Time: 7:45a
Where: gym
What: 3 mi easy, 10 min mi pace or slower
Notes and observations: Back issues over the weekend so this was just a test to make sure I could do something. The answer was yes.
Music: Foo Fighters, Wasting Light
The end of my maternity leave, that is. I am taking advantage of my gym membership in Seattle. Come the return of work, I’m not sure how I will fit lifting into my schedule, since I’ll no longer be a 10-minute walk from the gym at work, nor will I have tons o’ time during the weekends (I imagine I’ll want to spend that time with the little peanut, and I’m pretty sure my stay-at-home dad of a husband will not appreciate me taking off on Saturday and Sunday after he’s taken care of said peanut all week). Not like I’ve got the time right now. Taking care of a baby is hard work. A little bit nervous about it, but we’ll see how it goes.
Today was a basic supersets scenario:
Did three sets no rest, then rested for one minute in between exercise switches. Kept the weights light, as I attempted to keep this more circuit workouty. This workout courtesy of Women’s Health Magazine, which has gotten a little more about fashion and beauty, and less about exercise and fitness, if you ask me. They do, however, offer mini workout slideshows that you can download onto your iPod, which is kinda gimmicky and neat at the same time.
In addition to this official workout, I’ve started doing random stuff at home. While the babe is in her bouncer and I play with her, I also sneak in 60-second planks and 45-second side planks (btw it takes 40 seconds to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”), then throw in some push ups for good measure. While I’m holding her in front of a mirror (one of her favorite activites), I do body weight squats (my weight and another 13.5 lbs!). I use my fitness ball to bounce the babe around on, but also do some crunches as well. While it’s not perfect nor ideal, in the end that is more plank, pushups and squats that you’ll do during the day than if you didn’t do any at all.
The babe got up early this morning, and so did I. She fell asleep again, though, and I did not. The husband was leaving to take Max on a walk. So I came up with an ingenious idea of doing a workout outdoors on the deck. With Beat the Bridge and the U-District Street Fair going on today, I had pretty much given up on any chance of going to the gym. Plus, it’s beautiful out today, and I recall the idiocy I felt last weekend when I drove to the gym to lift on such a nice day.
So, I warmed up by running up and down the basement stairs a dozen times or so. Tabata squats for four minutes, and then …
Green Lake path via flickr
I alternated shoulder press & lunges, and rows & crunches. Little or no rest in between sets, but I did rest in between the two exercise chunks, like last time, if that makes sense. By this time, the husband had returned from the Max walk, and the babe had woken up again. I put her in her bouncer and tried to do some plank work (Plank 60 seconds. Side plank 30 seconds each side. I’m working my way back to where I was a year ago). I fed the babe then packed her up and hit Green Lake for a 3-mile walk. We got there around 8:45. I thought I would miss the crowd this early, but on a day like today it was already hopping. Fortunately it was hopping with the serious runners/walkers, and not the lollygaggers that clog up the path later on in the day. I was passed by a mother pushing twins while walking her yellow lab. Curses! But, I did do a workout before I got there, so I let her pass. No other strollers would pass me by, though! And they didn’t.
Home by 10 a.m. Not bad. Now I’m trying to figure out how else to spend the rest of this beautiful day. Enjoying it while it lasts!
The husband took the babe over to Whole Foods, which means I have the house to myself! For the first time in I don’t even know how long! So what’s a girl to do with this free time? Update the blog, of course.
Question for you all: Say you continually find yourself with extra time on your hands (extra 20 minutes or so) following your lifting workout. What would you add to your workout, and/or, what is the best thing to do to burn the most calories?
a) Add some more weight exercises to your routine
b) Add more core exercises
c) Cardio: Steady state
d) Cardio: High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
e) Screw it. Call it a day and go home
I tend to do either C or D, however the husband says cardio after lifting decreases the benefits of the lifting you’ve just done. Now, it’s not that I don’t believe the husband. 99% of the time, he’s right (which often chaps my hide for some reason but that’s a story for another day). But, I am looking for the research as to why. So, if anyone feels like digging it up for me (because I sure as heck don’t have the time), please let me know.
In the meantime, I think I may switch to B anyway. I stopped doing plank while I was pregnant and just today went back to it. And my strength isn’t quite what it was a year ago, to no surprise. I barely made it (one rep) for 60 seconds.
Once I finish Stage 1 of NROL4W, which I predict will be in less than 2 weeks, I’m going to switch it up once more. Maybe make up my own routines. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Okay, now off to do other fun things by myself. Woohoo!
