Blog Archives
Feeling Tired
I love feeling completed exhausted after my workouts. I love that feeling of just wanting to sit on the couch and not move for a couple of hours.
I especially love that feeling when it takes me less than 30 minutes to get it!
Like today, Ryan and I went down to the gym in our apartment building. This honestly is one of the most ridiculous gyms I’ve ever seen. Four treadmills, two recumbent bikes, a bench press machine, a leg extension machine and one functional trainer (aka a cable machine with a pull up bar). It also has medicine balls up to 10lbs and 3 kettlebells ranging from like 2lbs to 20lbs. Not exactly a personal trainers dream gym.
BUT that didn’t stop us from getting in a killer workout in the very small space that we had. We mostly wanted a cardio workout after doing the 300 yesterday.
So we did:
4 rounds as fast as possible of:
400m Run
20 Burpees (Chest touches the ground on each one)
20 Sit-ups
1 minute wall sit
Great workout that took less than 15 minutes. I got a nice sweat going and my legs started to burn during wall sits especially after the 50 deadlifts yesterday!
Yep..A great cardio session in less than 15 minutes. So why are you spending an hour on the treadmill?
Below is another great workout although it took a bit longer between the heavy lift and the circuit. Still under an hour though (I didn’t really pay attention to exactly how long).
Strength:
Back squat 5×5
Auxiliary Lift circuit: 5 rounds as fast as possible
500m Row
15ea 1 Leg Squats
30 Box Jumps
30 KB Swings
30 Jump Knee Tucks (Jump as high as you can and bring your knees to your chest as much as possible)
Also, an awesome “Show Me Yours” photo from Francine. A different way to show off her Man Biceps and Man Lats!
Nice back muscles!
Now go workout and have a great Sunday and a great Easter or Passover! 🙂
Front Squats
I haven’t done heavy front squats since college.
I’ve always sort of dreaded them. I traded them in for back squats partly because I like to lift as much weight as possible and my numbers are bigger in back squat and partly just because I hate them.
But front squats are super good for you. They really work your quads AND your core. So I’ve started doing them and hope one day I will love them…
Till today, I’d done front squats as an auxiliary lift. Higher reps with lighter weight usually after a nice heavy round of deadlifts.
But for some reason today I decided it was time to tackle heavy front squats.
5 sets of 5 repetitions of heavy front squats.
I was nervous. 5×5 is usually a killer workout no matter what lift you are doing. And to be doing 5×5 on front squat…Uhm what was I thinking!?!
I was thinking…”Gosh I hope I can even manage to do one rep at my college max of 130!” (And by the way, I do still hold the Boston U. Women’s Tennis front squat record…I’m both proud of this and a bit disappointed that no one has beaten it.)
And today…even though I still hate front squats…I was very happy at the results of my workout (and Candy did super well too! She has a VERY strong core!).
We started with 95lbs for 5 reps. It definitely didn’t feel like a warm up set like it does with back squats. We then put on 115. That wasn’t a picnic either, but it was manageable.
So I decided we should attempt 135lbs. Yep, I decided that we should attempt more than my max in college. I mean 135 is a warm up for back squats so I should be able to easily do it….right?
Uhm…easy? NOPE! Doable? Yes!
I managed 5 very nice deep front squats with 135 although I do think Candy wasn’t sure if I was actually going to make it up on the 5 one.
Candy then repped out 5 with the weight and I was a bit jealous of how easy she made them look. Her core is gnarly!
Of course, what I didn’t consider was the fact that we had two more rounds of 5 reps…sweet….
Both of us stuck with 135 and busted out two more rounds of 5 although my depth was questionable at the end and my core was struggling hard to keep me up straight.
BUT…I DID IT! I repped more than my college max! YAY!
Of course, I then still had to do conventional deadlifts and snatches, but hey…I’d done heavy front squats!
I still don’t like them though.
Man Bicep 