Three hours in the gym this morning and it felt pretty good, that is a little longer than I do on most Mondays.
My routine today, as best I can remember:
About an hour of exercises on my own, mostly things I have learned to do from physical therapy. I take no rests, supersetting using different muscles instead.
- Warm up on a recumbent bike.
- Some band warmups for my shoulders.
- Adduction on the hip abduction machine.
- Shoulder push downs on a machine built for triceps, I think.
- 60 sit ups on a decline bench.
- A couple of barbell exercises I learned at PT for my shoulders
- Calf raises
- Back extensions on the back machine.
- More upper body band exercises.
Then about an hour of Tabata, its a class, Tabata is a kind of strength training where you exercise hard for 10 to 40 seconds followed by rests of half that time, 5 to 20 seconds. Three to 8 sets of each exercise, done quickly. I have to modify some of the exercises to work for my old body... Don't use as much weight as during my lifting session with the trainer, focus more on range of motion and form. If the weight is too lite I just keep going, skipping the few seconds of rest.
- Warmup, upper and lower body.
- Wall squats, since my knee replacement surgery I can't do squats very fast so I concentrate on doing full deep range of motion but can't do many in the time allotted.
- Overhead press with dumbbells.
- Side planks, planks are a problem for me in general, a combination of bad shoulders and knees. I always manage to do them, but not so well as most others.
- Biceps curls with dumbbells.
- Push ups, not a good one for my shoulders, and doing them on my knees is pretty uncomfortable, I muddle thru...
- Triceps kick backs with dumbbells.
- Regular planks, another hard one for the shoulders, I muddle thru...
- Partial sit ups restrained by a band, an upper abb exercise.
- A kind of sit up where you have to keep your feet in the air and don't fully recline, good abb exercise.
- Hip raises, the rest of the class did it with gliders under the feet to better exercise hamstrings, I just did the raises.
- Band exercise for the hamstrings.
- That's all I can remember, we do a lot of different things.
- Stretching with the class.
Then about an hour of weigh lifting with the trainer. This is the only time I take any real breaks or rests, she forces a minute to two minutes between sets. I also use heavier weights and work my muscles to fatigue. Not able to do so many exercises that way.
- Leg press, the hardest exercise of the day, for me anyway.
- Seated back row.
- Triceps push down on a cable machine.
- Arnold press, overhead.
- Biceps curl with dumbbells, heavier weight than in Tabata.
Then stretching on my own, without the trainer. During stretching today I superset more calf raises on a different machine.
Every day is different, even the Tabata class does different exercises each day.
Good to see you being sensible. Just keep coming here for some psycho-hygiene writing instead of binging when the urges hit. I'll try to do the same.
Psycho-hygiene, a new word for me, I like it. And as you can probably tell that is what I am doing right now, just trying to make it to lunch... We should try to all do it, all of us with craving and binge struggles anyway.
I've never done aerobic yoga either...never heard of it actually. I know there are the ones that seem to really focus on strength but I've done just more stretchy kinds too.
That sounds like a good routine with your strengthening followed by stretching with a good yoga session each week. Sounds really nicely balanced.
Thanks Liza! I don't know if aerobic yoga is a real thing, but its what my instructor calls more vigorous yoga. We do stretch pretty hard, sometimes getting into and holding the poses can be hard work. Yeah, if only done once at the end of the week is good timing.
