Oxygen Workout

Great upper body workout at World's tonight! A girlfriend of mine has been obsessed with Oxygen magazine lately and cut-out one of their routines for us to try. The idea was to get a full upper body workout in one session by hitting each major muscle group once. I figured it was good to try something new even though I typically like to concentrate on just a couple muscle groups per session. I'm all for anything that could make me look like one of the girls in Oxygen, that's for sure!

I started out with a 20 minute warm-up on the elliptical since yesterday was a run day (although it was not quite as "intense" of a leg day as I had planned haha) and then we met over by the assisted pull-up machine to get started. I know, I know, assisted pull-ups aren't quite as hard core as I pretend to be but it was necessary seeing as our first task was 6 sets of 10 pull-ups; 2 sets with hands facing toward each other, 2 sets with hands straight above shoulders, and 2 sets with hands at an angle. I better be seriously sore from those tomorrow! We followed these up by chest flies on a bench (3 sets of 8), then moved to the back extension machine where we did weighted back extensions and side leg crunches, 3 sets of 12 each (9 sets total). Next came 3 sets of 8 arnold press (hitting our tired shoulders again!) and then 3 sets of 8 stability ball leg lifts. To finish, we hit out triceps with bench dips using the stability ball and finally, bicep curls on the cables.

In all, we hit shoulders, upper back, chest, abs, bi's and tri's...not too shabby! I tried to up the intensity a bit tonight with little variations like using a 25 lb. plate when doing back extensions (vs. my usual 10) and adding the 5 lb. weight from the leg lifts to my lap for a little added resistance during my tricep dips. The resistance level I had to use while doing the straight above and angled pull-ups was a bit embarrassing (I won't be mentioning the number haha) but I can definitely see those getting easier over time! I neglected to stretch before heading out so I'll probably need a good stretch sesh tomorrow before I embark on another run. I only made it to 20 mins yesterday so here's to hoping I can crack 25 again soon!