Back again!

Yes, I've been absent for a little while. I had a couple weeks of vacation, including a week of skiing in Austria. Then I had a week of business trip. Now, I'm TRYING to get back in the swing of things. I did wake up early this morning, but I was still slow getting started.

My mind is still here...

Tuesday, I did a modified version of a Turbulence Training bodyweight routine:
Foam rolling and mobility work
Push-ups - 7 regular+8 elevated, 6 regular+8 elevated
Inverted row - 2x8
1-leg box squat - 2x8/8 risers
Anti-rotation hold - 2x2@20#/15sec (should reduce weight)
Bulgarian split squat - 2x8
Elevated push-up - 2x8 hands on bench
Walking lunges with overhead reach - 2x8
Mountain climbers - 2x12
Jump rope intervals - 8x10s off/20s on

And today I did the third round of my own workout. The last time I did it was over a month ago. In the mean time, I gained 4 pounds (boo! but it was worth it!) so my chin-ups suffered.

My Little Workout #2-3
0:54
Foam rolling and mobility
A1 Chin-up - 3x1
A2 1-leg supine bridge - 3x10/side
B1 Push-up - 3x8
B2 BSS - 3x10 (bodyweight, focussing on left side stability and control)
C1 Overhead press - 3x8/20#each hand
C2 Antirotation iso-hold - 3x3reps/sidex10# for 20s each, 10s rest between, arms straight out, first set standing, others kneeling

With the first set of antirotation holds, I realized most of my energy was going to pulling the cable up. My cable station doesn't have a middle level. So, I changed to kneeling. In the kneeling stance, I felt my abs working a lot more. These are so tough. My heart rate hit its max for the workout and I started sweating. Maybe I should put these earlier in the program!

I purchased Assess and Correct.  I've been reading the downloadable parts and it is excellent.  I've already learned a lot.  Recently, I also picked up the book Women's Strength Training Anatomy, since I've become fascinated with anatomy, particularly muscular anatomy.  That is very handy to have alongside the A&C material!  I will be sure to share more thoughts on these as I use them more.

In the zoo?

Ok, so it's hard to come up with new blog titles for the same workout.  Today I did the Tik Tok Challenge again.  This workout has two animals: monkeys (push-ups) and crabs (kicks).

When I started, I didn't think I felt all that energetic, but I ended up beating every single combo time from the last two times I did this workout!  Woot!

This time: 3:25, 3:34, 3:26 (compared to 3:37, 4:06, 3:43 and4:21, 4:05, 3:48)

My heart rate was up over 180 a couple times!  Tough workout.

TMI
Last time I did this workout, jumping rope presented issues.  I mentioned it on my board (because this blog felt too public for that sort of stuff) and a friend mentioned that jumping rope with one foot at a time helped people she knows.  By golly, it helped me to!  No issues today! 
/TMI

So, I used the running jump rope method and all was good.  I think I made fewer mistakes, too, about one per 20 second interval.

Surprising planks

This morning I did another round of My Little Workout #1.  I hit a 1RM PR on the bench press.  I tried for 5# more, twice, but no-go. 

The planks!  The planks surprised me.  It's been a long time since I've attempted 2 minute planks.  I sailed through them!  Well, ok, I was sweating by the end of the 2 minutes, but I wasn't really shaking or pleading for the time to be done.  Wow!

The rows were very tough.  One weird thing is that the paint or coating on the handle started rubbing off on my hands.  Strange.  Not flaking, just discoloring my hands.  I think I mis-stated my weight on the DB pullovers last time.  The DB was still as it was for that workout and it was set at 40#.  I don't think it had been touched since then, do now I know why they were tougher than I thought they should be last time!

I started reading a book I purchased on youth strength training.  It's geared toward physical education teachers, but I was curious.  One of the first interesting things is that they consider "weightlifting" to be Olympic weighlifting and "strength training" to simply be building strength by whatever method.  I actually prefer my way of thinking (of course) because I'm strength training BY lifting weights (weightlifting) but I could do it in other ways, like with bands, machines, bodyweight, etc.  They do, of course, feel that general strength is important for younger kids, which is great.

My Little Workout #1-3
1:25
Foam rolling and mobility work
A1   Bench Press - (warm-up 3/45#, 3/75#) 1/100#, 1/105#, 0/110# (2 tries)
A2   Plank - 3x120s
B1   1-arm DB Row - 3x6/side/60#
B2   DB Pullover - 3x8/40#
C1   BB Hip Thrust - (warm-up 5/45#) 8/100#, 8/105#, 8/110# (still lovin' the Hampton!)
C2   TGU - 3x3/side/20#KB

More non-beach workout

Today was a great, hard BodyRock.tv workout again.  The Hot Body Beach Workout.  Definitely a booty-kicker.  Three different kinds of weird push-ups:  monkey push-ups, commando push-ups, and diamond runner push-ups.

For comparison:
#1:  27/28/535/25/28/5
#2:  5.75
#3:  19/5/10/6/11/5
#4:  5
#5:  33/33/5/23/30/4
#6:  5.5
#7:  15/6/12/4/12/6

Yesterday afternoon I felt so hungry, I ate everything in sight.  Too many bananas. (Why did I buy a bunch rather than one or two?  Oh, yeah, to take to the family.  Sorry family.)  Having Girl Scout cookies around during this wasn't good, either.  But the scale showed me down this morning.  Just goes to show how silly the scale can be.  At least it reminded me that one day doesn't ruin everything.  (Although, the weekend wasn't all that much better.)