Gym today. The original plan was to go to rowing practice this morning. Those who row with me (back when I rowed) will note that I didn’t make it. I hardly slept a wink two nights ago which I knew meant I’d be a log last night. And sure enough, the husband had to wake me up twice to feed the babe. Usually I can hear her stir, but not last night. So … rowing at 6:30 was not an option. I would like to actually enjoy it when I do eventually get back on the water.
Of course, it’s a beautiful day today, and I saw several Seattleites taking advantage of the sunny (but not necessarily warm) weather to run, bike, walk, etc. as I drove to the gym. I found lots of laughs in this. But I wanted to lift, so gym it is.
I’m finishing up NROL Stage 1. Today was:
As usual, I alternated sets of push ups and squat/rows; and step ups and prone jackknifes (knives?). But, rather than rest 60 seconds in between each exercise, I went back and forth with no rest, and then rested in between exercise sets (so in between the push up/squat rows and the step ups/prone JKs). This was a suggestion from the husband and it made for a tougher workout, no surprise. I plan to continue in this fashion. The weight I’m pulling is good, but not my heaviest, so the 60 second rest in between (I think) is unnecessary.
I took a bit of a break from the gym for a couple of weeks, so getting back into the swing of things. About a month to go before I head back to work. Maybe I’ll actually be able to shed some of these last 15 lbs from the pregnancy. When I do return back to work, our team will have moved to new offices. So, am trying to figure out a workout routine that doesn’t include going to the gym (I used to work a couple of blocks away from the gym. Now we’ll be in a different city). Could be a lot of stairclimbing in my future. Or maybe I’ll even venture outdoors into the foreign city I like to call ” Downtown Bellevue”. If you have suggestions please send them on.
And, I did finally enjoy some sunshine. Took the babe on a walk to the library to get some new books. Am now reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Don’t ruin the ending for me, okay?!?!?
Today: 15 minutes walking on the treadmill, 2% incline at 3.5 mph. Then, 30 minutes elliptical, kept the heart rate in the 140s. Then, bw squats, biceps and shoulder press with band. Taking it easy these days. I gained a little more weight these past four weeks than I should have, no doubt due to the fact that I’m not exercising as much as I used to. Oh, and I suppose the cookie baking, Halloween candy eating, mocha imbibing has something to do with it.
My favorite beverage of this season: a tall decaf reduced-fat eggnog latte. The decaf, yeah, it’s kinda lame, but whatev. I’m over it. Egad. Nevermind. I just checked the web site and apparently one of these suckers is 370 calories. The runner-up, tall nonfat with whipped mocha is “just” 230 calories. A bit easier to digest, so to speak.
Hey, I finally finished the full workout from New Rules of Lifting for Women. I skipped Stage 5, where you basically focus your exercises towards doing an unassisted pull-up. I’ll do that another time, but I repeated Stage 7, and that’s where I ended this morning:
BW Squats – Tabata for 3 minutes
(4 sets of 15 reps, 30 seconds rest in between each exercise):
This varies from the book workout in that I swapped Lat Pull downs for the push ups. I also lightened up the weight big time, as I’m carrying an extra 20 lbs around, I figure it’s not really necessary to do heavier weights as well. Afterwards, 30 minutes of steady state on the Elliptical.
A little bit burned out on the NROL thing, so I’m looking for other lifting ideas that I can do in my third trimester (yes, that’s right, I’m just beginning my third trimester. 12 weeks to go!). Anyone have suggestions? Send them on.
Here is part 2 of what I started last week. Incidently, it’s 6:30AM and I’ve been up since 3:30. Gotta love this sleep schedule!
Fitness: Fortunately, I raced in San Diego just a couple of months before getting pregnant. (Unfortunately, we lost that damn race, but I won’t dwell. Really). So I was in decent shape coming into all of this. Also fortunately during the first trimester I had no morning sickness, weird fatigue issues or anything. Long ago I knew it was important to keep working out rather than stop everything and sit on the couch and eat bonbons. So in the first trimester, I tried to keep rowing. A little bit in June, subbing in for rowers training for Regionals (which I did not attend). A little more in July, when I had the hankering because the weather was just beautiful. When JPT returned in August I found myself sitting in the launch more than in a boat, so decided it was time to take a break. I had planned to stop rowing mid-August anyway, since I knew the girls would begin training for head-racing season.
