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Liz's workout log


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Okay, I am feeling pretty good about the routine I have just set up, so here is. I am going to do full-body workout three times a week. Single set, as heavy as I can manage. I'm a beginner, so my weights are pretty low still. Also, I have added a bunch of new exercises, so I'm gonna have to start at the beginning with low weights for them until I can figure out what I can handle.

 

I also need to figure out exactly which days I am going to go. A friend of mine wants to work out with, which I am very excited about. She is trying to lose weight, and I convinced her to start lifting weights, so she is going to join me 2x a week. That will be Tues and Thurs evenings, so I guess my third day should be on the weekend, Sat or Sun.

 

Other than weight lifting, I do mountain biking Mon and Wed, but that is going to end very soon when the time goes back and we won't have enough light in evenings to get in a ride. I'll then mtn bike just once a week, Sat or Sun. Very soon, I am going to have to start riding my road bike (mostly on my trainer over the winter months) every single day except the one day I mtn bike. If I'm going to be at the gym with my friend two evenings, I'm gonna have to figure out when to bike--maybe first thing in the morning on those days.

 

Okay, so now my week will look something like this:

 

Mon: mtn bike ride, evening

Tues: day 1 workout at gym, evening

Wed: mtn bike ride, evening

Thurs: day 2 workout, evening

Fri: rest

Sat: road bike ride, morning

Sun: day 3 workout

 

Eventually, from sometime in Nov, it will look like:

 

Mon: bike on trainer

Tues: bike on trainer, morning; day 1 workout, evening

Wed: bike on trainer

Thurs: bike on trainer, morning; day 2 workout, evening

Fri: bike on trainer

Sat: mtn bike ride

Sun: road bike ride, morning; day 3 workout, evening

 

I might have to move my gym workouts to Mon, Wed, Fri evenings, because I don't think I can handle my big outdoors road ride (prob 2-3 hours) and a gym workout on one day (Sun). The weekday trainer rides will be more like 1 hour and easier, so I'd be more able to go the gym on those days.

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Now that I got all that preliminary stuff over with, here are my actual workouts. I've provided the weight I'm currently at for the exercises I have actually done already. The ones with no weight are the ones that are new for me.

 

Day One

Squats (85 lbs)

Calf Press (170 lbs on some stupid machine)

Barbell Bench (70 lbs)

Barbell Shoulder Press (50 lbs)

Cable Row (85 lbs)

Lat Pulldown (90 lbs)

 

Day Two

Squat

Calf Press

Chest Dips

Upright Barbell Row

Barbell Bent-Over Row

Narrow-Grip Chinup

 

Day Three

Squats

Calf Press

Incline Dumbell Press

Rear Delt Row

One-Arm Dumbell Row

Wide-grip Pullup

 

One Q about the calf exercises. My current gym has just a seated calf press thingy. I have been thinking about doing calf raises with a barbell on my back, as for squatting, using the squat rack. At my last gym, I was doing this with a Smith machine (the only exercise I would use that for). But I was up to about 180 lbs, which is far more than I hold for any other exercise I do, and so I am a little afraid of trying to hold that weight without any support. Should I be worried about that, or do you all think I should be able to hold it okay?

 

Oh, and some basic info about me. I am female, as I guess you all know already. I am 33 years old, 5'5" and 150 lbs. I would like to lose about 10 pounds, mostly because lighter is generally better for cycling. But I don't plan on reweighing myself again for a while.

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Looks good so far. What about the deadlift?

 

One Q about the calf exercises. My current gym has just a seated calf press thingy. I have been thinking about doing calf raises with a barbell on my back, as for squatting, using the squat rack. At my last gym, I was doing this with a Smith machine (the only exercise I would use that for). But I was up to about 180 lbs, which is far more than I hold for any other exercise I do, and so I am a little afraid of trying to hold that weight without any support. Should I be worried about that, or do you all think I should be able to hold it okay?

The smith machine is okay for doing calves. Only problem is, that you can't go into the stretching position, which i believe to be very important. And when you can't go down the full way, you need more weight to make it a challenge.

But try it and you will see if you can hold it. I believe it will be no problem, it's easier to hold a weight than to squat with it.

 

One leg calf raises as Will mentioned are okay, but even if not too easy from the start, it's hard to keep adding weight. You can use dumbells, but the calves are very strong and at some point it won't be enough. If they suit you better than the smith machine, i think the movement is better, so do them then

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Oh, to clarify... at my last gym I was using the Smith for calf raises, and that was fine. But at my current gym they do not have a Smith machine. Just squat racks. So I was wondering if I should be worried about going from a Smith machine to a free barbell for the calf raises.

 

And Daywalker, I will start doing deadlifts. I forgot to put that in.

 

I also forgot to mention that I will be doing core work. Weighted crunches, back hypers, and cable side bends. I'll do those on the days I don't go the gym for the other stuff, which will work out to 4x a week. For these, I'll be doing more of a higher rep, lower weight thing.

