Good morning! The weather here in NC is beautiful. Partly sunny and supposed to be a high near 80 degrees. I'm excited to walk through my yard each day and see all the bulbs up and about to bloom (the daffodils and more established tulips are already in full bloom, as are the trees. And some of the trees have actually finished blooming and are already leafed out). Will take my little Stella for a walk later
Sunday and Monday were rest days, so ready to do STS Hypertrophy Legs Disc 23 today. I am still excited about my workout this past Saturday. Like most women, pullups are a real challenge for me. Not being able to support my weight very well while hanging was one of the reasons I had my awful knee injury almost 3 years ago. Rather than give in to defeat, I've been working over the past year or so on chinups and pullups. I started off doing assisted and negative moves and eventually graduated to being able to do several hanging (full-on, no-assist) chinups, but pullups were still very challenging, though I could eke out a couple. My training method has been to add pullups & chinups to the end of some of my workout routines, then take a few weeks off, then go back in and do them again. I would do the few hanging that I could manage and add assisted-to-failure. It had been a little over a month since I had last added them to a workout, and I was doing the back portion of P90X Legs & Back this past Saturday (the back portion is all pullups & chinups), so I was excited to see if I'd made much progress. Well lo & behold, my first set of chinups and I knocked out 6 hanging. Then I tried wide-grip pullups (by far, the hardest), and I did 2 hanging. I went to close-grip pullups and did 5 hanging; then switch-grip (reg grip pull-ups alternated with chinups) and did 6 of each hanging. My confidence was so buoyed that when I went for round 2, I knocked out 9 more hanging chinups, 2 more hanging wide-grip pullups, 5 more regular grip hanging pullups, and 6 hanging "other bar" chinups (other bar--the part of the pullup bar that sticks straight out in front of you). In addition to the hanging reps of all of the above, I added assisted-to-failure for each set. Now you know why I needed 2 recovery days! Now I'm even more inspired to stick with my program and keep challenging myself
There is something about being able to do pullups that is so empowering
, probably because it was such a weakness for me before. And let me tell you, pullups work the heck out of my core, too. My abs are still sore from Saturday!
Belinda---Good heavens! What time do you get up in the morning?! I'm so glad that my husband let me sleep in today (until almost 8!). I feel so much better than yesterday when I'd only had 5 1/2 hours sleep the night before
Debbie---hope no one in your fam gets the flu! Ugh. But if so, speedy recovery! And good for you for planning on working out while on vaca. On our last fam vaca, my husband caught me doing squats with a watermelon. Hey, sometimes you've got to improvise. Now my upcoming birthday blow-out week in Key West? Not so much
But maybe I should plan on it. I'll need to sweat the alcohol out of my system
Kristin--good luck with your April rotation
. I say if you need a rest day, take it! I take 3 rest days every week, generally the same days, but I try to be flexible. There is nothing worse than an over-use injury. Then you have to take rest weeks instead of days. Sounds like your Monday started off with a bang! Where do you live? 4 inches of snow?! Yikes! It was sunny and in the 70's here (but Sunday I was in a parka. It was very windy and cold. But that's spring in NC). And I don't know what tests you are talking about, but if it's anything like the schools here in NC, we test, test, test. I guess I'm used to it though. I have two in college and one in 6th grade. My 6th grader said that they just took a mock math EOG and didn't do very well. The new core curriculum is wreaking havoc on the EOG's. And walking the dog counts as "active" recovery in my book, so it's still exercise
As is dancing. I went dancing after the hockey game Saturday night, and I know I was working it
Cookie---the hockey game was awesome. Ended with our team winning in a shoot out
. Then we went to a bar for drinks and dancing. I love to dance
One of the few cardio "workouts" that I fully embrace
Waving hello to everyone else! ---Vicki