Obliques for M

Finally got my home internet back up and running so I can get back on track with my blog posts! Today I hit up World's for a much needed legs session. I had planned on starting with a run but an inconveniently timed nervous stomach ache made me choose the elliptical instead. I set my Pandora really loud on the Hard Rock Workout mix which immediately got me in the zone and set the pace for an intense stress/anger relieving weights sesh. After a good 15 minute cardio warmup, I got out a bosu ball and did three sets (each leg) of one-legged deadlifts (6 reps each time). The first set I did without weights since I hadn't done them in so long and wanted to be sure I still had my balance. Then I did two sets with 15 lb dumbbells and the last two with 10 lb dumbbells. My hammies better be in pain tomorrow! Next I did three sets of 8 squats on the bosu ball with a 40 lb. barbell held on my traps and then finished up with 3 sets  of 8 (each leg) on the standing glue press machine (70-65-60 lb resistance). I always find it best to start out as heavy as I can go and then decrease the weight slightly as I tire out.

This morning I got an email from an old High School friend who had been reading my blog and wanted to get some advice on how to change her diet and exercise routine in order to blast away her love handles. Love love love when people ask me for advice! One of the things I recommended, on top of an increase in cardio, was adding in a couple of 30-minute ab-focused routines per week to her usual routine of solely aerobics classes. Of particular focus should be the obliques so I tried to do two oblique-targeting moves today as examples.

First, using the back extension machine, I did three sets (each side) of 12 side crunches. I didn't have anyone with me tonight to take pics so I'll have to do my best to describe these. In case you don't know what machine to look for, here is a sample pic:
                                              
Lie on your side on the machine with one leg on top of the other, your bottom hand on your waste and your top hand behind your head. Then crunch your torso up while lifting your top leg's knee to meet your head. They probably won't touch, you just want to achieve the side-crunching motion. If this is too difficult, you can keep your legs in place and just crunch your torso up. Alternatively, you could use a stability ball as your base if your gym doesn't  have a back extension machine.

Next I did hanging leg lifts. I usually do these on the standing leg lift machine but as of late have moved on to using the padded hanging arm loops as support because its much harder and I wasn't feeling it anymore on the standing rests. Again, I have no pic of me doing these so hopefully I don't get sued for using someone else's pictures! Here is a pic of someone using the standing machine (easier) and one of someone using the hanging loops (harder):

You want to start in a standing position and then crunch your knees us for each rep. I did four sets of 8 reps, two sets with my legs coming straight out in an L-shape and two sets crunching side-to-side to get the obliques. In both of these pictures the models are doing the easier bent-leg front crunch version.

That was it for today's workout. Pretty solid routine which hopefully makes up for the fact that both yesterday and tomorrow have to be off-days this week. Friday will have to be super intense! I came home and took my pup for a short walk in the drizzle before dinner. His new shock collar arrived in the mail today (and he proceeded to try to eat the UPS delivery man who tried to hand it over to me) so hopefully some Back Cove dog runs are in our near future!