Day Off?

July 14, 2008 at 7:54 pm | Posted in Strength Training | 15 Comments

I mentioned yesterday that Mondays are usually my off day.

But haha, tricked you!

By “off day,” I meant for my legs–no running, biking, etc. because my leg muscles need time to heal.

Now, I’m one of those rare addicts creatures who enjoys exercising every day, preferably first thing in the morning. Like, before it’s even light. It sets the tone for the day and makes me feel accomplished before I even sit down to my cereal.

However, I really don’t enjoy strength training very much–I just do it anyway because I know how effective it can be even with a relatively short time commitment. So, I do it twice a week and get excellent results. One of the two workouts is pretty short and I pick one afternoon after work to do it. Just one afternoon.

I do the other strength workout on the morning of my off day. It’s a longer workout, and if I end up skipping the other one, I know that I at least accomplished one good weight session that week. This workout consists of upper body weights and core strengthening.

I do three sets of 15 reps for each of these upper body exercises:

• Lat pulldown
• Lat row
• Shoulder press
• Chest press
• Vertical butterfly
• Bicep curls
• Tricep dips or extensions

I also do two sets of inclined situps with a medicine ball, trying to get as close to 30 reps as I can. I do one set of 25 reps of the back extension. I don’t rest, but alternate exercises so that I can move through the workout as quickly and efficiently as possible.

I am also following The Ultimate Ab Workout for Runners, which is an excellent core routine. The writer suggests doing it three times a week, but I’ve just been doing it twice and it’s still working well. I do this workout after my weights or mixed in between sets to rest my arms. I do ab exercises daily before I run, but this takes it up a notch and keeps things interesting. If you do only one exercise from this routine, do the Turkish Get-up on the last page. It’ll rock your world.

My “off day” workout does take up quite a bit of time, but it’s my only long strength session of the week. It tends to leave me pretty sore, and today at work I sat at my desk getting progressively stiffer and achier. However, I can mow my own lawn, open jars for people, and yesterday I even carried in all my groceries in a single trip. I dropped my keys in the grass on the way to the door, but last time I checked, no one ever claimed that strength training cures clumsiness.