I've been distracted by other things the past couple days, so I decided to compress the log of three days into one. The pictures in this article are from the 4th day. Today I finished day 5 of a 30-day challenge to work out every day. Here are the exercises I did on the three days:
June 23
Stretches: about 2 minutes.
Squats: 100 lbs, 10 reps, 5 sets.
Leg press: 90 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
Crunches (with plates): 30 lbs, 32 reps, 3 sets.
Side legs: 26 per leg.
June 24
Stretches: about 2 minutes.
Treadmill: I ran for 45 minutes, plus another 5 minutes of slower cooldown. I ran a total of 4.22 miles. I started at 3.5 miles per hour and slowly accelerated up to 6.5 miles per hour at the very end.
June 25
Stretches: about 5 minutes, lead by my girlfriend.
Bench press: 110 lbs, 10 reps; 8 reps; 105 lbs, 10 reps; 100 lbs, 8 reps.
Pec flies: 30 lbs, 10 reps.
Pullups: 1.
Dumbbell bench: 35 lbs per hand, 15 reps, 2 sets.
Crunches (with plates): 30 lbs, 34 reps, 2 sets; and an interrupted 3rd set.
Side legs: 27 per leg.
Observations
Stretching Together
I'm continuing to feel more energy, feeling better in general. I'm pleased with the familiar drowsiness which attends to weightlifting; I'm feeling that drowsiness pretty heavily right now. It's a pleasant drowsiness, the type that says "everything is cool", not the type that says "you pulled an all-nighter last night".
When I did the 5 sets of squats on Tuesday, I knew I was going to pay for it. Whenever I do a large number of squats, a couple days later I start to feel really stiff, sore legs, and that continues for another couple days. Again, though, it's a pleasant kind of sore, the type that you learn to love when you work out. Normally, I do less squats, usually 3 sets of 8 but with higher weight. The 5 sets of 10 was to compensate for using lighter weights to ease back into making squats a regular part of the week.
Today I enjoyed an unexpected benefit of workout out together with my girlfriend. She's really flexible and really good at stretching routines, and was able to help me out with them. I felt a little silly having my gf guiding me through aerobic stretches in front of all the bike machines. It was fun, though.
Pullups
Today I faced my old sparring partner: the pullup bar. When I first started working out, a couple years or so ago, I couldn't do any of these. How do you train pullups if you can't do a single one? My powerlifter friend who taught me how, it's all about using bands to make the exercise easier. At first, I hung two bands from the bar (think giant rubber bands) and put one foot in each. With the bands pulling you up, you can pull your weight up easily.
NEXT: Days 6-8
June 23
Stretches: about 2 minutes.
Squats: 100 lbs, 10 reps, 5 sets.
Leg press: 90 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
Crunches (with plates): 30 lbs, 32 reps, 3 sets.
Side legs: 26 per leg.
June 24
Stretches: about 2 minutes.
Treadmill: I ran for 45 minutes, plus another 5 minutes of slower cooldown. I ran a total of 4.22 miles. I started at 3.5 miles per hour and slowly accelerated up to 6.5 miles per hour at the very end.
June 25
Stretches: about 5 minutes, lead by my girlfriend.
Bench press: 110 lbs, 10 reps; 8 reps; 105 lbs, 10 reps; 100 lbs, 8 reps.
Pec flies: 30 lbs, 10 reps.
Pullups: 1.
Dumbbell bench: 35 lbs per hand, 15 reps, 2 sets.
Crunches (with plates): 30 lbs, 34 reps, 2 sets; and an interrupted 3rd set.
Side legs: 27 per leg.
Observations
Stretching TogetherI'm continuing to feel more energy, feeling better in general. I'm pleased with the familiar drowsiness which attends to weightlifting; I'm feeling that drowsiness pretty heavily right now. It's a pleasant drowsiness, the type that says "everything is cool", not the type that says "you pulled an all-nighter last night".When I did the 5 sets of squats on Tuesday, I knew I was going to pay for it. Whenever I do a large number of squats, a couple days later I start to feel really stiff, sore legs, and that continues for another couple days. Again, though, it's a pleasant kind of sore, the type that you learn to love when you work out. Normally, I do less squats, usually 3 sets of 8 but with higher weight. The 5 sets of 10 was to compensate for using lighter weights to ease back into making squats a regular part of the week.
Today I enjoyed an unexpected benefit of workout out together with my girlfriend. She's really flexible and really good at stretching routines, and was able to help me out with them. I felt a little silly having my gf guiding me through aerobic stretches in front of all the bike machines. It was fun, though.
Pullups
Today I faced my old sparring partner: the pullup bar. When I first started working out, a couple years or so ago, I couldn't do any of these. How do you train pullups if you can't do a single one? My powerlifter friend who taught me how, it's all about using bands to make the exercise easier. At first, I hung two bands from the bar (think giant rubber bands) and put one foot in each. With the bands pulling you up, you can pull your weight up easily.
NEXT: Days 6-8
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1 comments:
Hey GFM, I ran across your blog a while back. Interesting stuff, we have a lot in common. A quick tip for pullups when your starting out is to focus on the second half of the exercise. The way I did it was:
1) Get a box or a step ladder.
2) Stand on the box and grab the pull up bar.
3) Jump up and complete the first half of the pull up.
4) As you come down from the pull up, try to come down as slowly as possible and without using the box.
The result is you can do a bunch of these and slowly build up the muscles that will help you do unassisted pull-ups.
Worked for me, I can do 10x2 now :)
Gambate!
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