I feel sooo guilty!!

[lora-kate1]

Before I say anything let me say that I love all of Cathe's workouts and this is in no way a critique of STS.

However, I have been feeling over the last little while pretty worn out with the STS workouts. I find that some of the workouts that are close to an hour in length (and sometimes more) ultimately really draining and I seem to be getting continual knots in my back, shoulders, hips and thighs (I have always been susceptible to these and use the foam roller etc). I am getting stronger but the tradeoff is wearing me down. My goals are to be lean and toned and though I definitely appreciate the strength and commitment that it takes to look like Cathe and her amazing crew (and many of the success stories) I don't strive to duplicate those results to that degree (and probably couldn't even if I tried). I want to be stronger but don't really want bigger muscles.

I wish that the weight workouts were at most 45 minutes in length and then adding a short cardio in the a.m. would be possible and on the days I didn't do weights I could to some type of stretching/yoga. I have thought of trying to cut and paste a shorter workout or doing a different split and doing only two of the sts workouts over 7 days then adding a short body weight workout for my third weight day. I also keep reading that it would be ineffective to do this and would negate everything that STS is striving to achieve.

In the past I have tried one body part per day (about 20 minutes total except legs was about 60 minutes) and don't know how people do it. I am so sore and don't really get how all these oxygen fitness models do it long term. My view in to get it done as fast as possible and not have to groan as I roll out of bed in the morning.

Help!! Am I alone here? From all the posts I've read it seems like I am. I am actually in pretty some might say really good shape and fairly strong but have just entered my 40s and my body has become very unforgiving food wise (which was never an issue before). Ugh.

Can anyone relate or should I just deal with it and jump on the 3 hours per week weight workouts plus 3 cardio workouts plus abs 2-3 times per week plus yoga when I can fit it in?

 

[BeeCakes]

I know exactly what you mean!

I want to be Lean and Mean in a good way, not a crabby tired-all-the-time way!

I'm on STS for my second time. The first time I stopped after meso 2 because I was just a downed out zombie.

This time I've decided to do Meso 1 differently, I'm cutting the workout time down to about 35 minutes, so that's about 30 miuntes of weight work per dvd. I'm also inserting intervals/hiit during the weights, so I do a few lifting sets with a few cardio intervals interspersed, keeping the duration of the workout about 45 minutes. This works nicely for Meso 1 as the weight sets are supersetted.

For Meso 2 I will either reduce sets off each body part or do one or two parts per day.

On legs, I add in some plyo legs and shorten those dvd's up too inserting the plyo sets for added cardio effect.

On non weight days I do what I feel like for cardio, however much (or little) I choose, because I've gotten some cardio in with the weights and ab work.

I feel Soooooooooooooo much better this time around and my girl guns are starting to pop!

 

[kariev]

I want to be Lean and Mean in a good way, not a crabby tired-all-the-time way!

I'm on STS for my second time. The first time I stopped after meso 2 because I was just a downed out zombie.

This time I've decided to do Meso 1 differently, I'm cutting the workout time down to about 35 minutes, so that's about 30 miuntes of weight work per dvd. I'm also inserting intervals/hiit during the weights, so I do a few lifting sets with a few cardio intervals interspersed, keeping the duration of the workout about 45 minutes. This works nicely for Meso 1 as the weight sets are supersetted.

For Meso 2 I will either reduce sets off each body part or do one or two parts per day.

On legs, I add in some plyo legs and shorten those dvd's up too inserting the plyo sets for added cardio effect.

On non weight days I do what I feel like for cardio, however much (or little) I choose, because I've gotten some cardio in with the weights and ab work.

I feel Soooooooooooooo much better this time around and my girl guns are starting to pop!

Thank you soooooo much for this suggestion. I have exercise ADD so for me to do one thing for an hour is tough. Today I did meso 1 disc one. After each 3 exercises (chest, shoulders, biceps) I hopped on my elliptical and did 2 minutes of cardio. I did this for an entire hour which just flew by. My body always responded better to circuit style workouts so this is a great way to incorporate STS. I'm going to do STS this way 3 days per week and then on the other 2 i'm going to do 20 minutes of HITT followed by 45 minutes of yoga. That way I get all aspects of fitness in during the week. Thanks again

 

[Cathe Friedrich]

Before I say anything let me say that I love all of Cathe's workouts and this is in no way a critique of STS.

However, I have been feeling over the last little while pretty worn out with the STS workouts. I find that some of the workouts that are close to an hour in length (and sometimes more) ultimately really draining and I seem to be getting continual knots in my back, shoulders, hips and thighs (I have always been susceptible to these and use the foam roller etc). I am getting stronger but the tradeoff is wearing me down. My goals are to be lean and toned and though I definitely appreciate the strength and commitment that it takes to look like Cathe and her amazing crew (and many of the success stories) I don't strive to duplicate those results to that degree (and probably couldn't even if I tried). I want to be stronger but don't really want bigger muscles.

I wish that the weight workouts were at most 45 minutes in length and then adding a short cardio in the a.m. would be possible and on the days I didn't do weights I could to some type of stretching/yoga. I have thought of trying to cut and paste a shorter workout or doing a different split and doing only two of the sts workouts over 7 days then adding a short body weight workout for my third weight day. I also keep reading that it would be ineffective to do this and would negate everything that STS is striving to achieve.

In the past I have tried one body part per day (about 20 minutes total except legs was about 60 minutes) and don't know how people do it. I am so sore and don't really get how all these oxygen fitness models do it long term. My view in to get it done as fast as possible and not have to groan as I roll out of bed in the morning.

Help!! Am I alone here? From all the posts I've read it seems like I am. I am actually in pretty some might say really good shape and fairly strong but have just entered my 40s and my body has become very unforgiving food wise (which was never an issue before). Ugh.

Can anyone relate or should I just deal with it and jump on the 3 hours per week weight workouts plus 3 cardio workouts plus abs 2-3 times per week plus yoga when I can fit it in?

Hi Lora-Kate!

Since you already posted this in open discussion, I thought I would post a a link to your responses here:

http://www.thecathenation.com/forum/...d.php?t=275895