Workout was pretty decent today. Kinda tired from a late night last night but I did pretty good. Made some small progress on the rows from last week but I'm at a point where next time I'll be increasing on the squats, pushups (actually for those I'll decrease the incline), and step-ups.
Hubby observed this morning that since we joined this gym a month ago neither of us has seen one person in the weight room working anything on their lower body. Kinda funny.
Hubby observed this morning that since we joined this gym a month ago neither of us has seen one person in the weight room working anything on their lower body. Kinda funny.
Oh my goodness, that is so typical in a lot of gyms. A lot of guys like to do all variations on presses, lat pulldowns, bicep curls, but will never do a squat, LOL.
The gym that I worked out in Texas was home to a mixed-gender powerlifting team. Their men were the only guys in the weights area who regularly squatted, ever. (Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, because the CrossFit guys who came in also did squats, but they're not typical "meatheads," either.)
You know, I kinda thought this would happen sooner. Today's workout was one that wasn't fun and I really had to push to finish, especially after hubby finished his and went home. But I did finish I'm just tired and feeling really week. I have no idea why.
Deadlifts went pretty well considering, so I'm going to increase the weight next time and go up to 85 lbs.
Shoulder press was a PUSH. Last week I was at the same weights but they didn't feel nearly as difficult. I barely got them finished and my form really suffered toward the end.
The lat pulldowns I had noted to increase to 60lbs last time. I tried some at 60 but for some reason my arms were so much weaker today so after 8 reps I knew I wouldn't be able to get through all of them so went back down to 50lbs. I'll play it by ear next time, I might increase at that point.
Lunges went pretty well. I've noted to increase the weight next time... as much as I hated making that note because I'm NOT a fan of lunges I need to be honest and say I could realistically do an increase
Squats 2/8 @ 55lb, 1/8 @ 65lb
Pushups - 3/8 incline 4 on Smith Machine
Seated rows - 3/8 60lb
Step-ups - 1/8 BW, 2/8 5lb DB
Jackknife - 3/15
Well I increased quite a bit in things today. Last time I squatted it was with the bar. I initially thought I'd go with 55lbs today but then after the 2nd set realized I could go up to 65lb. I'll probably increase again next time.
Pushups I increased (decreased?) the incline. Those were HARD and I barely could force myself to get the last few reps out but I DID IT. I knew it would be hard but I needed to make improvement on those for my mental sake.
The rows were OK, kinda funny since last time I remember it being a pretty good push but I'm going to increase again next time.
I'm proud of myself that I added weight on the step-ups. Yes, the reps have decreased which helps a lot, but I think they have been such a challenge for me that adding weight was a big step, even if it was only 5lb dumbbells. I'm going to increase the weight next time.
Jackknives - well I don't always get to do these since sometimes there's a class using the swiss balls but I got in early and got them done just in time. Those are HARD.
Feel pretty good today, though I had kind of a difficult morning. And I'm working lots of overtime this week so it'll be everything I can do just to motivate myself to actually come in to the gym.
Did a great workout today. Went through it quick, efficiently, and increased a lot of my weights. What a considerable difference from last Friday's workout!
I increased from 75 to 85 on the DL and then realized I could probably do 95 on my last set, which gives me the bigger 25# plates so I did that and was very proud of myself I'm going to increase to 100# next time by adding a couple weeny plates so I can have that round number to finish the Stage 1 with.
Dumbbell shoulder presses went well, 20# was pretty doable so my last set I went to 25# and those were really way more difficult! But I managed to eek out 7 out of the 8 reps. Next time I'll try again
Lat pulldowns... tried with the 60 again, just couldn't quite make it. The first set was too difficult, I couldn't get the bar down far enough so I went back up to 50 which is too easy. There's no 5lb plate available for me to put on the machine so I'm kinda stuck. This is the same thing that happened last time so we'll see what happens next time, I'll try it again once more. EVENTUALLY I'll get past the 50lb plate.
Lunges I'm getting better with. I increased to 15# dumbbells and was able to do them without feeling like I was going to die. Probably will stay with the 15# next time.
And the crunches were nuts, I had the incline on the highest incline so just did my 15.
Had to skip Friday because of an appointment... This week is my last week of stage 1. Pretty neat!
Not feeling too hot today, I got that achy back temperature fluctuation and loss of appetite thing going on. Hope it doesn't last. My workout today I did OK considering how I'm feeling now, but it definitely wasn't my best.
Pushups were a challenge. I had to struggle for the last few reps of each set - I felt good (mentally) for completing them.
Rows I surprised myself, I didn't think I'd be able to do the 70lbs but it went pretty well. Still a pretty significant struggle at the end though.
Step-ups... hate those. Did OK, increased to 10lb dumbbells today. At least they were only sets of 8
Jackknives - I actually got to do 2 sets of them today before the aerobics class came in, I did those first after I finished my squats. Those suckers are so hard! I wish there was another substitute I could do when I can't use a swiss ball... the reverse crunches I usually do to substitute don't really have the same effect. Which leads me to the one set of reverse crunches I did do, on the highest incline. No problem there.
I was tired and weak today but considering that I think I did pretty well. Just wishing I was at home sleeping now.
I have the last workout of Stage 1 on Wednesday and then Friday I think I'm going to mess around and see what my max lifts are for a couple things, that oughta be fun.
