I don't know about you but my quads burn like no other muscle in my body when they are being worked hard... It's like somebody is holding a blowtorch right on them, lol...
Sam, I totally know what you mean. That burn in the quads seriously sucks. My legs are so weak, it's always kind of embarassing for me to do squats at the gym [I've gotten over it, but it's still annoying]. I work out with between 115-135 with free weights, haven't tried the smith machine. BTW, you might appreciate this Sam, I bought a pair of 32 skinny jeans from guess the other day and they have room to spare in the waist! I couldn't believe it.
I got back from my first HIIT session about an hour ago. Holy f'n shit. I couldn't believe how intense it was. I could only manage four (or maybe five, I was so out of it during the intervals) 30sec. intervals with 90sec. rest in between each. I warmed up with 12 minutes and cooled down with about 15 minutes. O yea, this was all on the elliptical. I got all light headed and nauseous near the end of each interval. This is a serious workout, folks. My throat hurt from breathing so hard after I was done. I felt like I literally could not catch my breath between the first and second intervals. If this doesn't break my plateau over the next few weeks, nothing will. I was shooting for 6 intervals, maybe next time I can make it that far.
As far as diet, today was a high-calorie (2000), low-carb (21%) day. I managed to hit about 180g of protein. Tomorrow is going to be a low-calorie (1500), normal carb (50%) day. Low carb days are hard to plan, it seems like everything has some carbs, so I basically ate a lot of tuna fish, nuts, and dairy today. I brought 2 boiled eggs to work and was horrified to find they were more slime-boiled than hard boiled when it came snack time. Luckily, there was a cheese tray at work that made up for the missed fat/protein calories.
I am really excited about my new routine. It's more complicated than the old one, but I feel like this will have to work. It took a long time to figure all this stuff out & I'm hoping my approach is sound and I will see some results over the next two weeks.
My schedule should look like this:
Saturday:
High calorie (2000), low carb (20%)
30 min. HIIT routine
Sunday:
High calorie (2000), normal carb (50%)
Rest day-no workouts
Monday:
Low-calorie (1500), low carb (20%)
Full body weight training
40min. steady state cardio
Tuesday:
Low-calorie (1500), normal carb (50%)
30min. HIIT routine
Wednesday:
High-calorie (2000), low carb (20%)
Full body weight training
40min. steady state cardio
Thursday:
Low-calorie (1500), normal carb (50%)
40min steady state cardio
Friday:
Normal calorie (1750), low carb (20%)
Full body weight training
40min. steady state cardio