Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Freaks come out at night

Last nights gym experience truly deserves a blog entry. That's all I could think the whole time I was there...I've got to write about this.
Ok so where do I even start, let me back up a little bit. The weekend was busy, especially Sunday. A hot afternoon at the pumpkin patch, followed by costume/decoration shopping, and lastly pumpkin decorating. I was asleep on the couch by 9. When my alarm went off at 5am Monday morning I knew there was no way I was getting up, I needed a morning to sleep in. I had been looking forward to Monday's arm workout tho (I know I'm a nerd) so I decided I wouldn't miss the day entirely, I would just go after work. Now I am well aware that 5pm is not only rush hour on I-80 but also in the gym, but I figured one pm session wouldn't kill me.
Fromt the moment I walked in the door it was total and complete chaos, there were people everywhere! Thank goodness I had no intentions of doing cardio, because every machine was taken. I made my way upstairs to the weights, I had never seen so many people up there before. Sheesh, over to the free weights I go, stood around waiting for someone to give up a bench, claimed it with my water bottle before I went over to find out what weights I could scrounge up. I will say this, the only good thing to this session was that I was the ONLY female lifting, so I never had to wait for the 20lb or 15lb weights, the guys around me were lifting MUCH heavier. Much heavier, with sound effects, slamming weights and all. While I rested between sets I would just people watch. Man it was like a gym scene from a movie. I felt so out of place. Not because I can't hold my own, trust me I know what I'm doing, but I missed my am regulars. When I go in the morning it's an older crowd 50's 60's and the people there before work, It's calm its relaxed, it flows.
I felt like I was hoarding equipment last night. Like I was some little scavenger running around grabbing what I could when it was free. Running over to the cable machine as soon as someone walked away, claiming benches with my shaker bottle. It was like a mad dash around the gym to make sure I got in my full workout. I couldn't help but laugh to myself becuase I seemed to be the only one concerened with doing my workout in order and just getting the heck out of there.
In between sets of grunting, everyone else just stood around and talked, and these were not converastions I needed to be a part of. Men in a gym, you know what they were talking about. Jeez talk about akward. Haha. And this totally could just be in my head, but I could picture these guys looking at me taking up precious space in an already crowded gym and thinking, "what does this girl think she's doing, get down to the elliptical where you belong." haha.
Well they couldn't get rid of me, I stuck it out and got through my whole workout, and I don't think I'll ever substitute a pm workout for a missed am one. It was so nice to be back in there this morning with my regular. I don't know how those pm people do it, it's a jungle out there.
And in case your wondering here's what I did last night (It kicked my butt, my arms are DEAD today):

Arms/Abs

Superset:

Superset:

End of superset; resume normal sets

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Just a little photo update


So I haven't uploaded any pics of myself lately and I was feeling vain at the gym this morning so here's what I look like at 5:45am. Starting to see some progress from all this weight training I'm doing...



I'm getting there

about to kill some wide stance squats!





Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Getting my butt kicked...

So yesterday marked the start of week 5 and Phase 2 for me in Jamie Eason's live fit trainer which means I'm back to doing cardio! Yay! And without fail phase 2 is bringing new challenges for me. I'm pretty sure I've already said before that this program is pushing me out of my comfort zone because I'm doing exercises I've been too intimidated to try in the past. But I really want to push my body and get the most out of this program so I've been sucking it up and lifting with the big boys the past few weeks.
Today however was a big step for me, in my mind anyways. The workouts change a bit with each phase and I was liking the chest workout in phase 1. I've never really worked chest much (for obvious reasons lol) but the exercises Jamie has in phase 1 aren't too scary. Oh boy but what's this, today you want me doing barbell bench press? Whoa, I don't think I've ever dared to wander over by those benches with racks and grunting men. "Hmmm maybe I'll just do my normal dumbell bench press." No way! Had I chickened out and done the dumbell bench press that I was used to I would have been mad with myself when I left the gym. So I sucked it up, picked a bench far away from everyone, unloaded the ridiculous amount of weight that was on the barbell and got to work. By my second set I was getting the hang of it and it wasn't so scary anymore.
And boy oh boy did this workout kick my butt, I was sweating before I even did my cardio. Oh and cardio, man I missed it, nothing like walking out of the gym lookin like a hot sweaty mess.
"I am Hans." "Und I am Franz." "Und ve just vant to pump... (clap) ...YOU UP!"

Here's what I did today:

Chest/Abs

Superset:

End of superset; resume normal sets