My first bench press set today. 6 reps at 65 lbs.
Today was arm day for weightlifting, and arm day is LONG. We actually do arms, back, chest, and shoulders on arm day. Admittedly, that’s a lot for one day. It takes us about 2.5 hours to complete the workout. But now that we’re doing kickboxing on Mondays and Thursdays, we can only fit in two days of weightlifting. At first we alternated between chest/back one week and arms/shoulders the next, but so much time elapsed between the exercises that we weren’t making any real progress. So we had Adam, our kickboxing instructor/weightlifting trainer, come up with a single day routine for all of it. Now we do one massive upper body workout on Tuesdays, then take Wednesday off to recover.
Believe me, we need it.
One of the things kickboxing class has gotten me doing is jogging. Don’t get me wrong – I HATE jogging. Kickboxing is a great cardio workout choice for me because we’re constantly doing something different. Kick, punch, ab work, combos – we’re constantly moving from one thing to another, so I don’t get bored. Jogging, on the other hand, is the same thing over and over. Put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over. Running on a track, you’re literally going on circles. I know some people reach an almost meditative state while jogging. I’m not one of those people. Jogging, for me, is tedious.*
But it’s also how we warm up for kickboxing most days, and in the beginning just slogging through two laps on our gym’s indoor track kicked my ass. Sixteen laps is a mile, so two laps is pathetic. When Adam first increased us to 4 laps, I decided the only way I was going to survive that for class was if I could jog MORE than four laps. I’ve stuck to that game plan, and it’s worked pretty well. I can do 16 laps – a full mile! – on cardio days, although I have to trick myself into doing it, but on weightlifting days we’re currently only doing 8 since we need to conserve energy for lifting. Warm up is just to get blood pumping through our muscles so they’re ready to lift.
I increased weight on a lot of exercises today. Not much, just 5 or 10 lbs. It’s amazing how much heavier 5 extra pounds can feel, especially on your last set. 😉 I’m excited about getting to 75 on bench presses and 50 on shoulder presses. My current PR on BP is 80, which I set a YEAR ago. Of course, I’m doing higher reps now, but still! Shoulder presses are a new exercise for me, but I think my PR on overhead presses is 60. So hopefully in a couple of weeks I’ll be setting new PRs on both of those. (I still don’t have my previous workouts loaded into the app, so it thinks I set PRs today. But I know the truth.)
*I mean absolutely NO offense to people who like to jog. I know several runners, and I’m impressed by the lot of you. Seriously! Sadly, it just isn’t my thing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s great exercise or that y’all don’t kick ass. Because you do! 😀
FitNotes Workout – Tuesday 25th August 2015
** Running (Indoor Track) **
– 0.5 mi [Jogged 8 laps on the indoor track to warm up before lifting]
** Shoulder Press **
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 50.0 lbs x 4 reps
** Arnold Dumbbell Press ** (Arm Day SS1)
– 20.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 20.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 20.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 20.0 lbs x 6 reps
** Bent Over Reverse Fly ** (Arm Day SS1)
– 10.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 10.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 10.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 10.0 lbs x 10 reps
** Bench Press **
– 65.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 65.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 70.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 70.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 75.0 lbs x 6 reps [PR]
** Assisted Pull Up ** (Arm Day SS2)
– 100.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 100.0 lbs x 9 reps
– 100.0 lbs x 8 reps
– 100.0 lbs x 8 reps
** Bent Over Row ** (Arm Day SS2)
– 15.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 10 reps
** Run The Rack **
– 50.0 lbs x 2 reps
– 40.0 lbs x 4 reps
– 30.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 20.0 lbs x 8 reps
** Alternating Dumbbell Curl (Seated) ** (Arm Day SS3)
– 15.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 6 reps
** Dumbbell Concentration Curl ** (Arm Day SS3)
– 12.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 6 reps [PR]
– 15.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 15.0 lbs x 6 reps
** Close Grip Barbell Bench Press **
– 65.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 65.0 lbs x 6 reps
– 70.0 lbs x 6 reps [PR] [With a little help on the last rep]
– 70.0 lbs x 6 reps
** EZ-Bar Skullcrusher ** (Arm Day SS4)
– 30.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 30.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 30.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 30.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 30.0 lbs x 10 reps
** Tricep Press Down ** (Arm Day SS4)
– 60.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 60.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 60.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 60.0 lbs x 10 reps
– 60.0 lbs x 10 reps