You can sorta look through this blog and see what I’ve been up to fitness-wise. It hasn’t really changed. In fact, I got pretty routine, especially with the lifting, thanks to NROL. I’m still doing it, nearly complete, but at a much slower rate. I’ve gone from about 5x a week, of combined practice, cardio + lifting down to 3x a week, depending on my work schedule.
It’s not that bad. There were mornings when I did not want to get out of bed to workout. A lot of mornings. At some point when I wanted to hit the snooze button, though, there was a little bit of motivation that I didn’t have 6 months earlier. It sounds corny but I’d think,”man I should really do this for the kiddie” And so then I’d get up.
Joints are looser now, and injuring the connective tissue in the pelvic area is a concern. The increase of progesterone keeps me breathless more often than normal. My doctor is super. She’s very well aware of the fitness level I had before. She herself is quite fit and can speak from experience. In terms of cardio there is less erging, no treadmill, a lot of elliptical. Strength training is lower weights and higher reps. I feel good, practice common sense, and believe I can keep going at least into the third trimester. Once I get huge, well, we’ll see.
So. Kettlebells Training on Thursday. I like doing this because I can catch up with my rowing buddies a little bit. The other benefit is being able to adjust the exercises according to what I can and can’t do. I can’t really do jumping squats, and some of the core work isn’t good for me, either. It’s easy to sub in different items and still get a great workout. I think/hope I can keep doing this through the end of October. I think the number of exercises I’ll be able to comfortably do will go down, until all I’m doing is squats.
3 sets of 4 exercises. No rest between exercises, but 2 minutes between sets. Each set = 3 x 1 minute per exercise. Got it?
Set 1:
Set 2:
Set 3:
My posts are farther and fewer. The only comment I have for today is, Garbage In, Garbage Out. It’s to no one’s surprise that when I eat crap, I feel crappy. When I eat well, I feel good. Yesterday was a bad food today. I still worked out (40 minutes of cardio, doing different types of interval work and mixing steady state in between), but just felt bad. Surely it had nothing to do with the fact that I was more or less eating Chex Mix at work all afternoon. I have a huge Costco-size bag. I won’t get into why I have this bag. Just know, Garbage In. Often times a workout improves things, but not when you’ve been noshing on a high-sodium, high-fat junk food. Then it’s just blah.
Today, a little better. I gave my big bag of Chex Mix to Jason across the hall, also a Chex Mix fan, but probably has better will power than I. Instead I ate the lunch I brought … peach, hard-boiled egg, yogurt, and that other healthier stuff. Not so garbagey, not feeling so bad anymore. What a surprise.
I’ve been going to the boathouse for the past few Thursdays to do a quick intervals-type workout with my rowing mates. Funny, we call it “Kettle Bells” but maybe just one or two of the exercises will actually require Kettle Bells. Today’s workout:
With a partner, switching exercises every 30″ for 4 sets, no rest:
A1 – Wall Balls
A2 – Lunges (standing)
B1 – Renegade Rows
B2 – BW Squats
C1 – Reverse Hypers
C2 – Cross-squats
D1 – TRX Squat and Rows
D2 – Thrusters
E1 – KB Clean & Press
E2 – Squat walks (with band. Can’t remember what to call these).
The bonus round is a bunch of core work: plank, bridge and side plank. I skipped those. Why? Because for those of you whom I haven’t announced to yet, I’m pregnant and, frankly, I don’t like to do plank and now I have an excuse to not do them. Plus, it’s basically impossible to tighten the core these days. I usually do ball crunches while the other rowers do these core workouts, but today even the crunches were uncomfortable. Doctor said that would happen at some point, and I think that point came today.
So, anyway. I glossed over the “I’m pregnant part,” I realize. Quick rundown. 20 weeks. Feeling great (other than the garbage in garbage out fiasco) most of the time. Um. What else do you want to know. Don’t really feel like it now, but I’ll write about the preganant stuff on another day.
Boss is away, so the kids play. Actually, not so much. It was kind of a downer day today, with lots of junk coming down on us (this is when you don’t want the boss to be away, actually).
But, I managed to get to the gym at lunch anyway and snuck in a quick circuit-training type of workout. This is NROL4W, Stage 7, #2. (* denotes alternating sets):
The first two exercises: 2 sets of 8 reps. The last four: 4 sets of 15 reps. 30 seconds in between each exercise.
Surprisingly sweaty after this. These weights aren’t super heavy. I could probably go a little heavier next time and will probably adjust.
Because of the aforementioned downer day, the officemate and I went to the cafeteria in the afternoon for some chocolate pudding. The real sugar stuff. Whipped Cream. Fake cherry. Yum.