Tag Archives: cheap workout

Cheap Workout Sunday Report 11

by

I was really late on this!  I didn’t workout Sunday or Monday, but on Tuesday!!!  I didn’t feel like my body was ready until Tuesday…

I’m feeling a little off today with an upset stomach, my left knee hurts still, so I’m dropping off the last two exercises that I normally would do.  Seems like a bad week, but I’m kind of desperate this week…

These last few months I decided not to aggressively try to lose weight and instead I focused on gaining strength.  While I wasn’t trying to maintain a steady weight, for that most part that is what has happened, but now I’m ready to slim down.

Since I want to slim down, I’m going to keep working out with weights, but at the same time focus more on weight loss than strength gains.  Since I had one strength goal left for the year (bench press 250 for 1 rep), I decided to alter my plans this week and go for it.  I wish I would have went for 255 instead because the 250 lbs weight meant that I had to break out the 2 1/2 lbs weights to make the amount 250 lbs…  That felt weird…

This week was my big gamble to try to tap out on my strength goals for this year, so I could downshift to my weight loss goal from now on.

  • Bench (I think I need to slow down on this, but it hard to do so):
    • 45 lbs –   8 reps – just a warmup stretch.
    • 135 lbs – 8 reps (easy set, but my arms are a little sore)
    • 185 lbs – 6 reps (easy set, but felt it both in my arms and chest a little, but still felt strong)
    • 205 lbs – 6 reps (Trying something different this week, the 6 reps I did felt easy)
    • 225 lbs – 5 reps (Almost got a 6th rep too, but had my son help me get past the sticking point, so really on 5 on my own)
    • 250 lbs – 1 rep (heavy for me, but felt pretty good overall, let out a struggling growl during the rep, good set).
    • 165 lbs – 8 reps (warm down set, good set with good form, but I’m pretty shot from the last set.)
    • * I’m purposely dropping the reps on my set to 6 just so I can do more heavy sets, esp for my 225 set.
  • Curls (Arms are sore today…)

    • 25 lbs – for 8 reps
    • 35 lbs – for 8 reps
    • 45 lbs – for 8 reps. (left arm hurts in at the elbow.)
  • Rows (skipped this week, left knee hurt)
  • “No weights” squats (skipped this week, left knee hurt)
    • Skipped the 2 set of “no weight” squats for 10 reps each this week.  Left knee hurt a bit this week.
  • Goals
    • All strength goals have been met for the year.

I was very surprised how quickly my strength came back in this 11th week.  Not too bad for a bit over 3 months of working out.  I’ll probably add a “Weight Loss” Tracking Topic on my next report.

Bests,

Don

Cheap Workout Sunday Report 9

by

Not much to say today, my accomplishments were good, but hard and heavy for me.  We’ll see next week how it goes.

  • Bench:
    • 45 lbs –   Truly a warmup set now.
    • 135 lbs – 8 reps, this is pretty much a warmup set now too.
    • 185 lbs –  8 reps (not too bad, pretty easy).
    • 205 lbs –  9 reps (met my goal, but tired for 10 and failed… but still good)
    • 225 lbs –  3 rep (I got three reps, but the third one was really hard!)
    • 165 lbs – warm down set (8 reps, very easy.)
  • Curls (I’ve decided to take it easy with curling, no rush)

    • 25 lbs – for 8 reps
    • 35 lbs – for 8 reps
    • 45 lbs – for 8 reps. (my left arm is weaker than my right arm.)
  • Rows (wimped out here too)

    • 135 lbs – 1 set of 8 reps,
    • 155 lbs – 1 set of 6 reps.
  • No weight squats
    • 2 set of no weight squats for 10 reps each.  Much easier today than previously.
  • Goals
    • I continue to grow stronger, and while I’m pretty sure I could get 250 if I tried, I would like to get 225 for 4 or 5 reps first.  It will be a bit harder than I thought I would be.  We’ll see…
    • My weight loss has stopped.

It was a good week overall, I made new gains in both the upper weight classes in bench, so this week was very good!

Cheap Workout Sunday Report 7

by

I’m back on my Sunday schedule.  Actually I skipped working out in the middle of the week so I was pretty fresh today!

