Riding home on the Connector provides an opportune time to update the blog. Thanks, Connector!
Just got back from the gym. I think this could be a nice once-a-week routine … going to the gym after work, walking to the Connector bus stop and taking the bus home. It’s a 15-minute walk from the office to the gym, workout, then a 15-minute walk from the gym to the bus stop, all while carrying a hefty laptop backpack. I’ve tried this twice now and I’m liking it, even if I am a morning workout kind of person.
Anyway. Today’s workout nearly wraps up “Stage 1” from “The New Rules of Lifting for Women“. Stage 1 offers 2wo workouts which you alternate, each workout is done 8 times, and you increase your weights 4 times total per workout.
Here are my starting and ending weights (i.e. where I started with workout 1 and where I’ve ended with workout 8:
Workout A:
- Squat: 27.5# / 40#
- Push-Up: 15 BW / 12 BW, using medicine ball under one hand
- Seated Row 75# / 90#
- Step-Ups 12.5# / 20#
- Prone Jackknife 8 / 15
Workout B:
- Barbell Deadlift: 50# / 80#
- DB Shoulder Press: 20# / 27.5#
- Wide Grip Lat Pull Down: 75# / 90#
- DB Lunge: 15# / 20#
- Swiss Ball Crunch: 15 / 30 with arms extended overhead
Often times I would finish the workout and would feel the need to continue exercising. On those days I either did intervals or extra core after the workout. When I did intervals I mainly stayed on the erg but occasionally on the elliptical trainer. On the erg I would do 3 or 4 sets of a tabata row (4 minute pieces, 20″ on, 10″ off, resting 2 minutes in between each piece). Most recently I just did a 1-minute on, 2 minute-off interval, where I upped the intensity with each piece. The gym, by the way, recently increase the number of ergs. Oh boy I got to use a brand new one! Those are the best because no one’s messed with the chains too much yet. When I added extra core I would do 60″ planks; stability ball pass overs; medicine ball side rotations, anything I felt like doing.
Some things I learned … I do not like barbell dead lifts. Either I do them wrong or they are really hard. Or a combo of both … Prone jackknives are hard but fun, and the trick is to look at the floor near your hands, and not down at the ball … and, for some reason, if a book instructs me to increase my weights each week, I will. Why I don’t listen to the husband who has been telling me this for I don’t know how many years, we’ll never know. Trust me that it is a HUGE deal in the household that I would have the gall to follow a book’s instruction and not the husband.
I say I am nearly adone because all that is left in Stage one is the “AMRAP” where you do the exercises with the weights you used from your first workouts, but you do them to exhaustion, basically. And then I graduate to Stage 2, which I haven’t reviewed fully yet, but I believe I’ll be doing some form of a barbell deadlift. Oh boy.
In all, am enjoying this. Upping the weights so frequently makes it kind of interesting, and I am kicking myself for not doing that on my own.
Oh yes, THANKS, Kate, for recommending the book! And to Sis, for getting it for me for my birthday!