Y'all...The end of the week was INTENSE! Wednesday I tried a new exercise that I have been putting off: The dead-lift. This is the last weighted exercise I've really been avoiding that I've finally tried. I get scared of things that require me to go to the male show-off corner of the gym...aka the free weights area. There's always some sweaty guy who's giving himself the "who's your daddy" face in the mirror while he pumps excessive amounts of weight. And there may or may not be a grunting sound track. And you never want to get too close to him in the off chance that you will impair his view of himself in the mirror and incite his ['roid] rage. ...
Anyway, needless to say the free weight section of the gym is VERY intimidating because most people that frequent this area are like 10% body fat or less. I try not to think "wow, i'm technically 300-400% fatter than you"...because really these thoughts don't help when you're sticking your big Mexican butt out to do the exercise. Because that's what you have to do for dead-lifts. I specifically did the "stiff leg dead-lifts" because they're supposedly the preferred version for women. I watched a video of an extremely cut woman do them with the correct form so you should youtube it if you're interested. Anyway, the stiff leg version works your hamstrings more than the regular ones, but it's almost a whole body workout. So I did 3 sets of 15 with just the 45lb bar. Now, 45 pounds is a lot for the female first attempt at these, but in the free weight section you look STUPID doing anything with just the bar. Everyone else has heavy weights on both ends of a bar doing much more complicated movements than my tiny simple looking stiff leg dead-lift motion. So once again my advice is IGNORE ALL THE SKINNY MUSCLED PEOPLE. Seriously. Your eye is drawn to them because that's what half of them want, but don't do it unless you're looking specifically for correct form(which may also be a mistake in some cases).
So my adventure Wednesday in the free-weight section went surprisingly well. Until I realized Thursday morning that dead-lifts were evil. My hamstrings were so sore and tight I was constantly looking awkward in the downtime at work trying to bend over and stretch them. And my forearm flexors were sore and I was so confused at first until I realized that gripping the bar must've actually been a new and strenuous workout for me. I guess that's the muscle you focus on if you want to be a Ninja Warrior. In any case, Thursday I did 3.31 miles in 30 minutes on the elliptical and a good ab workout. I was debating taking the day off because I was so sore, but I really wanted to go to the bootcamp my gym was having on Saturday and I thought Friday would be the more prudent day to take off. It turned out to be a good choice, all the elliptical kept my hamstrings from getting too stiff and I just did a lot of stretching on Friday.
Saturday came and I was so pumped but nervous for bootcamp. Pumped because I knew that it was gonna be a brutal assault on all the fat in my body and I was going to burn a ton of calories, nervous because...well, the same reasons. lol. Mostly because at the bootcamp last month(which was my first one and I burned 1600ish calories in about 2 hours) I had 2 friends there so I felt a lot more comfortable. This time I was only going to know one of the trainers and maybe some people I recognized from spin classes and stuff. And it's only mildly encouraging that the one person there you're familiar with is the one that's making you want to cry out in pain and anguish. lol Okay it wasn't THAT bad. Overall it was a lot better than the first one. I've come a long way in a month, it seems. The jump squats and step presses and all the "sculpt" stuff was easier than it was last time, although not to say that it was easy in any acceptable sense of the word. The hardest part of the whole 2.5 hours was the compound abs. Now, I'm pretty good at ab stuff for a fat girl, if we're being honest. That is to say that if we're doing a set of 20 of a specific ab group that's moderately difficult I can hang. And if all we're doing is a series of single-target ab sets, I'm your girl. But you throw a compound ab at me and 5 in I'm doing whatever modification you offer to make it possible to complete my set of 20. I don't understand! It's starting to really frustrate me and it's something that I'm just gonna have to work harder on. Those are times when you have to really come at the exercise head on and say "Okay only one of us is gonna win and it's not gonna be you".
My favorite part of the bootcamp was Zumba(surprise!). If they put anything else at the end I'd be screwed. We'd already been working out for an hour and 45 minutes when we started Zumba. 105 minutes BEFORE starting 30 minutes of straight cardio dancing. My stamina has DEFINITELY gotten better. It's funny because yesterday I was like "GROSS I haven't smelled this bad since my soccer days" but that's probably because I haven't pushed myself that hard for that long since those days of old. I was doing Zumba thinking "God, please don't let these people smell me over themselves". lol. So after I did an extra song with only like 4-5 other crazy people after everyone else had left, I got in the sauna. It felt so good to stretch out and relax all those muscles that I just worked out so hard. According to my heart rate monitor that got stopped for a few minutes somewhere between compound abs and burpees(which I also suck at but it's ok because very few people are good at those) I worked out for 2:34 hours and burned 1817 calories. Oh and the best part was this morning I weighed myself and I've lost 10 pounds in the last 5-6 weeks. =D I'm on track with what I want to do, and most likely my next post will be about goal setting. Next week there is an "Aqua Bootcamp" which I'm interested in so I will definitely keep y'all posted on that. Thanks for all of you reading and all your comments and facebook encouragements and everything. It really means a lot to me! Y'all make it easier for me to write this knowing it is actually helping some of you with your own trials and tribulations. =) Let's do this, people!
