DAY 8 - 21st JUNE 2015
TRAINING - LEGS & CARDIO
WEIGHTS DURATION: 47mins CARDIO DURATION: 60mins
It feel great to have finished the first cycle and want to start the second as strong as I finished the previous, cue: LEGS. I said at the end of yesterdays session that I wanted to do a bit more cardio today which I managed to achieve. I have a very oddly shaped lower half - my quads are out of proportion with my waist which can make buying trousers an absolute mare. Due to this, I'm always conscience of doing too much weight on my legs as I don't want them to balloon and be even more out of proportion. No matter how bad I think I am, you should see my brother - the guy has the biggest natural legs I've seen and subsequently the worst walk going. Honestly, its awful.
I decided to up the amount of time on the ab plate from 30 to 40 mins in celebration of finishing the first cycle. This was accompanied by the Ellen Degeneres. I think I'll stick to Family Guy/Top Gear tomorrow, thanks.
I must point out that I facetimed my brother whilst doing cardio today who was very critical of my gym gear and the cliche on my t-shirt for this mornings session (he's just jealous I think). But it did get me thinking that its not a bad cliche to relate to this blog. In the least cringe way possible; 'No Pain, No Gain' is fairly true I suppose - we have to be willing to hurt in order to get the results were seeking. If it was easy, we'd all do it, right?
THE WORKOUT
Whilst for pretty much for every other session I will look to do a different workout every time I work on that specific muscle group, I find that theres alot of exercises that over lap with legs and find my workouts fairly similar. Whilst my last legs session was cut short after being called into the office early, I wanted to focus more on cardio and less on loads of exercises. I think theres a lot to be said for the workout a decent cycle gives the old tree trunks.
The standard exercise that I would normally start my legs sessions on and did just that when I last trained legs. I normally start with them because I find my hami's to be extremely delicate and will often do myself an injury if I train them towards the end of the session.
Whilst last week I did 6 sets and varied the amount of weight/reps, this week the number of 100 reps appealed to me, so I did 4 sets of 25 reps which I think worked better than last weeks technique.
Whilst last week looked at doing 6 heavy sets of 15 reps. This is the alternative way of squatting; both have their pros and cons, but I feel this way is better for all round conditioning where as the other seems to provide gains for my raw power. This way will take force you to use your core much more and in particular your lower back.
The picture on the right is a poor example of form. Aim to go as low as I have but its important to try and keep your heels on the floor and should be able to wiggle your toes whilst squatting to replicate perfect form.
I didn't do them in my first leg session of this programme so I certainly needed to do them today. I would normally do it with weight, but for this experiment I thought I'd try and do it without weight and just stride up and down the corridor - people were looking at me in a bit of an odd way. Rude.
I did find it beneficial as it was a case of going back to basics; get the form nailed and make them burn. 40 steps with perfect form: when stepping out make sure you're whole body is square on, look to keep your trailing knee about an inch off the floor when working.
EXERCISE FOUR
LEG PRESS CALF EXTENSION - 4 SETS - 25 REPS
Feel free to super set this exercise if you want to do more work on your quads/glutes. Look to do 15/15 press/calf raises if you are supersetting. For todays workout though, I just did the calf raises bit.
At the end of every rep, I look to try and hold it for 1-2 seconds to make it burn that little bit more. Standard technique, legs shoulder width apart, up to the balls of your feel should be on the platform with the rest of them off it. Look to replicate the same motion as if you were standing on your tip-toes.
THE CARDIO
I always knew that today was going to be a bit more cardio orientated, I find that if I stick to half an hour for too long then when I do try and do a bit more then I desperately struggle. Today was a 60min cycle averaging 18-19kmph; quicker than what I did the first time the bike for double the duration.
Lets face it, no one genuinely enjoys doing an hour on the bike in a gym - nothing to really look at or distract you from the fact you are blowing out your arse. My solution? Distract yourself. Spend the first 10 mins getting into the swing of it, decide what speed you're going to maintain and get your legs into the habit of moving that fast. After that, the world is your oyster and you can have all the fun you want. Todays activities included yet another bloody impossible level on candy crush and a facetime with my brother. Apparently, no one else loves me enough to answer! Boo hoo. On a more serious note, another great way to distract yourself is to play a little game with yourself: within reason, see how many tenths of a kilometre you can get in 30 seconds, then see if you can beat it in the next 30 seconds. Now repeat. Boom. You've just done another 2 minutes.
THE DIET
Its official, I can make this diet work even with Ramadan in effect. All I need to ensure is that I'm eating at the right time. A normal day's eating times are:
Meal 1 - 0930 - Big meal
Meal 2 - 1400 - Small meal
Meal 3 - 1830 - The Biggest meal
Meal 4 - 2130 - Small meal
Yesterday was a perfect example of how not to do it; I ate meal 2 about 1530, which then meant I wasn't too hungry at 1830 but have no choice but to eat then because of rules imposed by Ramadan and my working day and subsequently was starving at 2130 and ate waaaaay too much. Atleast now I've identified the correct formula and can stick to that as much as possible.
Buzzing to have started the second cycle with a good legs session. I was happy to have got in a decent amount of cardio - sometimes I think its important to stick the minutes in, even if you're not absolutely gunning it. Back to chest tomorrow which always excited me.
I will now be posting the progress pics so you can always see how much progress has been made between the week. For example, todays session was week 2 - session 1, being compared to week 1 - session 1.
Which session do you prefer? The First back session we did or this one? What kind of squats do you prefer? Am I wasting my time by doing 100 reps on most exercises? Do you count an hours bike ride as a leg workout?
Leg me know! I just can't stop with these puns!
Arrivederci!
