Here’s my first week (plus) of workouts in 2016! I’m keeping a log to help me with my hamstring pain. As I was able to keep a pretty good training log for my half marathon training, I believe this is the forum in which I’ll have the most success.
I’m trying to focus more on strength training with some running thrown in. I would love to try a heavy lifting program like Strong Lifts 5×5, but I’m not sure my hammy can handle the volume of squats and deadlifts. I’ve been doing a disorganized split schedule and want to develop a more consistent routine.
For legs, I’m sticking to exercises my PT gave me but progressing with reps and weight. For upper body, I had been doing a push/pull split but going forward I’m going to combine all upper body workouts hitting the major muscles.
Friday, January 1: I rang in the New Year with my sister, bro-in-law, and nephew! We had a tame night so I woke up with a ton of energy. After breakfast, I tried a deck of cards workout. You assign a different exercise to a suit, flip a card, and perform the corresponding number of reps on the card. I chose:
- Spades = squats (because they start with the same letter)
- Hearts = push ups (because they work the pecs which are near the heart)
- Diamonds = lunges (because you do down on one knee when proposing – Jenni thought of that one!)
- Clubs = bicycle crunches (because … that was the one what was left)
This was a lot harder than it looked! Jenni let me discard 3 cards, and unfortunately none of them were hearts. It was fun though, with Jenni pulling the cards for me and Owen watching from his jumper. He seemed to like the lunges!
However, I think I overdid the squats and lunges. My hammy was sore for DAYS after. Additionally, the day prior, I jogged on the treadmill for the first time in ages. I took it VERY easy but it was probably still too much strain.
I spent the rest of New Years’ Day indulging, watching the Bruins get clobbered, and getting clobbered myself at the craps table! Jenni and I hit up Oxford and I’m pretty sure I lost all of my money in 25 minutes. I had fun watching my sister and fetching her drinks! The (female) bartender told me I look like Anna Kendrick, so I left a good tip!
Saturday, January 2: I went back home in the AM and was back to a more typical routine. I was hurting from the prior day’s workout so I worked my lats and abs. The Rock calls this “slab day,” so I do too! I’m getting the bar to my chest more consistently for lat pull downs at 80 lbs!
** Lat Pulldown **
** Barbell Row **
** One Arm Dumbbell Row **
** Plank – 3 point sets **
(I plank for 10 seconds, lift one leg for 10 seconds, lift the other leg for 10 seconds, and repeat)
** Russian twist with crunch **
Sunday, January 3: Even thought my hammy was still aching (though not more than baseline), I went for a jog/walk. I dialed my first interval back to 14 minutes because of my hammy discomfort. I did a total of 3.59 miles in 41:06.
Monday, January 4: Back to work and reality! I did a “push” day focusing on chest and shoulders with a little core work thrown in. I made the mistake of not doing a warm up set on my bench and jumped right to 65 pounds, which is near my max. As a result, the rest of my sets suffered!
** Pushups **
** bicycle crunch **
** Flat Barbell Bench Press **
** Incline Dumbbell Fly **
** Incline Dumbbell Bench Press **
** leg lift and reverse crunch **
** Arnold Dumbbell Press **
** Lateral Dumbbell Raise **
Tuesday, January 5: PT and legs workout. The primary features are BOSU squats, sumo squats, and Romanian deadlifts.
Wednesday, January 6: I try to avoid running after leg day, so it was slab day again!
Thursday, January 7: Dan was working evening shifts all week but had Thursday off, so we hit the Harvard stadium! I did the equivalent of 20 sections at a very slow pace.
I also foam rolled and stretched like CRAZY, especially my calves and quads.Have you noticed that some self-massage sticks look like a rolling pin? My PT suggested, half-jokingly, that I could just USE a rolling pin. Why the hell not? I have one and only make pies like once a year. I love multi-tasking tools!
Verdict? Significantly less calf soreness than the last time I ran stairs!
Friday, January 8: another upper body workout! I wanted to rest my legs after running the stairs. This time I combined push and pull exercises, which I’d like to keep doing in the future. For bench, I managed to do 70 lbs 3×5 (after two warm up sets, lesson learned)!
Hammy felt okay, maybe a 1.
Saturday, January 9: I went for another interval jog/walk, this time increasing the first jogging interval to 20 straight minutes (I thought my previous run was 18 minutes, whoops). Then a 2 minute walk, 8 minute jog, 2 minute walk, 6 minute jog, and 2 minute walk. I covered 3.62 miles in 40:48.
Again, hammy felt okay! I think the treadmill + deck of cards workout were the reason for my pain this week, because they are outside my usual routine. I have to remember not to do back-to-back new exercises.
My goals for the coming week are to combine push and pull into one upper body day and add some cardio intervals on those days. I also want to hit 10k steps a day. More cardio = more wine!
Next Stop Napa 