Sunday 15 June 2014

14 weeks

Happy Father's Day to my husband - the best dad a kid (or wife) could ask for :)  

Well this week certainly came with its own set of challenges: first of all, I've been fighting a head cold all week which has been a little bit draining. Second of all it has been h-o-t HOT here in Pensacola, meaning I've had to walk the dog and baby as soon as I get home from the gym before it gets unbearably hot out. I get up at 4:30am for my workouts, so by 7:00am I kind of just want to crawl back into bed... not take a long sweaty dog walk, lol. But all that being said, I only missed one cardio session and one walk this week. Actually, I always find working out while I've got a cold makes me feel so much better and speeds up the recovery process.




The changes I implemented since last week worked beautifully - no pains or strains this week :) This is what my workouts looked like:

Upper Body
Lat Pulldowns
Hammer Strength Chest Press
Seated Cable Row/Dumbbell Bicep Curls
Incline DB Chest Flyes/DB Tricep Kickbacks
Dumbbell Reverse Flyes
Dumbbell Front Raises

Full Body 1
Deadlifts/Pushups
Pullups/Plie Squat
Bent-over BB Row/Walking Lunges
Upright Rows/Plank

Lower Body
Donkey Kicks
Single-leg Leg Press (*instead of squat)
Single-leg Deadlifts
Cable Pull-Throughs
Kneeling Cable Crunches
Reverse Crunches/Single Lying Leg Raise

Full Body 2 (circuits on TRX)
Pushups
Split Squat (*on bench)
Single-arm Row
Single-leg Squat

Face-Pulls
Hamstring Curls
Plank (*instead of Pike)

Note: "/" indicates a superset. In general, I stick to about 3-4 sets and 8-15 reps, depending on how I'm feeling.


You may have noticed that I'm still doing some crunches in my routine. I was actually able to incorporate crunches all throughout my last pregnancy, albeit with a much restricted range of motion. I haven't been feeling any kind of discomfort when I do them, so I'll keep them in as long as possible (I'm one of those crazy people who LOVES to train abs!!)  I've always done my ab exercises very slowly (there are too many people speeding through ab exercises, using momentum, shoulders, hips, and neck muscle to get them through the movement.... very little actual abdominal recruitment going on) and now more than ever I keep my movements very controlled and go VERY slowly, keeping my mind very connected to the muscles and what's going on.

As I mentioned, I do also limit my range of motion:

Reverse CrunchesUsually I would bring my knees much closer to my forehead to hit a bit of upper abs as well, but now I am just bringing them to about the same place as this woman. I still get the lower ab contraction but don't squish my belly ;) 















Kneeling Cable CrunchesTypically you would bring your elbows down and in with this exercise, but I am just bringing my elbows to the ground (going nice and slow) and stopping there, making sure to pause and really squeeze at the bottom.
















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