Intensity Reboot

Today is my Friday. I love it when Friday’s are really Thursday’s, I mean, who doesn’t? As predicted I had a killer workout last night and I actually felt pretty good thru the brutality of it all. It was what Amanda called a light leg day. I think this meant that the goal was not to lift heavy heavy, but instead to do lots of reps with cardio thrown in between the exercises. This was actually brutal as I was dripping sweat in the most obnoxious way, but somehow it was pretty body cleansing as well. This is what my half hour looked like:

20 body weight squats getting pretty low touching my ass onto a ball on the ground

10 burpies

15 30-lb kettle ball squats: basically holding the weight close to my chest and squatting deep

10 burpies

18 deep lunges across the gym while holding a 25 pound plate straight up into the air above my head

This was one set of the exercises. Those burpies in between were fairly substantially brutal. This of course was done quickly and then of course we did 3 sets of all of this.

THEN, we went over the barbell rack and I put an 80 pound barbell on my back and did 20 squats. Then we did 10 lunges on each leg. Did this 3 times. Then back to that first circuit above for one more round and then to kill time we finished out with 30 of those barbell squats with 80 pounds.

If I am calculating correctly that means I did a total of 230 squats, 132 lunges and of course 80 burpies. All of that in a half hour period of time. I was literally dripping sweat. I looked down on the ground no matter where we moved and there were piles of my own water on the ground. It’s been a long time since I produced that much in one sitting. This was my light leg day. Seriously.

After this 30 minute torture session I proceeded to take Iron Power class with Amanda. This is all strength training with barbells and dumbbells. Each song is a different muscle group. We did 2 more leg tracks during this class and by the last half of the second song; I actually did not think I was going to make it thru any longer. My quads were on fire. Mostly this workout produced BURNING sensations in my quads like you wouldn’t believe. However, today my ass is what is mostly sore. Funny how that works.  I was so exhausted after my hour and a half last night that I was just ready to get home and do nothing. Of course, that did not happen. As soon as I got home Chris and I went to the grocery store to do some shopping for our camping trip tomorrow. About 10 PM as I was sitting on the couch watching TV after a delicious chicken burger with avocado dinner my eyes would not stay open. They kept slamming shut, thus I knew it was time for bed. That workout really did a number on me in a good way.

I can tell my energy and enthusiasm has really picked up this week as compared to the past couple weeks. I am actually hitting it pretty hard and it feels pretty good. I think this is generally helping with my overall mood. I can honestly say that I hated every second of my personal training session while doing it, but afterwards I felt great and was thankful for it. Those burpies are tough. The first couple feel all right and then they breach into yucky territory. I should point out I made the cardinal error of asking Amanda before I did the first one if she wanted the full burpie with the push-up too, and she said, well since you asked you know what the answer is going to be, yes.  So each one of those burpies was full on hop down, push up, jump up style burpies, so extra brutal. I guess that means that I actually did like 80 pushups as well.

I promise you on my own I would never do this crap, which is probably why having a personal trainer is such a good thing from time to time. Most people are seriously not going to do 80 burpies on their own, yet alone all those freaking squats and lunges. Tonight I am back at the gym and really have a secret desire to make something on my upper half sore. I want to walk away with some upper body part feeling it, but I’m not sure what. Either biceps or triceps or chest most likely. I just want to get some body part worked enough that its sore. It’s a good reminder for over the weekend while camping to try and stay focused on my bigger goals.

So I just talked to Amanda and I’m going to jump in on another girls training session tonight at 5 PM. This is a girl I know and am friendly with and she said it was okay, so that I can get in some extra workout. I told Amanda I wanted to make my upper half sore in some way and she said its chest day for this other girl Erica at 5 PM, so I’m going to tag along and do it. Yeah. Extra training and I for some sick reason want to get sore. So it seems tonight at 5 I get some extra training. I can tell I must be feeling better if I’m asking for more torture and looking forward to it and getting excited about it. That’s just the kind of sick girl I know I am and I miss her when she goes away. It might be wrong that I am excited for this extra self-imposed torture session. But slowly I’m feeling my desire and motivation return. With desire and motivation comes will power. And that is what I’ve seriously been lacking for months. I think I am starting to see shades of it grow inside of me.

I generally feel better today than I have in a while so that is a good thing. Just got to get thru the afternoon here at work and then my workout tonight and then I’m ready to just relax and enjoy the company of my family for the next couple days. Good, memory making experiences. That is what life is truly all about.