Week 3 of Training

Put a fork in me, I am done. This was a hard week, not just the workouts, but the solo parenting with a child that is hitting the “terrible threes”. The latter made it more important than ever I get the workouts in. This week was just overly challenging. Great news, next week will be, too. At least, I am prepared and ready for Thanksgiving week. 🙂

This week focused on lifting weight to muscle fatigue with a good amount of cardio (tempo and speed work). So, here we go… week 3 breakdown.

Sunday – 6 miles with 4 at tempo

Monday  –  Easy 6 miles with core & back work, chest, back, triceps and biceps for weight lifting. Remember to work your whole chest then your triceps then to back to biceps. Always work a-posing muscle groups. Hence, the need to work abs then back. Each weight lifting exercise was done 3 times with 12 reps with the last rep being to muscle fatigue. IE, if I did another up and down I would either pull a muscle or not make it. If you have not been there, go an additional 2 to 4 times from the point you think you can’t.

• Chest workout
  • Flat bench chest press
    • 25 crunches and 25 reverse crunch
    • Superman 25 times.
  • Incline chest press
    • Repeat Ab and Back work
  • Dumbbell Pullovers, I do this move with only my shoulders on a bench, keep your spine inline abs in gauged, knees 90 degrees, feet flat on the floor. After your last set move directly to tricep presses right over your chest as many as you can do.
    • Repeat Ab and Back work
• Triceps
  • Seated Tricep Extensions
    • Repeat Ab and Back work
  • Tricep Kickbacks
    • Repeat Ab and Back work
• Back (Thank you to Jack for this workout, he created the workout with dumbbells. Great guy, very helpful and excited to help and even followed up on the workout to make sure it was working).  The fact he is a ‘Bama fan is just an added bonus! 🙂 You can find him on twitter here and his website here, Jack’s website.
  • Single dumbbell bent over row
    • Body weight squats 10
  • Double dumbbell bent over rows (performed standing, no bench involved)
    • Body weight squats 10
  • Bent-over double dumbbell lat fly
    • Body weight squats 10
  • Bent over Dumbbell pull-backs
    • Body weight squats 10
• Biceps
  • Hammer curls
    • Body weight squats 10
  • Biceps curls
    • Body weight squats 10

Greatest way to know you lifted correctly is move directly into push up position, if you are not shaking during the execution or if you just can’t even perform the push up, you reached your muscle fatigue. Depending on your recovery rate you may be able to do a push up or two. If you are handling this easily, you are stronger than you believe and you need to adjust your lifting to reach the point of muscle fatigue.

Tuesday – Shoot me now, 10 miles on the treadmill followed by 25 8-count body builders. The body builders took me some time, I was a little sore from the day before. Plus, I really really, did I mention really hate body builders. I mean really, who came up with this god forsaken workout, a form of a burpee set to a rhythm count. If I ever met this person, I am not sure I would punch or hug him/her. Either way… another, lovely workout J taught me.  The run on the treadmill was tough mentally. The only thing that got me through this run was “From Paris With Love”. Yes, the weapons fire, explosions, and awesome character playing by John Travolta made 10 miles seems like a walk in the park.

          One of my favorite quotes from the movie is, “Kitchen staff!?! What kitchen staff ?!? Kitchen staff doesn’t shed lead like that.”  Anywhos…..I highly recommend the movie if you have not seen it. Great effects with some awesome movie liners like the one above.

Wednesday – No cardio, just repeat of Mondays weight lifting. Plus, yoga and stretching. I wasn’t overly sore. Weight lifting then cardio helps work out the lactic acid build up. Plus, the more efficient your body becomes the better the recovery.

Thursday –  First off, I am so stoked I completed this. (8.5 miles total) I learned this workout from J. It was a workout he did some many moons ago. Well, half of it. I just repeated the cycle.

• Block 1
  • Easy warmup one and a half miles. You can make this a mile if you want. I said easy for a reason.
• Block 2
  • Four quarter-mile sprints with 30 second working recovery* between each set — you can make the rest period up to 45 seconds
  • 45 to one minute working recovery after your last quarter-mile sprint.
  • Two half mile sprints with 60 second working recovery* between each set — you can make the rest period up to 90 seconds
• Block 3
  • Working recovery* for one mile.
• Block 4
  • REPEAT Block 2
    • Try and maintain the same pace of your first round of Block 2. By the third half mile repeat or maybe the first half-mile repeat you should be swearing and pushing yourself through the “I want to quit” stage. Just remember, the saying “Pain is inevitable, suffering optional.” You choose suffer through it or push forward. I use a mantra when things get real tough, I find it’s a way to calm my mind and body, it’s rather simple. Be Strong, Be Confident, Believe. Short simple and repeated whenever I need it.
• Block 5
  • One mile cool down. Add whatever miles you need for cool down. I did 1.5. I have an A-Type personality and the warm up and cool down need to match and the cool down needs to make the total mileage complete or at a half mile. IE after the decimal the number needs to be 0 or 5.

Finished up with core & back work and another 15 8 count body builders **insert sour loving face**.

Friday – Easy 5 mile run.

Saturday – As always family day. I am truly blessed to have a man or maybe a vampire man in my life that when his flight is cancelled on Friday night, he will get a rental car and drive all the way home to arrive Saturday morning for family day. He did this knowing that early Sunday morning like 4AM he was heading back out to the airport and heading back to the location he just left. Saturday’s adventures were very basic, we picked up our fresh turkey from a local family farmer, we did a little more Christmas shopping, of course watched some football, enjoyed building some great architectures, pig piled on the bed for a few Christmas films, made time for J and M to have play time, followed by Abby getting some solo couch time with J and I got 75 minutes of almost uninterrupted peace and not so much quiet time to do adult things. The time flew by, but we will take it. It is about quality over quantity.

*What I mean by working recovery is that you are still moving jogging or at an easy run pace. You are allowing your body to recovery and take in more oxygen at a reduction in intensity, but you are not standing still or allowing your heart rate to drop completely, I stay within 60 – 65% of max heart rate. The Thursday workout is all about working at a high intensity with minor breaks then back to high intensity. You are training you cells to recovery after high intensity and also training your mind to influence your body. Remember, fitness is not how skinny, built, how far you can run/hike/climb/swim or how much you can carry for a certain distance and/or altitude. Fitness is your rate of recovery. The better your fitness rate, the faster you recover, the faster your body returns to homeostasis. The place it wants to be. In times of stress that being fight or flight, work shit, family BS, disagreement with your loved one, you name it, the faster your body and your mind can make the adjustments and return to normal the better for you and your body.