Friday - Oct 19

Depletion workout. I was exhausted. Carb up afterwards made my muscles pump up BIG TIME. I would love to be able to stay pumped up like that ALL the time.

Monday October 22

Today is the first day in a 12 week cycle I am experimenting with. I will list totals and weights as I go.

Monday Oct 22

Week: 1
Difficulty: Easy - Get All Reps
Rest Between Sets: 45-90 Seconds

MONDAY -Chest and Biceps Set #1 Set #2 Set #3 Set #4
Reps 12 12 12 12
BENCH 130 130 130 130
Incline 85 85 85 85
Flat Fly 30 30 30 30
Cable Crossovers 45 45 45 45
Alt db curl 25 25 25 25
Hammer Curl 25 25 25 25
Concentration Curl 25 25 25 25
ABS CRUNCHES
NO Cardio due to time constraints

I ended up working 12 hours yesterday, not including the hour ride to work and the 1.5 hour ride to the gym due to road paving. Needless to say I was in a poor mood to exercise when I got to the gym at 6:30. Still, the new routine was more challenging than I'd figured. The weights look really light, but once you are on the 3rd or 4th set with 45-60 seconds rest between sets, they start working on you. Especially late in the workout.

I tell you one thing, my biceps were pumped up like balloons when it was over.

Tuesday - Oct 23

This was brutal. Note to self "Do NOT do cardio BEFORE an endurance based workout!" . I thought I was going to puke several times. The squat set was an absolute killer.



At this point I have a new found respect for low weight, high rep, low rest sets. Since I had been doing heavy sets of 5 with long rests for a while I had forgotten how challenging other workouts could be. Any thoughts I had of coasting at the beginning of this 12 week cycle are GONE. I ended up cutting the workout short (I had a couple more leg exercises to do) but I will add them in friday. Thats the nice thing about that 4th day being an open slot.

I really didnt even need to do cardio. I was a soaked mess at the end of the workout.

Biceps are sore today from monday. Thats good, but unusual.

Thursday Oct 25



Parts of this workout werent too bad, others really were pretty hard. I added the rest of the leg workout I missed Tuesday to Thursdays workout. Today is depletion only. Looking forward to it.

Last week was pretty rough , but doable. I could certainly tell my endurance wasnt where it needs to be when it comes to lifting. With this weeks sets being 3 instead of 4, and 2 min rest instead of one, I think Ill be much more comfortable.



I was right, sets were still on the ragged edge of my limits, but got every single rep in.

Added a bit of ab work and some cardio (15 min) at the end.

Once again, just a brutal workout. Me Thinks I need to move the Military press to a different day. Having it the day after incline presses just wiped me out. Instead of 3 sets of 12 I got 12,8,7. Maybe move Mil Press to thursday and the pull downs to tuesday.

Im pretty sure Im right about the weight loss. Its OVER until I finish this cycle.

First log for the gym in a while....

Ive been going, missed a few days during the holidays, but all in all, I did pretty good. I took it easy during that time in all phases of my life, and now I'm tightening back up.

My workout partner from the gym showed up Monday. I hadn't seen him since he got a new job last year. The first thing he said was "Wow, you have gotten small". Sigh. Although some people might take that as a compliment, to me it was depressing. I dont want to be "Small". At 5'6", I've always had a short man complex. To compensate I lift weights, I get strong, I get wide, very seldom was I ever called "little" or "small". I asked him to clarify. He said "you are smaller all over, but your definition is getting much more noticeable. and your waist is tiny. isn't that what you were going for?" OK, I guess that makes me feel a bit better. He's right, when I was over 200 my goal was 180, without losing much strength. I did that, although I lost a BIT more strength than I'd hoped.

Anyway, looks like he and I arent going to be able to work out steady together due to both of us having new jobs and conflicting schedules.

My NEW regimine is 4 days a week weight lifting, whole body each day. I'm finding that while low carbing this is much easier than wiping out a body part each day. When Im doing one part a day I just run out of energy after 8 or 9 sets. Im doing other exercise in the morning, and hopefully this will improve my flexibility (which is awful) and help kick my metabolism up in the A.M.

On the plus side - My incline bench is improving. Its an area I never spent much time on, but now that I am I can see improvement.

Gym was AWESOME thursday! I ate some carbs before, a slice of light bread w/penut butter on it, a flax muffin, some lettuce....I really think for me that helps a lot at the gym. Tuesday I had NO energy, thursday I felt like a beast!

Great workout monday. Did do 4 sets of 225 for 6 on the flat bench, which is the best in a few weeks. Mostly I was just happy I didnt drop any sets or skip out on any exercises.

thank you for your support. I already did some stretching this morning so now I'm ready for a walk. I have to start slow....but at least I'm starting!!
Ann

Yesterday I was off (gotta love working for the Gov't) and I got a bit nuts at the gym. Did stripper sets for every body part, and I got WASTED! This guy was looking at me setting out dumbell pairs all in a row and he had to be thinking "WTF is he getting ready to do???". I havent sweat like that in the gym for awhile.

Talk about breaking up the monotony...

My definition of a stripper set is set up the weight, do max reps, lose x lbs (varies for each exercise), do it again, etc until you have nothing but the bar. Usually ends up being 5-8 sets with 0 rest in between.

missed 2 days last week.

Started this week with 15 minutes on the stepper at 5:30 a.m.

Gotta be a good way to start the day.

Excellent workout yesterday, but my strength is flagging. The tight dieting this month is taking its toll on my strength.

Had a great HIIT session on the stepper after weights, side was splitting halfway thru. It was awesome.

All in all, just one of those days that you get motivated for no particular reason and go all out.

I beat the gym up this month. Yesterday I did squats for the first time in a while, but I did them in a psycho way. Grabbed the 45 lb bar and just started going.....did 50 the first set, very strict, butt to the floor, followed with another 40, just as strict. Those were destroyers!

I get SUCH better workouts since I got an mp3 player. Korn and Saliva motivate me sooo much more than John Denver.