Over the past few weeks I have been hard at work adjusting and refining my workouts. I have also been extraordinarily busy at work putting in extra time on various tasks. It’s been awesome and exciting and super busy.
I modified my workouts to go into deeper strength training mode so my daily workouts look a little different now. Here is what my week entails:
Monday: Chest and Triceps
Tuesday: Back and Biceps
Wednesday: Abs and Legs
Thursday: Shoulder and Chest
Friday: Back and Biceps
Saturday: Shoulders and Triceps
The workouts have been good and I am feeling stronger. I have found that it is good to vary workouts and this particular variation is intensely focused on building strength. I will write blog posts about each workout to provide some insight.
Today’s workout was Chest and Triceps. It’s very interesting that according to my Garmin watch I burned 859 calories with 120 Intensity minutes. That is incredible as compared to the previous workouts where I was getting around 500 calories and 60 -70 intensity minutes. If I do strength training well, by all measures the intensity is increasing.
My warmup consisted up a 500 meter row and a series of chest stretches with bands.
I started with Bench press working from 135 pounds up to 265 pounds and back down. I feel as though I will be hitting 275 pounds very soon on my way to 300 pounds. As before, I take about 2 minutes in between sets.
I followed this up with Skull crushers using the 12-10-8-6-24 method I discussed previously. Very little break in between sets. At this point my heart rate was hitting 170 at times.
I then moved to incline bench press working from 95 to 135 pounds and back down. Pyramid style. Next was dumbbell kickbacks using the 12-10-8-6-24 method followed by 3 sets of dumbbell flys with 40 pounds on each dumbbell.
I then performed 3 sets of 10 dips on the dip station followed by 34 straight pushups using my pushup handles focusing on good form and getting deep into the pushup. Next I did 2 minutes of sit ups using the ab mat Navy seal style.
Overall the workout was about 1 hour and 5 minutes with high paced walking in between each set to keep my heart rate high. There is no stagnant rest during my workout as I try to keep the intensity up.
These workouts are a nice change of pace and I really feel like I am burning calories throughout the day with a great feeling that I accomplished something. I do get sore and have to watch for cramps so I drink pickle juice and eat bananas and apples throughout the day. I am slowly working myself into better nutritional habits. I do not believe in drastic change too fast as I haven’t found that to be sustainable for me. I try to focus on 1% better every day and not do too much at one time. This seems to work better for me with a focus on consistency, discipline, and mindset.
Have a good day everyone!