While I’m not a big football fan, I have followed my local area team to use it as motivation.  Sometimes watching your team win energizes you, must like a movie or an upbeat song does.  Unfortunately, my team lost today so I was in a crummy mood.  It was a hard workout session just because I was disappointed in my local NFL team’s performance.

  • Bench:
    • 45 lbs –   the bar was really light like it should be.
    • 135 lbs – 8 reps warmup, but really it was kind of heavy to me.
    • 185 lbs –  8 reps (heavy but not horrible).
    • 205 lbs –  8 reps (heavy, but I didn’t go to failure, I probably could have did 9 reps.)
    • 225 lbs –  1 rep (I was so disappointed in my 205 number of reps that I decided to try a higher weight)
    • 165 lbs – warm down set (8 reps, pretty easy.)
  • Curls (I’ve decided to take it easy with curling, no rush)

    • 25 lbs – for 10 reps
    • 35 lbs – for 8 reps
    • 45 lbs – for 6 reps.
  • Rows (wimped out here too)

    • 135 lbs – 2 sets of 6 reps
  • No weight squats
    • 2 set of no weight squats for 10 reps each.  My right leg hurt a bit where I have a muscle tear from the past.
  • Goals
    • Be able to bench press 250 lbs by the end of the year.  I accomplished 225, but that’s no surprise I’ve been saying I could do it for weeks now.
    • I’m not going to mention curling anymore, I’ve met that goal and exceeded it.
    • I think I’m going to focus on losing some weight.  I think I would like to decrease my weight by at least 10 lbs by the end of the month.

While I’m not up to my old level of fitness, I’m pretty happy with my progress and I’m starting to feel strong again.

It’s good to be back on schedule… It felts weird calling this a Sunday workout, but for the past three workouts, they were done on Monday… lol

Bests,

Don

Cheap Workout Sunday Report 6

by

This was a weird session today!  I felt tired and did everything wrong before lifting.  I ate some food, laid down and watched TV before lifting, falling to sleep in the process…  I woke up groggy and dreaded working out even.  Starting, I even thought to my self that my heaviest bench press was going to be 205 for 4 reps.

Starting out, 135 felt heavier than I thought it should have felt, so again it re-enforced my believe that today was going to suck.  I was very surprised when I tried 205 lbs and got three more reps than I got the last time.  So much for taking it easy this week…

  • Bench:
    • 45 lbs –   the bar for 8 reps (my left shoulder click a bit).
    • 135 lbs – 8 reps, surprisingly wasn’t light as I hoped, no clicking in the shoulder like with 45 lbs above.
    • 185 lbs –  8 reps (heavier than I thought, but also kind of felt like a warmup set like back when I was in college).
    • 205 lbs –  8 reps (felt strong out of the gate, 6 was easy so I kept going.  By the 8th rep I was growling, it was tough for me).
    • 165 lbs – warm down set (8 reps, did this set slowly and it felt light.)
  • Curls (Switched to Barbells this week)

    • 25 lbs – for 10 reps, each arm
    • 55 lbs – for 4 reps, each arm, very hard… very, very hard in fact!
    • 35 lbs – for 8 reps (heavier but lighter than last week).
  • Rows
    • 135 lbs – 8 reps (not as heavy as last week, but made me light-headed)
    • 115 lbs – 8 reps (hard, but I was already tired, good set though).
  • No weight squats
    • 2 set of no weight squats for 10 reps each.  Neither leg hurt this week.
  • Goals
    • To bench press 250 lbs by the end of the year.  I’m pretty sure I can at least get 225 for 1 rep (maybe 2).  Until I can get 205 for 10 easy reps, I’m just going to stick with 205… why push it.  At least I’m not feeling as sore anymore.
    • I would like to be able to curl 55 lbs for 8 reps using decent form eventually.  I’ve always gain quickly with curling, so I’m now sweating this.

I realize that I might be gaining back faster than I want.  I have to build up my tendons and support muscles before pushing too heavy too quickly.  It is hard not to keep gaining quickly, but I really need to control my progress!  Hmm, it’s only 1 hour since my workout, and already I feel sore in my pecs… go figure, so much for not being sore 🙂

On the disappointing side, I stopped trying to lose weight for a while so I could build muscle, etc.  I’ve gained 4 lbs instead of losing weight.

Interesting and good, but bizarre day!

Don