Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Interim summing up

It seems like a good day to stop for a few minutes and sum up what I've been doing so far regarding my workouts. It's a good day today because January is ending tomorrow, and my plan was/is to add dumbbells workout to my routine as soon as February kicks in.

From November 7, 2006 till November 21, 2006 I did bike riding. I've started with 1 hour per day, and kept this formula for a total of 12 days = 12 hours. Modest beginning it was, but not so easy as it seems today. I started with level 1 on the bikes, and when the hour was gone... I was almost dead *s*.

Then we got the treadmill, and most of my workouts since November 22, 2006 were on it, with occasional ones on the bikes. I've started with 1 hour per day on the treadmill (2 x 1/2 hour), with 0% incline and and around 2.5 mph speed. Today - 10 weeks later - I'm doing 2 hours and more than 6 miles almost every day I workout, and already managed to:
» walk 35 minutes (in 4 segment of 10/5 minutes) with 4% incline and 2.9 mph speed.
» Walk 12 minutes (in 4 segment of 3 minutes) with 5% incline and 2.9 mph speed.
» Walk 60 minutes with 0% incline and 3.3 mph speed.

I'm trying to change the routine every day. I change the speed, I change the incline, I alternate all the time and as soon as I feel comfortable with certain settings (and not so sweaty), I push them up a bit the next day. As far as I understand from reading around, that's good to take the body out of its comfort zone into a new struggle, a new challenge. Ok, done! *s*.

Now, all this biking and walking develop my legs' muscles quite a bit, and right now I feel it's a very good time to start addressing and working on my upper body: Arms, shoulders, upper back. I'm working on a dumbbells plan. I've gathered information from my first time around at the gym + lots of info from the net, and hopefully I'll be ready to start in few days, when I have all the details crafted and finalized. My plan is to do the dumbbells workout 3 times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, around at least 12 sets X 12 reps every time. More details will be posted when I'm done with the planning.

One thing, though: I was a bit hesitating to start strength workout, because the last time I did, my weight loss has become quite slower with all this muscle building (though I knew I was sill losing). And I wouldn't like it to happen again, but... these days I'd like to think I'm smarter, and I know how to tackle all of this the right way, so I know that in the long run, more muscles suppose to burn more fat, so... we'll see! *s*.

Lorien @ 03:40 pm MT

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