Making Progress

I am so excited about the progress I am making with my strength training.  I have been following a program I found in one of Tom Venuto’s books and have just completed my 9th week. Amazing to me that I have stuck with it this long and even though I don’t love every move, I recognize the value of them all, and am getting stronger, more flexible, and best of all… seeing more muscle.

The program has 2 different workouts, A and B, and they are made up of supersets of 2 exercises and each workout covers muscles from all over the body, including core work.  I have added 3 sets of pushups to the end of both so they take me anywhere from 24 to 32 minutes to complete, depending on how long I rest between sets, and then I do a nice all over stretch after I am done.

Every week I change some element to make them more difficult… more weight or more reps or even an additional set occasionally. It is all progess and I enjoy the challenge.

I don’t enjoy planks, however.  I find my lower back gets a bit achy when I hold for more than 30 seconds, so I make sure to fold back into a Child Pose after each plank.  

I plan to finish up the 12th week and then change the program.  I may tackle the program in Tom’s new book Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle… did you see my review?  Or, I may change it up completely and go back to bootcamp after the new  year. Not sure yet.

So my week was good… 3 X strength training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday…. all three days followed by golf practice in the late morning/early afternoon.

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I began the day with a 15-minute yoga session, designed to get the day off to an energetic start.  Loved it.  Just the right length before a busy day.

And on Saturday, I had an official REST DAY where The Captain and I walked to a local elementary school to support their craft fair and then on to our favorite Starbuck’s for an indulgent holiday treat… Toffee Mocha for him… Salted Caramel Mocha for me.  Mmmmm.

And one more thing... I joined a challenge for the month of November to complete 100 squats, 100 sit ups and 100 pushups every day of the month. Well, I did the squats and situps most days, but I never cranked out more than 44 pushups on a single day.  But this kind of challenge gets me TRYING at least!

Did you have a good week, fitness-wise?  How do you treat  yourself?