Shred Program Day Two

It's easier to put pen to paper
than to enter it in my cell.

I knew the school district would mandate an early dismissal today due to impending weather. We're suppose to get 4-8 inches with lots of wind and poor visibility. It was also 13°F outside, so I tossed my gym gear into the car and drove my son to the school bus stop. Too cold to stand at an unprotected road with the wind whipping off the lake. Today I actually timed my workout and mostly knew what I was suppose to be doing (unlike yesterday). Today half the Precors were free. Yay! I punch in 20 minutes so I can use the cool down period to switch from Strides Per Minute to Distance on the display screen. One minute run, one minute walk for 20 minutes. I'm okay with it, and notice that only during the last 4 minutes am I able to ramp my pacing beyond 220 SPM. I'm just slow to warm up, and I know it.

Then I jump off the machine (there's no time to wipe down the machine, but I'm wearing lifting gloves and my hoodie fully zipped up so I don't think I've left anything gross on the elliptical) and run over to the Smith machine, toss a pair of 10s on the bar and do 20 squats. I decide on a pair of 10s because I know I can get 25 with just the bar, but knees won't allow me to go Butt to Heels with more weight. I definitely feel the squats in my quads. I need to strip the weights and move over to the DBs in order to perform DB Lunges. My knees hate lunges so I only grab a pair of 15s. I'm careful not to drop too low because that would cause my leading knee to overhang my foot, which is bad. I'm still breathing hard when I hold the DBs to my hips and knock out a set of Calf Raises. These feel kind of silly, but it's in the program so WTH.

I put the DBs back in the rack and race over to the Mats. It's full of chatty people but I find a small section by the stairs to do crunches. These are easy but since I have to do 4 sets in total, I only do 30 because I don't know how I'll feel later on. The last exercise, crunches elbows to knees, is much harder. Still, I can manage 30, but my neck isn't really happy about it. This is a circuit, so I race back to the Smith and start again with 20 reps of Squats, then DB Lunges, DB Calf Raises and back again to the Mat to do crunches. Then back to the Cardio platform where I hop onto a different Precor elliptical to do 10 minutes: 5 minutes LISS, followed by 5 minutes of High Intensity. Now back to two rounds of the circuit again. In total, it's 4 sets of 20-30 reps per exercise.

The Squats are harder now and I have to pause for breath at the 15th rep of the last set. I'm starting to feel the Lunges too. My left knee's not happy but really, it's my butt that's starting to get sore. I'm thinking I need to stand on a platform to get a nice stretch while doing the Calf Raises. At least with just 30 lbs (total) I don't think my calves will get any bigger. Whew. After crunches, I stand up and touch my elbows to the ground between my feet just to stretch. I see B on the Mat and I'm surprised because I never see her on the Mats. She's got a 10 lb plate that she's using for weighted crunches. I tell her I'm done (because I am and my workout's only taken 60 minutes) and ask her how she is. She starts to complain about the snow and how she doesn't know if she'll be here tomorrow unless her husband shovels her out. I can't even imagine not shoveling myself out of my driveway because I've done it for 20 years, years before I met my husband.

The gym scale reads 112.6 lbs. The one thing I don't like about this program is that I barely get a chance to drink any water because I'm running from exercise to exercise. The program is suppose to take 45 minutes, but that's if you have the gym to yourself and everything set up, if you don't bother racking any of your weights and no one's in your way. I figure 60 minutes is good. Tomorrow is Program A again. I like the Upper Body program better, except for the Military Press but since I'm not using a lot of weight I figure I'm not going to do myself any harm. I'm actually a tad sore from yesterday, just a little in the delts. Yep, gonna up most of the weights tomorrow and that makes me happy. But not as happy as the prospect of whacking the Nexersys on my "active rest day," Thursday.

The Diet that accompanies this Program seems too extreme for me to stick to for 21 days. The last time I ate only meat and salad, granted I was in my 20s, I felt hungry all the time, and I got really mean. No one needs that. So I've modified my eating in the spirit of the Program but I'm not completely cutting out fats although I'm cutting back on carbs, but not cutting them out. I have my regular oatmeal with an egg and blueberries this morning, with a cup of coffee. I swap the teaspoon of sugar for some sucralose but I don't like the way it tastes. 2 teaspoons of sugar a day isn't going to make much difference.

Day Two (B) Lower
20 min elliptical 1 min On / 1 min Off = 1.61 miles

The following done circuit fashion with no rest between sets:
Smith machine squats: 20 reps @ 50 lbs
DB Lunges: 15 reps each leg @ 15 lb DBs (one in each arm)
DB Standing Calf Raises: 30 reps with 15 lb DBs (one in each arm)
Crunches: 30
Crunches elbows to knees: 30
repeat above circuit once more

10 min elliptical: 5 min LISS, 5 min High Intensity = .77 miles

The following done circuit fashion with no rest between sets:
Smith machine squats: 20 reps @ 50 lbs
DB Lunges: 15 reps each leg @ 15 lb DBs (one in each arm)
DB Standing Calf Raises: 30 reps with 15 lb DBs (one in each arm)
Crunches: 30
Crunches elbows to knees: 30
repeat above circuit once more