My Gym Workout

So for the last 4 weeks, I've been back in a gym and it's been a nice change! I'm not used to having all the equipment available to me. It's especially nice to have weights! My weights at home are only 5 lb and 8 lb so it is great to be able to challenge myself with heavier weights. The other great thing is that my employer is really supportive of healthy living so we get a lot of great benefits. One of these was a personally written program from one of the trainers. We went over my goals and she put together a circuit for me. I told her my goals were to run a faster half marathon and to do an unassisted pullup. So this is what she has me doing:

1. Step-ups with Weights - step up with right leg on a bench while holding weights, then step left foot up to join; I use 12 pound weights and do a set of 12.
2. Tricep dips using the bench
3. Clean and Press using 12 lb weights
4. Assisted Pullup - right now I use the machine to assist me with 90 lbs of weight. Slowly but surely I'll reduce that until I can do a pullup supporting the weight all on my own!
5. Crunch with Legs Up and Using a Medicine Ball - I use a 10 lb medicine ball and keep my hands in the air above my head. On the "down" part of the exercise, I extend my arms behind my head so the ball hits the ground.
6. Leg Curls (on the machine) - so far I use 85 lbs
7. Walking Lunges - I don't use weights on this and I try to keep only one foot on the ground at a time. I go by distance but it usually turns into 12 lunges on each side.

I do this whole thing 3 times through. I've been throwing 10 min of jogging in before the first set and between each set so I get in my cardio. It's been fun! I start my half marathon training in a couple weeks. Fun fun!

Hope everyone is having a happy and healthy summer!

Gym Workout

Yesterday I decided to do a gym workout since I had run on Monday. Wow, I forgot how much I loved going to the gym! There was a class at 5:45 called "Sculpt Express" and I got there at 5 so I had some time to kill. I started with 25 minutes on the elliptical. It's always nice to switch it up, you know? It felt great!

There's a fitness challenge at work going on right now called "Fitopoly." Basically, they have a monopoly board on the wall, and we each have our own little characters. You roll dice when you get to the gym and move around the board. You do a quick workout based on where you land. Yesterday I landed on Core, so I had to do 2x30 bicycles, 2x15 leg lifts, 2x30 holds in dead bug (up position in a double crunch), and 2x30 second holds of opposite arm and leg extension (in a table top... for your lower back). That killed enough time for me to do the class, which was focused mostly on upper body. We did 5 upper body exercises for different amounts of time with little to no rest. We finished with 2 minutes of lunges on each leg and 90 seconds of two different ab exercises (bicycle and crunches with your legs in butterfly position). LOVE IT! I felt great when I was done!

The other major benefit of the gym was that they did a fit test before I started working out. You had to do crunches to failure or a maximum of 75, pushups to failure, a treadmill heart rate test, a stretch test, and a body fat/weight measurement. The good news is that my cardio fitness is well above average! My pushups and crunches were as well! I did 75 crunches and 50 pushups. I think I could've done more pushups but it seemed like 50 was enough for the purpose of a fit test! My weight was good (although I'm trying to lean out a bit for running) and my body fat measured at 17%! I thought it was more than that! Of course, this is just a caliper test, but I'll take it! :) My only "bad" point was my flexibility. I talk about it all the time, but I really need to do it... YOGA! I can retest every 3 months so hopefully my flexibility improves after 3 months!

Hope all is well out there! Have a healthy day!