Building Strength

As mentioned in my 6 month banish the baby bulge post I started some new workouts last week. For the past several months I have been strength training 3 times each week and doing 2 easier move/sweat days. I am switching it up for now and completing 4 strength training sessions each week and just one lighter recovery workout (or maybe 2 some weeks if I eat some extra Christmas treats ;-)). I like to give myself 1-2 days off completely as I’m {finally} learning the importance of rest days, not to mention I need the extra time now more than ever!

My husband is still designing my training programs for me. This time he gave me workouts that are somewhat like those in Dan John and Pavel’s Easy Strength program. I’m doing very similar workouts (same exercises and similar rep schemes) each day and never working out to complete failure. Think about it as more total volume in the week, but less volume in any given day. So far I’m finding that I’m less sore and more eager to workout.

Here’s one of the workouts (and the weights I used the first time around):

Turkish Get Ups
2 x 2R/2L (16K)

Deadlift
2 x 5 (125lbs)

Pullups
5 x 2 (bodyweight)

Pushups
4 x 5

One arm kettlebell swing ladder
3 x 5R/5L with each weight (16K, 20K, 24K)

What about the order of things? I do a nice long warmup first. Then I do my turkish get ups and move on to the strength exercises (deadlift, pull ups and push ups). I do those somewhat randomly until they are done and then complete the swing ladders at the end.

So far I really like this program and I can see how it’s going to build strength. I can also see how I might get really sick of deadlifts, chinups/pullups and pushups. This isn’t an ideal program for someone who gets bored easily, but my goal right now for training isn’t really to have fun (although I can honestly say I enjoy it most of the time). My goal is to get stronger and prepare for the RKC. 🙂

Happy Monday! What’s on your training agenda for this week?