lifting program. I was surprised how effective it was, because the first week I was sore after every workout which is kinda cool since the workout did not introduce new exercises, just a different approach to ones I'd already been doing.

Here's an example - for the upper body workout, you start with the dumbbell bench press. There are four rounds, the first round you start with a light weight for 12 reps, up a category for 10 reps, up a category for 8 reps, up a category for 6 reps, back to the original weight for 12 reps followed by 12 reps of a slightly different exercise (in this case you switch from a dumbbell press to a fly) with the same weight.

You can briefly pause between each set of reps, but I try to rest the minimum amount of time because I feel like a get a better workout.

Then you complete a circuit - dumbbell bench press, lat pull downs, bicep curls, overhead triceps extensions, and shoulder presses. Throw in about 30 to 45 minutes of cardio (still struggling with the cardio this week) and you've got a decent workout. You are supposed to do the upper body workout MWF, the lower body on TTH, then switch the rotation for week 2. Kristine and I have been doing upper and lower body on MWF and then concentrating on cardio Tuesday and Thursday.

I love this workout. It's short but effective, and there's a lot of room for improvement.

Now if I could just kick my hiney into gear over the cardio I'd be all set.

1 comment:

Samantha said...

Good for you!! As long as it's working for you, it's the best workout!!

As for me, I LOVE to get a workout in. I love yoga, a good 3 miles with the jogging stroller, some belly dance...'tis all good stuff. But, we're starting to wean, and it changes our schedule. Sometimes, I wish I had someone to watch Jake for just a bit so I could get a real good workout in!