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Did my day one workout today. I was in the gym for about 40 minutes, but that includes my warm-up and waiting around for equipment. There was one guy there who was bench pressing the entire time I was there. I went through my entire routine; he was bench pressing when I arrived and bench pressing when I left. Surely that's not necessary!

 

I got kinda pissy with a guy who was there... there are two power racks and they are used for bench pressing as well as squats (mostly pressing--I have seen only one other person squat so far). When I walked in both were being used for bench pressing, so I had to wait to squat. One guy got up and walked away, so I followed him and asked if he was done and he said he was. I asked if he could remove his weight (he had left it all on the barbell) and he said he found it that way. Okay, who walks in, finds a barbell with weight on it, and just presses whatever weight happens to be on it?? So he wasn't going to remove it. I gave some kind of annoyed response, and then he came and helped me remove it and move the pegs around for squattting and was very nice, so then I felt bad for being pissy. But now he probably thinks that I just didn't know how to do it on my own, when it was just that I hate when people don't put away their weights when they are done!

 

Does this count as a training journal still? Now I'm just venting!

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Today I did my day two workout. There were a few new exercises for me to try out.

 

Did 12 squats, so I get to increase to 90# next time. I'm looking forward to hitting the triple digits finally.

 

I can tell I am going to have to be careful with the upright barbell rows to make sure I don't hurt my shoulder. It may mean increasing my reps and weight more slowly for this one. I just used the empty barbell for this today (45#).

 

For barbell bent-over rows, I settled on 70#, but did 12 pretty easily, so I'll be increasing the weight for that next time.

 

There were not many people in the gym today and I didn't have to wait for any equipment, so it was a nice fast workout.

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I was supposed to do my day 3 workout today, but didn't go to the gym.

 

This was my first time to try to go on a weekend, and I failed! The gym is open only for 4 hours on Sun, 10AM-2PM, and I wasn't ready to work out (my large breakfast was not digested) in time.

 

I'll have to avoid eating larger breakfasts on Sundays if I hope to actually get to the gym.

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I did my day three workout today, first time for that routine. I went at a totally different time of day. I have been going in the morning, but now I am switching to evening so that my friend can go with me. She didn't go tonight, though; our first workout together will be on Thursday.

 

I started with 20# in each hand for incline bench press, 20# dumbell for one arm row, and empty barbell (45#) for rear delt row. In all cases I did my 12 pretty easy, so I'll do more next time.

 

One issue I have with dumbells is that the increase amount is greater. That is, when I increase on the barbell, I increase by 5 lbs total, 2.5 lbs added on each side. But when I increase with dumbells, I will have to increase by 5 lbs each hand, or 10 lbs total. That seems like a big jump to me.

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Back to my day one routine today. This time my friend was with me, so I was showing her how to do the exercises as well.

 

I found that I had great trouble with the barbell bench. I could hardly lift the weight. Last time I managed 9 reps at that weight, this time I could do only 3. That seems like a big step back. I used to do the barbell bench 2x a week and now I do it only 1x. Plus, I missed one workout recently, so it has been a little more than a week since I last did it. Could that be the reason for the troubles? I am doing chest exercises on the other two days, but because I just started them I was not using a very challenging weight. I hope I can make progress on the bench next time.

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Hi Liz, it could be just an off day or fatigue from your other chest exercises. Many of us have days when the weights just don't go up as expected and with no apparent explanation.

 

I'm sure if you work on it for a few sessions your strength will return. Twice per week benching works best for me.

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I managed to squeeze in my day two routine today. I almost messed up and missed it--the gym closes at 4PM. I was leaving to go there around 2:45 when I discovered I could not find my keys! I still haven't found them, but luckily the management office set me up with some spares just in time for me to get to the gym and squeeze in my workout. I skipped warm-up though; I just walked over there very briskly in hopes of raising my heart rate a bit.

 

Found myself getting a little sloppy on the squat. I was leaning forward onto the balls of my feet instead of pushing through the heels. So I didn't do too many reps and will have to work on that. I also really have to work on keeping my back straight on the bent-over rows. I really have to concentrate on it.

 

Otherwise, it went pretty well. Here's what I ended up doing:

 

Squat: 90# x8

Calf Press: 195# x 12

Chest Dips: -60# x12

Upright Barbell Row: 45# x10

Barbell Bent-Over Row: 75# x8

Narrow-Grip Chinup: -60# x8

 

(As I weigh 150 now, -60 on the assisted dips and chins works out to 90 pounds.)

 

I'm really glad I managed to get to the gym today. Tomorrow I am going on a 43 mi bike ride with a friend. I expect to struggle because I haven't been riding regularly at all.

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I did my bike ride today. I was pretty pooped out by the end, but I did better than I thought I would. I managed to keep going at a pretty decent pace. Now I'm tired out, though.

