How often do you exercise? So unless I am out of town I have been consistently working out 6 days per week. I know I should probably take an additional day off, but I never really do.
However, this last week I was seriously struggling for motivation and strength actually. I felt very weak and sore everywhere. Not necessarily sore from a good, hard workout…but sore all over. I was enjoying my workouts, but not feeling quite as enthusiastic as I usually am.
Even with the Thanksgiving holiday in the middle of the week I still planned to get to the gym everyday (we have a gym in town that is open 24/7…even on holidays). I only had bootcamp on Monday so I lifted Tuesday-Friday. I was busy all day Saturday so knew I wouldn’t get to the gym. I would usually go in on Sunday and do cardio or a little lifting, but instead I decided to take both days off. Yes, I was home over the weekend and didn’t go to the gym.
Guess what happened?!?
I gained 10 pounds.
Just kidding, Thanksgiving was on Thursday (with lots of wine), we went to a nice sushi place Friday (where I ate a TON of sushi) and then Saturday night got Chinese take-out with my best friend from high school. Yes, lots of non-clean eating. How much did I gain?
Zero. Nada. Zilch.
Holy cow, who would have thought. Besides those three meals (lunch Thursday and dinner both Friday & Saturday) I ate very clean and tracked my macros. I managed to do little splurging, yet no damage.
That isn’t even the best part…. I went to bootcamp Monday morning feeling amazing! I had a great workout and felt very refreshed. I am so glad I took that extra day off.
Now, I still plan to workout 5-6 days per week because I love it. However, I know that when my body starts feeling off then I need to take a break. Even just one day of rest can make a huge difference in future workouts.
I’ve talked about this before, but I love shoulder day and these shoulder & ab supersets make a great combo. Make sure to warm up properly before starting the workout, but try to go pretty heavy on the military presses. The first set I used a weight I could do all 8 reps. The second, third & fourth sets I could get out 6-7 and then needed to use my legs a little bit to get through all 8 reps. I tried to go heavy enough that it was really difficult to get the final reps out.
The drop set I did at the end was basically a “run the rack” type of set. I started with 15lb dumbbells (which was plenty after this workout). I did as many reps with 15lb dumbbells as I could (until failure, which was 8 reps for me) then immediately went down to 12lbs dumbbells and did another 8 reps (until failure). I did that with 10lb, 8lb, and 5lb dumbbells. My shoulders were definitely burnt out for the time being after that… I loved it as a shoulder finisher. By the end the 5lb dumbbells felt gigantic!
After the drop set immediately move on to the ab triset….quite a bit of ab burning going on after this triset. It’s a good one!
Below are links for each move if you are unfamiliar. Don’t forget to check out my other shoulder workout too!
Standing Barbell Military Press
Barbell Front Raise (this shows the move using a plate, not a barbell)
Bent Over Rear Delt Raise (this shows it seated, not standing)
Fitball Pike (aka Ball Pull-In)
Kneeling Side Reaches (I struggled to find a how-to video…this shows it one side at a time but I actually kneel down on both knees and reach left, then right, then left, then right, etc through all the reps).
V-Ups (aka Jackknife Sit-Up)
How many rest days do you take per week?