I decided to up the amount of time on the ab plate from 30 to 40 mins in celebration of finishing the first cycle. This was accompanied by the Ellen Degeneres. I think I'll stick to Family Guy/Top Gear tomorrow, thanks.
I must point out that I facetimed my brother whilst doing cardio today who was very critical of my gym gear and the cliche on my t-shirt for this mornings session (he's just jealous I think). But it did get me thinking that its not a bad cliche to relate to this blog. In the least cringe way possible; 'No Pain, No Gain' is fairly true I suppose - we have to be willing to hurt in order to get the results were seeking. If it was easy, we'd all do it, right?
THE WORKOUT
Whilst for pretty much for every other session I will look to do a different workout every time I work on that specific muscle group, I find that theres alot of exercises that over lap with legs and find my workouts fairly similar. Whilst my last legs session was cut short after being called into the office early, I wanted to focus more on cardio and less on loads of exercises. I think theres a lot to be said for the workout a decent cycle gives the old tree trunks.
EXERCISE ONE
SEATED LEG CURL - 4 SETS - 25 REPS
The standard exercise that I would normally start my legs sessions on and did just that when I last trained legs. I normally start with them because I find my hami's to be extremely delicate and will often do myself an injury if I train them towards the end of the session.
Whilst last week I did 6 sets and varied the amount of weight/reps, this week the number of 100 reps appealed to me, so I did 4 sets of 25 reps which I think worked better than last weeks technique.
EXERCISE TWO
FRONT SQUATS - 4 SETS - 25 REPS
Whilst last week looked at doing 6 heavy sets of 15 reps. This is the alternative way of squatting; both have their pros and cons, but I feel this way is better for all round conditioning where as the other seems to provide gains for my raw power. This way will take force you to use your core much more and in particular your lower back.
The picture on the right is a poor example of form. Aim to go as low as I have but its important to try and keep your heels on the floor and should be able to wiggle your toes whilst squatting to replicate perfect form.
EXERCISE THREE
LUNGES - 4 SETS - 35-40 REPS
I didn't do them in my first leg session of this programme so I certainly needed to do them today. I would normally do it with weight, but for this experiment I thought I'd try and do it without weight and just stride up and down the corridor - people were looking at me in a bit of an odd way. Rude.
I did find it beneficial as it was a case of going back to basics; get the form nailed and make them burn. 40 steps with perfect form: when stepping out make sure you're whole body is square on, look to keep your trailing knee about an inch off the floor when working.
EXERCISE FOUR
LEG PRESS CALF EXTENSION - 4 SETS - 25 REPS
Feel free to super set this exercise if you want to do more work on your quads/glutes. Look to do 15/15 press/calf raises if you are supersetting. For todays workout though, I just did the calf raises bit.
At the end of every rep, I look to try and hold it for 1-2 seconds to make it burn that little bit more. Standard technique, legs shoulder width apart, up to the balls of your feel should be on the platform with the rest of them off it. Look to replicate the same motion as if you were standing on your tip-toes.
THE CARDIO
I always knew that today was going to be a bit more cardio orientated, I find that if I stick to half an hour for too long then when I do try and do a bit more then I desperately struggle. Today was a 60min cycle averaging 18-19kmph; quicker than what I did the first time the bike for double the duration.
Lets face it, no one genuinely enjoys doing an hour on the bike in a gym - nothing to really look at or distract you from the fact you are blowing out your arse. My solution? Distract yourself. Spend the first 10 mins getting into the swing of it, decide what speed you're going to maintain and get your legs into the habit of moving that fast. After that, the world is your oyster and you can have all the fun you want. Todays activities included yet another bloody impossible level on candy crush and a facetime with my brother. Apparently, no one else loves me enough to answer! Boo hoo. On a more serious note, another great way to distract yourself is to play a little game with yourself: within reason, see how many tenths of a kilometre you can get in 30 seconds, then see if you can beat it in the next 30 seconds. Now repeat. Boom. You've just done another 2 minutes.
THE DIET
Its official, I can make this diet work even with Ramadan in effect. All I need to ensure is that I'm eating at the right time. A normal day's eating times are:
Meal 1 - 0930 - Big meal
Meal 2 - 1400 - Small meal
Meal 3 - 1830 - The Biggest meal
Meal 4 - 2130 - Small meal
Yesterday was a perfect example of how not to do it; I ate meal 2 about 1530, which then meant I wasn't too hungry at 1830 but have no choice but to eat then because of rules imposed by Ramadan and my working day and subsequently was starving at 2130 and ate waaaaay too much. Atleast now I've identified the correct formula and can stick to that as much as possible.
 |
| Meal 3 |
Meal 1
- 5 Eggs using only two yolks in scrambled form
- 1 Apple
- 1 Small bowl Fitness cereal
Meal 2
- Half a Chicken
- 15 Almonds
- 1 Apple
 |
| More of meal 3 |
- 3 Chicken Skewers
- 2 Beef skewers
- Tuna Salad
- Greek Salad
- Hummus with 2 small pieces of bread
- 100g Mince with tomato
FINAL THOUGHTS
Buzzing to have started the second cycle with a good legs session. I was happy to have got in a decent amount of cardio - sometimes I think its important to stick the minutes in, even if you're not absolutely gunning it. Back to chest tomorrow which always excited me.
I will now be posting the progress pics so you can always see how much progress has been made between the week. For example, todays session was week 2 - session 1, being compared to week 1 - session 1.
Which session do you prefer? The First back session we did or this one? What kind of squats do you prefer? Am I wasting my time by doing 100 reps on most exercises? Do you count an hours bike ride as a leg workout?
Leg me know! I just can't stop with these puns!
Arrivederci!
 |
| WEEK 1 - DAY 1. DAY 1 OVERALL |
 |
| WEEK 2 - DAY 1. DAY 8 OVERALL |
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