"Girlie" Workouts

Okay, I know I said the next post was going to be about why I'm not a Redneck, but I just couldn't resist writing a little bit about our new workout plan. Sorry, no pics to go with it. Maybe I can get Courtney to take her camera to the gym next time. :)

Courtney has always gone to the gym with me, but she usually does her own cardio thing and then lifts some weights, but never on the same program as me. About a month ago she said she wanted to lift with me, but I was on the tail-end of a mass program and didn't want to cut it short. She said she'd do it with me, but with different sets and reps. That was all fine and dandy, but I could tell she didn't really enjoy it and didn't feel like it was working for her, and I was afraid she'd not want to lift with me any more. Then she found a workout in Oxygen Magazine (Spring 2009 issue) and said she wanted to try it. I looked at it and thought it looked a little...well...easy. It's a 4-day split with "push" exercises on Monday (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps), Legs on Wednesday, "pull" exercises on Friday (Back, Biceps), and Calves & Abs on Saturday. You "only" do two exercises per bodypart; the first is 4 sets of 6 reps with heavy weight, and the second is 4 sets of 15 reps with lighter weight. Now, I've been doing like 4 exercises per bodypart with up to 5 sets per exercise, so I'm thinking "No way this is going to give me a good workout."

BUT, I really enjoy spending time with Courtney (I'll even run 5Ks with her), so I told her I would do that program with her. All the while I'm thinking to myself "If it's not intense enough for me, I'll just add an extra exercise per bodypart."

Well, we started it this week on Monday, and because of some other things we had going on, we didn't get to legs until yesterday. I went as heavy as possible on everything while still getting all the reps with good form (having Courtney as a spotter definitely helped). I was a little sore on Tuesday and Wednesday from the "push" workout on Monday, so I started to feel a little better about doing this program without adding anything to it. As long as I was honest with the weight I'm lifting and go for max effort on every rep, I'd be okay.

Then came the leg workout. Holy crap! My legs were toast halfway through. I had trouble walking to the car to go home. My legs were shaky all day, and now, barely 30 hours later, they're as sore as they've been in a long time. Just getting up out of my chair at work is painful, and I LIKE it!

We were going to do back and biceps today, but when we woke up this morning to go to the gym, we were both too sore to get out of the bed. It's a good kind of sore, though. I'm really looking forward to back and biceps tomorrow. I just hope I'm able to steer the car on the way home. :)

So, lesson learned: Just because the workout came from a "girlie" magazine doesn't mean it can't work for us "manly" men. Pick the right weight for the number of reps prescribed, give it maximum effort, and it'll work. Thanks, Baby!