 

Tomorrow I am going to a free seminar on free weights at my gym. I'm hoping I just get to watch and don't have to do any lifting, because I need to recover from today, plus I am mountain biking in the evening anyway. Tuesday evening is my next gym day.

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I went to the free seminar and was the only person there! So it was more like a personal training seminar. But we really just went over basic exercises and he watched my form and gave feedback. Mostly he said my form was quite good, but he also gave me some helpful hints. So I ended up doing a light workout on an off day. I was a little worried it would affect my workout today, but I think I did okay.

 

Squats: 90# x10

Calf Press: 200# x12

Incline Dumbell Press: 25# (ea.) x11

Rear Delt Row: 50# x9

One-Arm Dumbell Row: 25# x12

Wide-grip Pullup: -80# x7

 

For some reason the wide grip pullup is much harder than the narrow grip for me, even though I do lat pulldowns at the wide grip and I can do 90# on those.

 

Today I looked in the mirror and I can see that I am looking a little different. I think I look a little thinner all around, and my abdomen area looks firmer. I don't know why, because I have been eating like a pig lately. However, I have been pigging out my own homemade food, so maybe that's not so bad.

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Hi Liz

 

You're doing well it seems

 

For some reason the wide grip pullup is much harder than the narrow grip for me, even though I do lat pulldowns at the wide grip and I can do 90# on those.

Yes, the wide grip IS harder.

The wide grip pull up is a very tough exercise to master and most people i see that do them (not many do pull ups at all) do them wrong.

 

 

Today I looked in the mirror and I can see that I am looking a little different. I think I look a little thinner all around, and my abdomen area looks firmer. I don't know why, because I have been eating like a pig lately. However, I have been pigging out my own homemade food, so maybe that's not so bad.

Great! Isn't it fun to see the work shows? Keep it up

 

 

Daywalker

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Yesterday was a day one workout. For the second time in a row, I got weaker on barbell bench press. I had been doing 70#, then last week I was able to do only 3 reps with that weight. This week I could barely do a couple, so I reduced it down to 60# and I still could do only 7 reps with that.

 

I don't know what the deal is, but right now I am going to try to do it 2x a week rather than just once. I had been doing it 2x, but then when I switched up my routine and started going to the gym 3x a week, I started doing bb bench press just once, and db inclines and dips the other days. Right now I am going to replace the dips with more bb bench and see if I start to get stronger again. I'll try to figure out how I can work dips back in to my routine.

 

I've been going with a friend... I guess we have gone three times so far. I really like having a buddy and she says she absolutely loves working out, so I am psyched.

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Haha! Well, I figured out what the problem was with my bench press--my math! I wasn't getting weaker after all--I had been trying 80# when I meant to be doing 70#, and when I thought I was reducing it down to 60#, I was really reducing it to 70#. Today I used the right weight, and I think I can go back to my original routine of doing bb bench press 1x a week and having dips in my day two routine.

 

Today's workout:

Squat: 95# x12

Calf Press: 205# x 12

BB Bench Press: 70# x8

Upright Barbell Row: 45# x12

Barbell Bent-Over Row: 75# x10

Narrow-Grip Chinup: -60# x9

 

I get to go up to 100# on squat next time, finally hitting the triple digits.

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No progress on the pullup. Alex, if you happen to read this, can you tell me what most people do wrong when they do pullups?

Hi Liz. Of course i read your log

 

What i meant was that most people concentrate on pulling themselves up as often as possible, not heeding the form. The article Will linked is great.

I do pull ups similar to what the author calls "sternum pull ups". I believe that the shoulders must be pulled backwards and the chest pushed out towards the bar. One shouldn't do the move using arms and shoulder muscles mainly. It's hard to explain, i'm better at showing it

Anyway, for the beginning, just pull

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Last night's workout:

 

Squats: 100# x12

Calf Press: 205# x12

Barbell Bench: 70# x12

Barbell Shoulder Press: 50# x10

Cable Row: 95# x10

Lat Pulldown 90# x10

 

I've been sticking to the same weight for the calf presses because it doesn't quite feel right. I hate that stupid machine.

 

After the confusion about the weight and all that, I finally got 12 reps of 70# so I get to go up next time.

 

I am barely making progress on shoulder press and lat pulldown.

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Yesterday's workout:

 

Today's workout:

Squat: 105# x10

Calf Press*: 170# x 15

Chest Dips: -60# x12

Upright Barbell Row: 50# x7

Barbell Bent-Over Row: 75# x12

Narrow-Grip Chinup: -60# x9

 

*I switched to using the leg press machine for my calves, rather than the specific calf press machine they have. I just could not get into the calf press thing, it was a weird position and motion. On the leg press I can get a stretch in the calf, which was not possible on the calf press machine. 170 was too easy though, so next time I'll go to 210.

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