Chicken Soup for the Gym Rat's Soul

So, its Monday again and after taking a rest day yesterday I was more than ready to get back to it in the gym. The office filtered out early today as its Halloween and everyone with kids went home to get ready for trick-or-treating. Well, I'm certainly not going to be denied an early departure just because I don't have any children so I was more than happy to get to the gym early! Unfortunately my body wasn't as eager to workout as my mind; I only got in an 8 minute run before the cramps set in and then pushed myself through a painful additional 2 before deciding to cut it short today. Oh well, maybe I just needed a running warm-up before the marathon sesh I'm going to have tomorrow, eh?! Haha maybe, but more than likely my brain was just overly fixated on Halloween candy...

After my weak run I ventured upstairs to do back and chest. Today's weight workout included 3 sets of 8 chest press, 3 sets of 8 bent-over rows (one side at a time) and lastly 3 sets of 8 sitting rows using the cables. Then I moved onto abs starting with leg lifts on the standing leg lift/tricep dip machine (I have no idea what this is really called). I did 2 sets of 8 front lifts and then 2 sets of 8 side lifts. I acually like the machine at Planet better because you can hold the tricip dip bars while doing your lifts, making it more of a balancing/total body strengthening exercise. Plus, it makes you look like a gymnast :)  The last thing I did was 3 sets of 8 stability ball leg lifts. I know I do these a lot but they just work so well! Finishing with a lot of lower body stretches again, I then left and went to Whole Foods for some delicious homemade chicken soup for dinner. I'm not usually much of a soup person but it sounded so perfect on this frigid post-blizzard evening. It did not disappoint.

Cheers to the Freakin' Weekend

Up nice and early today, hitting up World's about 8:30. Its the best time of day to work out because its pretty empty and the usual creepy old men are few and far between. I grabbed a treadmill and did my routine 20 minute run. I skipped the run in yesterday's workout to let my legs recover and today seemed so much harder than before. It probably didn't help that I was still thawing out from having taken my pup for a pre-gym walk in these arctic October temperatures!

Today was a shoulders day so after A LOT of stretching out my hams/quads/glutes I started with 3 sets of standing arnold press and then did three sets of incline bench shoulder press. In between sets I did pull-ups but I wasn't feeling very strong so I only managed to do two sets of 3 :(

For abs I did 3 sets of 12 side-crunches on the back extension machine. I prefer to do this without any weights because I have a better range of motion so I can really crunch it up with each rep! Then I did 3 sets of 12 rope pulley crunches on the floor. Not my favorite ab move but I was aiming for some variety today. Be careful who is behind you when you do this because your ass will be right in their face! Lastly, I went back over to the stretching area and made another attempt to balance (standing) on the stability ball. Not happening. I just can't figure out how to get my feet up! Urghhh I'm going to have to watch some YouTube videos and try to copy someone's technique.

Anyway, I felt pretty refreshed and ready to take on the day when I left. Tomorrow may be a rest day depending on how the Halloween festivities go tonight. My mental state may not appreciate it but my legs sure will be happy. Cheers to the weekend!

Sausage Is Not Part of a Healthy Diet

Every Thursday you can bring a friend to World's for free so today I brought my friend Jen to whom I'd been talking-up Worlds' equipment for a while. Usually Thursdays are nice and quiet as the casual gym-goers have already given up for the week. Today, however, not only was it packed but it was also a massive sausage fest. You'd think this would be a good thing but in this case there were one too many flavors I'd previously sampled and passed on. But that's a story for another time...

So, Jen and I grabbed two treadmills in the front row (best viewing capabilities) and I cranked out my 20  minutes again. No cramps. No stopping. My legs could use a serious break right now so even though today was a legs day, I decided to alternate legs and abs to give me some time to recover. We started with one-leg weighted deadlifts and followed with stability ball weighted leg lifts, standing glute press, and lastly incline medicine ball-catching crunches. Leg presses were on the agenga but we'd fallen behind on time due to all of the distractions haha. Between skipping those today and doing a half-ass bis/tris session yesterday, looks like tomorrow is going to be a random make-up workout!

We ended with some leg stretches on the mats and that was it for the night. I had Jen take pics of the deadlifts and leg lifts since they're two of my favorite moves and yield great results so stay tuned for those uploads.  I'll add descriptions and ways to modify them for your level too. Now I just have to figure out how to upload pics on here!