Anyway, needless to say the free weight section of the gym is VERY intimidating because most people that frequent this area are like 10% body fat or less. I try not to think "wow, i'm technically 300-400% fatter than you"...because really these thoughts don't help when you're sticking your big Mexican butt out to do the exercise. Because that's what you have to do for dead-lifts. I specifically did the "stiff leg dead-lifts" because they're supposedly the preferred version for women. I watched a video of an extremely cut woman do them with the correct form so you should youtube it if you're interested. Anyway, the stiff leg version works your hamstrings more than the regular ones, but it's almost a whole body workout. So I did 3 sets of 15 with just the 45lb bar. Now, 45 pounds is a lot for the female first attempt at these, but in the free weight section you look STUPID doing anything with just the bar. Everyone else has heavy weights on both ends of a bar doing much more complicated movements than my tiny simple looking stiff leg dead-lift motion. So once again my advice is IGNORE ALL THE SKINNY MUSCLED PEOPLE. Seriously. Your eye is drawn to them because that's what half of them want, but don't do it unless you're looking specifically for correct form(which may also be a mistake in some cases).
So my adventure Wednesday in the free-weight section went surprisingly well. Until I realized Thursday morning that dead-lifts were evil. My hamstrings were so sore and tight I was constantly looking awkward in the downtime at work trying to bend over and stretch them. And my forearm flexors were sore and I was so confused at first until I realized that gripping the bar must've actually been a new and strenuous workout for me. I guess that's the muscle you focus on if you want to be a Ninja Warrior. In any case, Thursday I did 3.31 miles in 30 minutes on the elliptical and a good ab workout. I was debating taking the day off because I was so sore, but I really wanted to go to the bootcamp my gym was having on Saturday and I thought Friday would be the more prudent day to take off. It turned out to be a good choice, all the elliptical kept my hamstrings from getting too stiff and I just did a lot of stretching on Friday.
Saturday came and I was so pumped but nervous for bootcamp. Pumped because I knew that it was gonna be a brutal assault on all the fat in my body and I was going to burn a ton of calories, nervous because...well, the same reasons. lol. Mostly because at the bootcamp last month(which was my first one and I burned 1600ish calories in about 2 hours) I had 2 friends there so I felt a lot more comfortable. This time I was only going to know one of the trainers and maybe some people I recognized from spin classes and stuff. And it's only mildly encouraging that the one person there you're familiar with is the one that's making you want to cry out in pain and anguish. lol Okay it wasn't THAT bad. Overall it was a lot better than the first one. I've come a long way in a month, it seems. The jump squats and step presses and all the "sculpt" stuff was easier than it was last time, although not to say that it was easy in any acceptable sense of the word. The hardest part of the whole 2.5 hours was the compound abs. Now, I'm pretty good at ab stuff for a fat girl, if we're being honest. That is to say that if we're doing a set of 20 of a specific ab group that's moderately difficult I can hang. And if all we're doing is a series of single-target ab sets, I'm your girl. But you throw a compound ab at me and 5 in I'm doing whatever modification you offer to make it possible to complete my set of 20. I don't understand! It's starting to really frustrate me and it's something that I'm just gonna have to work harder on. Those are times when you have to really come at the exercise head on and say "Okay only one of us is gonna win and it's not gonna be you".
My favorite part of the bootcamp was Zumba(surprise!). If they put anything else at the end I'd be screwed. We'd already been working out for an hour and 45 minutes when we started Zumba. 105 minutes BEFORE starting 30 minutes of straight cardio dancing. My stamina has DEFINITELY gotten better. It's funny because yesterday I was like "GROSS I haven't smelled this bad since my soccer days" but that's probably because I haven't pushed myself that hard for that long since those days of old. I was doing Zumba thinking "God, please don't let these people smell me over themselves". lol. So after I did an extra song with only like 4-5 other crazy people after everyone else had left, I got in the sauna. It felt so good to stretch out and relax all those muscles that I just worked out so hard. According to my heart rate monitor that got stopped for a few minutes somewhere between compound abs and burpees(which I also suck at but it's ok because very few people are good at those) I worked out for 2:34 hours and burned 1817 calories. Oh and the best part was this morning I weighed myself and I've lost 10 pounds in the last 5-6 weeks. =D I'm on track with what I want to do, and most likely my next post will be about goal setting. Next week there is an "Aqua Bootcamp" which I'm interested in so I will definitely keep y'all posted on that. Thanks for all of you reading and all your comments and facebook encouragements and everything. It really means a lot to me! Y'all make it easier for me to write this knowing it is actually helping some of you with your own trials and tribulations. =) Let's do this, people!
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