The Workout Regimen

In a previous post I outlined my diet. Today I'm going to show you what my workout schedule is like, so lets gets started.

With the exception of Tuesdays, every week day is a cardio and weight lifting day. Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays are my upper body workouts. Thursdays are my lower body workouts and Tuesdays are reserved for Yoga. Some people will tell you that this is unbalanced and that the upper and lower body should be worked equally, or even that the lower body should be worked harder than the upper (for weight loss). They could very well be right. But at this point, just moving and doing any kind of physical activity is a good thing. Let's face it, I'm a guy and what guy doesn't want to be sporting a 6-pack and "18 inch pythons". If you don't get that last reference, your obviously not a child of the 80's who grew up watching the WWF .. WWE

My upper body workout consists of three sets of the follow exercises with 12,10, and 8 reps and increasing weight: Bench Press, Lat, Seated Row. In addition to those, I do the following: Should Press, Shrugs, Bicep Curls, and Pushdowns. For those exercises I do three sets all at the same weight and 12 reps. For my forearms, there is a strap that is attached to a bar at one end and a weight at the other. You simply roll the strap up on the bar resulting in the weight being lowered and raised. It sounds easy, but it burns like hell. The final exercise is something a friend of mine showed me and is what I call triple 7s and I do 3 sets of them. For this you take a bar you would use for the bench press and grab it with both hands using an underhand grip. Lower the bar in front of you until it just about touches your body. This is the starting position. Now raise the bar until your arms form a 90 degree angle. Lower the bar back down and repeat the motion six more times (total of seven). On the seventh rep pause at 90 degrees and then continue raising the bar until you've brought it all the way up to your chest. Lower the bar back down to where your arms form a 90 degree angle. Raise the bar all the way back up and repeat six more times (total of seven). After the seventh rep, lower the bar all the way back down to the starting position and then raise it all the way back up to your chest. Repeat this another six times (total of seven). By the end of this routine, my upper body is so burned out that its actually difficult for me to wash my hair because I can't get my arms over my head.

My lower body workout consists of three sets with 12, 10, and 8 reps and increasing weight for the following exercises: Squats, Hamstrings, and Stairs. For my calves, I do a three set break down exercise of 15 reps and decreasing weight.

I don't mention specific weights here as thats not the important part, although I do track it. What is important is that I try to take each exercise to complete muscle failure. When I fail to complete a set, I give my body a couple of minutes to recover and then complete double the number of reps I failed to complete. Trust me, its a great motivator to have to do that. If I complete the set before failure, I try to squeeze out a couple more reps until I just can't go any further. I'll also increase the starting weight I use next time.

I do work my abs every Monday,Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Monday's are 3 sets of crunches performed on a stability ball. Wednesdays are oblique crunches on a bosu ball. Thursdays are "one leg drops" - laying on your back and extending one leg at a time straight out while the other is raised above you. Fridays are more stability ball crunches.

For Cardio, I usually do one of two things, treadmill or elliptical. My favorite is running on a treadmill. Monday and Wednesday I usually just try to target a heart rate range for 30mins. Thursday is usually my distance day in which I try to push the distance I run as far as I can. Fridays I again target heart rate but this time on an elliptical machine, usually because I'm sore from Thursday and the elliptical isn't as hard on the joints. The elliptical, for me at least, provides recovery time while still getting in some exercise.

You'll notice I don't mention Saturdays or Sundays here. I usually take Saturday and Sundays off as "recovery" time. Although that will be changing soon as my distances increase.

I mentioned that Tuesdays are reserved for yoga. At this point you might be asking how does that fit in? For me it helps to stretch me out and does provide significant stress relief. And lets be real here, although there are no weights involved Yoga provides a very good workout.

Well, thats pretty much it. Its definitely hard work and there are definitely days when I reeeeally don't want to do it. Even on those days, by the time I get done there is never a regret and I come out feeling much better (both physically and mentally).