Friday 27 February 2009

Suffering thy name is delayed onset muscle soreness...

I made it to the gym yesterday and was the only person there so I had lots of fun going round inspecting all the machines I've not used yet. I think I'm going to have lots more fun torturing myself. I have decided that for now I am going to go every third day so my next gym day is Tuesday. I don't want to push myself too hard now that I end up wearing myself out and I give up so for me I think my rest days are as important as the days I go to the gym.

So yesterday my workout consisted of:
  • 3 minute warmup on the cross trainer at level 5 followed by lots of stretching. I concentrated a lot on stretching out my pecs as these were the only bits of me that really hurt after my last session.
  • 15 minutes on the cross trainer doing the same interval training as I did the last time. I find this really tough, my heart rate goes waaay up and it completely poops me but anything that hard has gotta be good for you, right??
  • I did some strecthing on my thighs and pecs before moving onto the fixed weight machines.
  • 2 sets of 12 reps on the chest press machine - I took the weight down to 5kg this time as last time using 7.5kg was too difficult and I was still sore from it.
  • 3 sets of 12 reps on the thigh adductor (this is the machine you use to tone your inner thights). It took me a while to work out exactly what weight I should be using but I ended up on 35kg. I dunno if this was too low a weight as it only really got tough on the last reps of the last set but I'm feeling it today - I need to find more stretches to work on this area I think.
  • 12 minutes on the treadmill - for the first 7 minutes or so I did a really tough hill climb. The incline varied from 2% - 7% as I ran and I got really puffed so I had to take it down a notch and set the incline to 2% and finished the last 5 minutes with some alternate sprinting and fast walking.
  • a 5 minute cool down on the treadmill walking at a steady 3mph trying to get my breath back followed by more stretching legs arms and pecs.
Today I'm definitely feeling the burn in my inner thighs but that's about the only place I really hurt so I'm off to do some more stretching to try and ease the pain!

Thursday 26 February 2009

Gymming it!

I got off my bum and went to the gym last night for the first time in absolute ages and, surprisingly, I loved it even though I got the most unattractive sweat on and was surrounded by culchies. My fitness levels are far lower than they have been in while but that will be due to the surgery I had back in September and a very sedentary lifestyle since then.

My workout consisted of:
  • a 3min warm up on the cross trainer followed by calf, thigh, hamstring, deltoid & tricep stretches.
  • A 15min interval training session on the cross trainer at level 9 that I thought was going to kill me followed by some more stretching.
  • 2 sets of 10 reps on the chest press (the weight was only at 7.5kg but it was more than enough!!).
  • 10mins on the treadmill, it took me a while to work out how to use this treadmill so I probably only got a good 8 minutes of running done but it was hard going, especially after the cross trainer.
  • Lots more stretching of legs and arms before I moved onto the free weights.
  • Then 2 sets of 12 reps doing bicep curls with 3kg weights while sitting on an inclined wieghts bench followed by 2 sets of 12 reps doing tricep kick backs with 2kg weights. The time in between reps I used to stretch out my triceps and biceps.
  • Finally I did a 3 minute cool down on the cross trainer followed by all the stretches I did at the start with a bit of extra stretching on my biceps, triceps and the front of my thighs as these were the sorest places.
Today I feel a bit achey in my arms and across the front of my chest but in a good way. I think the major amounts of stretching I did will really have helped ease off any pain I'd be feeling otherwise. Since I'm so out of shape I'm going to have 2 rest days before throwing myself back into it but I'm really looking forward to Saturday for my next gym session.