Congrats on the end of stage 1! Today I did workout 4A of Stage one, so about half way through.
It is fun to read your log since you are a head of me . . . it's like reading reports from an exploratory committee
Ahh yes... Well when you finish stage one apparently you have a few things to look forward to. For instance, being able to carry a 1 yr old, 3 yr old, 2 blankets and 2 stuffed animals all at once. Actually I could do this before the program, but still. I deadlifted 100 lbs today! Actually I hope you don't finish like me, I'm definitely fighting something health-wise and so I'm not at 100%, so it's annoying to me that I know I could probably lift more.
Anyhow... today was the actual end of Stage 1. Woohoo!
Well I wasn't planning on going up TOO much but since today was my last day of stage 1 I wanted to go up to 100lbs in my squat. I did it pretty well.
DB shoulder press was difficult. I managed to get 2 sets of 8 at 25lbs but then the third set I couldn't even do one rep (tried twice) so I did it with 20lb-ers
Lat pulldowns I had a similar issue. THe 50lb plate is WAY too light, 60lb was too heavy for me to be able to do all 8 reps with good form. In all my sets I made it to about the 5th rep before I wasn't able to pull it down to my chest. So I only count that I did those 5. I stuck with it though because I figure that's the only way I'll get stronger since the 50lb plate is too little.
Lunges went well, kicked my butt but they went well. WHen I say they went well, I mean I didn't have to wuss out and lift a lower weight. hehe.
Reverse crunches to replace swiss ball crunches... went the same way they always do. Fine.
Got in a nice conversation with a nice lady today about lifting... I referred her to the program. She said she'd been lifting since earlier in the year and was starting to get bored with her self-designed routine. That's pretty much the same place I was in when I started NRLFW - bored and a bit burned out from the self-designed program. So that's kinda cool, she said she'd check out the book and see what it was like.
Nice job on the deadlifts! And I forgot to add the other day that I checked out your hummus recipe on your blog. I bookmarked it, and hopefully, I'll get to make a batch this weekend.
Hi everyone, I'm back! Remember how I kept feeling a bit "under the weather?" Turned out I had a wonderful friendly virus called CMV that acts a lot like Mono. No wonder I was so weak and tired - and it got WAY worse.
It got worse the week I took off and finally went to the doctor and I got diagnosed. Today was my first day back in the gym since then.
One of the problems from this illness was that I had aversions to food in general. There were probably some days I couldn't eat more than 700 or so calories. It was really odd, but I just kept trying to eat as much as I could but even after my symptoms eased I didn't want to go back to the gym until I was able to eat enough to refuel myself. It was really odd, I'd be mostly OK (and even hungry) but when I started eating I'd get nauseated and throw up. And no, not pregnant (I checked!).
So today what I did was try and replicate my last workout just to see where I was at. I lost a pretty good amount of weight during this illness and I know a lot of it was probably muscle mass. I also had some major negative effects on my stamina in general. Here's what I was able to do:
Deadlifts - 95lbs. First set at 5 reps, then 2 more sets of 10 reps. (At this point I decided to replicate the last workout)
Dumbbell shoulder press - 3/8 @ 20lbs
wide grip lat pulldown - 1/8 @ 60lbs, 2/8 @ 50lb
And that's all I was able to do. So it seems I haven't lost significant lower body strength but I definitely felt a difference in my upper body. I was able to lift 95 for my deadlifts (the first set had me scared but I think I just wasn't warmed up enough to do more reps) which was pretty good. But those dumbbell shoulder presses came close to killing me... and I had to lower the weight after the first set on the lat pulldowns too.
I had about one set left of each of the last 2 when I started feeling pain in my chest and dizzy from my lack of stamina so I took it slow to finish those and stopped there.
So now I have an idea of where I'm at strength-wise, but not sure where to go from here. My husband thinks I should just move on to the next stage in the program, but lower my weights. I am not so sure. It would be nice to be able to continue, because that would be that much faster I'll finish the program. But then part of me thinks because I made such rapid backwards progress in my strength and stamina in such a short time (I was really only out a month) that I should start over.
OK so I started back again today. Had a minor mishap with a chainsaw a few weeks ago (on my right hand) and so had to wait a while for THAT to heal up so I could grip to work out. I'm still not going to do deadlifts yet due to the weight strain on my hand but most other things I can do.
I did end up starting over, and I'm glad I did.
Squats - 2/15 @ bar. First time I did the program I started unweighted, so that's pretty good all things considered. Pretty shaky sets, both sets I had to pause a few seconds after about rep 8-10 and then continue.
Pushups - 2/15 on Smith Machine 5th level. Did pretty good, a strain for sure.
Cable rows - 2/15 @ 50lbs. THose went well also, a bit heavy but doable.
Step-ups - 2/15 unweighted. Step-ups, oh how I loathe thee.
Reverse crunches - 2/8 at incline 2, will probably go back to doing higher number of reps on those.
All in all, working out was nice and felt good (a strain but then the high afterwards). It was definitely an effort and it's kinda sad to see what strength I'd lost. My hand kind of affects some of it but it's pretty minor, mostly just for the pushups that I noticed it. I'll just substitute squats for the deadlifts in workout B until I'm healed up enough to do them.
I'm just tired and feeling really week. I have no idea why.
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