The Last 3 Days...

After a weekend with my sister in Naples, relaxing at the pool, enjoying happy hours, trying out new restaurants, my body was ready to get back to business this week. 

Monday was legs day.  I popped in a favorite DVD--Jackie Warner's Power Circuit Training.  I did the 15 minute lower body segment and am still sore from it today, 2 days later.  Guess I had gotten a little lax with my lower body workouts.  I love her approach--3 exercises for each muscle group: hamstrings, quads, and buttocks.  Do each exercise for a minute nonstop and then do a power burn for the fourth minute, which means you do all 3 exercises one more time for 20 seconds each.  You hit your muscles hard and are finished with your workout in no time which is just what this momma needs.  I also squeezed in a 4 mile run and the usual MuTu core exercises.  I really hope to feel confident enough to wear a bikini again this summer.  We'll see.  There's still a lot of work to be done there but time is on my side. 

Yesterday was my upper body workout day.  I started off the workout with a chest and back supersets routine.  I did 10 reps of each exercise for the first round, 12 reps for the second round and 15 for the 3rd round.  There was no rest until each superset was done, when I rested for about 30 seconds.  The supersets included the following exercises:

• Flat bench dumbbell chest press and bent over dumbbell row
• Incline bench dumbbell chest press and incline bench dumbbell row
• Dumbbell pullovers and bent over straight arm kickbacks

I then did 3 minutes of nonstop bicep exercises including narrow hammer curls, zottoman curls, wide curls, rotating curls, SLOW curls, etc. followed by 3 minutes of nonstop shoulder exercises including overhead presses, reverse flyes, lateral raises, front raises, upright rows, etc.   Finally, I finished up with 3 rounds of a triceps giant set as I still try to get my triceps in line with the strength of my biceps.  The giant set included 12 reps of each of the following exercises, completed one right after the other without stopping, with 30 seconds of rest between the giant sets:

• Flat bench triceps dips
• Narrow grip bench presses with a barbell
• Lying dumbbell triceps extension with dumbbells
• Triceps rope extensions on the cable machine
• Triceps kickbacks with dumbbells

I rounded out the workout with 20 minutes on the elliptical and 5 minutes of plank exercises.  It was  a GREAT upper body workout!

After 2 days of muscle-building workouts, I made today a cardio day.  I did 30 minutes on the elliptical at a challenging intensity with some 30 second sprints and some good "hill climbs."  It made me a sweaty mess.  I'm off to do my 5 minutes of plank exercises and calling it a day. 

Make yours a great day!