Re: Post your daily exercise routine

All this lively activity from you lot places me severely in the shade this week with just one short burst of exercise to my paltry name. Well done on all your achievements!

My excuses? Mainly it's been work but I haven't been sleeping too well either with five hours max each morning. We've been so busy it's left me just needing to relax each afternoon and do a little pre-Christmas shopping and so on. Now if I had more time to unwind after waking up, being able to visit the gym at say 4pm instead of having to jump out of bed and be ready by 2pm, I'd have more energy. But 4pm is too late in the day and I'd be clock watching and rushing my training so it's a no no.

However, now it's Friday and the weekend for me. I'll be at the gym very soon to do a serious catch up with some intensive weights work and add my cardio on top of that. Plenty of time for a post-2 hour session. Watch this space!

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

R.U. ready for this…?

Friday 26/10/18: Strength + Cardio; 2hr. 30mins.

Back with my write-up and I know I bang on sometimes about having a good workout, well at two and a half hours today’s was one of the best I can remember for quite a while. Wanting to leave Saturday morning free for a change and obviously the afternoon is sacred and reserved for my four hours social life I get per week, I knew today I would need to combine some cardio into a shortened heavy weights session.
But that was not to be. I did the full lot which was everything on my intensive weights programme plus a full 45-minute cardio blast too. And what’s more, everything went extremely to plan, despite it being incredibly taxing in places.
Here’s the review, and this time I’ve added some info about the execution of each exercise.

Part 1: Weights

Machine arm curl (both arms together):
25x25, 15x30, 12x35, 10x40, 8x45, 6x50
*A nice and pleasant warm-up seeing me go for a heavy max of 50kg to finish.

Lat pulldown, hammer bar:
10x40, 10x50, 10x60, 5x70
25x35

Shoulder press:
10x60, 15x40
*I’m still getting some irritation with my neck after three weeks now. A stabbing pain aggravates it when I go too heavy so I amended this exercise to stall at a 60kg max lift and just two sets.

Chest press:
15x60, 10x75
25x35
*For the final high reps set I lowered the seat to concentrate on the upper pecs and inner delts (bodybuilding speak, guys!)

DB Pinwheel curls, standing, alt.:
6x14, 6x14, 6x14
*A pinwheel curl is a dumbbell bicep curl but instead of using the upper palm and lifting straight up parallel to the shoulder, you lift in a ‘hammer’ motion up and across the chest to the opposite shoulder. This works the outer head of the biceps to increase the size of that bulging ‘peak’. Here's a video:


DB bicep curls, standing:
6x16, 6x16, 6x16

*On the above two exercises I had no rest in between the combined twelve sets, except to switch to the opposite arm and change the weight. That results in very pumped up biceps even with light weights such as these used.

Standing preacher curl (arm curl over top of bench):
7x20, 4x22
*I guess my arms were tired from the previous curls, so I curtailed this one early.

Barbell forearm curl:
8x15, 8x15, 8x15
*A straight barbell with your hands over the top instead of underneath as you do a normal lift so in effect, you are raising the bar with the muscles of your forearms instead of working the biceps. As the forearms naturally have very small muscles, it’s mostly the tendons that see the benefit of this exercise.

Single DB press (flat bench, one heavy dumbbell. Raised using the hands to interlock under the inner top end of the weight and simply push up and down above your head):
40x50, 30x50, 20x50, 10x50 = 100 reps total.
*I love this exercise. On the last bodybuilding forum I belonged to they christened this “The Floydy Press” as nobody apparently has ever thought of it before!
Due to many years now of doing this and building triceps to match I have graduated to using the heaviest dumbbell in the gym.

E-Z preacher curl, close-grip (seated preacher bench using the ‘low pull’ setting which gives maximum tension on the front of the biceps):
15x30.5, 15x30.5, 8x40.5, 8x40.5
25x20.5 high reps
*I’m always tempted to go really heavy on this as my arms can take much more, but there was still some more work to do.


Fly delt dec:
25x72.5, 20x80, 15x95
30x50 high reps
*The ‘fly delt dec’ is performed in a similar operative medium as the pec dec, but with arms extended not bending at the elbows against side pads. It works the higher parts of the torso in particular the deltoid muscles in the shoulders. It can also be used as a ‘back fly’ machine wherby you basically sit on the seat facing the backrest instead of with your back to it. I’m pretty strong on this machine, hence the higher weights.


Tricep extensions:
25x35 high reps
*Unusually for me today I didn’t spend much time on this machine, simply doing one set of high reps which took about half a minute.

Ab crunch:
40x30, 30x35
*Tachyon’s favourite! Although it isn’t my goal to do a million reps like he does, I do enough to feel that the stomach is duly punished for eating too many jelly babies on the way to the gym.

Sled leg press:
50x120
*A very basic warm-up for the cardio to come. A full legs workout will feature on Sunday.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Intermission~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Intermission~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
To give me some energy for the cardio…I only had one, not a box of six!


Part Two: Cardio

After my two-minute tea break (without the tea) it was headphones on and upstairs for the cardio. The music of choice for me today was Pink Floyd’s final album “The Endless River”. (Bob – With you being a Mike Oldfield fan I think you would enjoy this album as it’s virtually an entirely instrumental record).

Rowing machine:
Time: 5 mins / Distance: 1113 mtrs.
*Annoyingly, as I got all set up on this and began, my headphone jack fell out and I Had no music. I had to stop and start again, otherwise I’d be listening to the gym’s trite and awful sound system playing garbage such as Rihanna. Now if it was our very own Rhian, now that would be different….still five minutes of pulling was enough as my arms were frazzled after the previous gym work.

Treadmill:
Time: 30 mins / Distance: 3.03 km / Calories burned: 248.
*Loved every single minute of this again. Cranking it up to thirty minutes (including a full six minutes striding as fast as I could at full stretch at a whopping 7 km/h, which was a shade under a highest figure of 7.3 which I was doing elsewhere during my time on here. Also, I was taking the machine to its full extent of 15° incline and pushing at 6 km/h, the muscles in my thighs at bursting point! I achieved an average gradient of 7, which was just about right to be honest.
(Last week’s distance was 2.5 km with a calorie count of 200).

Bike:
Time: 10 mins / Distance: 5.3 km. / Calories burned: 82.
*Exactly, as it turned out, the same distance as last week but unlike then I powered up the levels to really force a very steep uphill climb of level 8 at one stage for minute. The rest of the cycling was flat out as fast as I could pedal.

That was it. Two and a half hours of intensive, exhausting training. I doubt it very much if anyone else was in that gym longer than me today, even guys half my age. There’s still plenty of life in me yet, and I aim to better myself even further, not simply rest on my laurels.
It was 10.30 pm as I wrote all this out having gone home and ate a delightful Indian chicken meal whilst watching the film Lincoln on DVD accompanied by three splendid real ales.


Thanks for reading as always

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

Thanks for the suggestion Floydy, I'll certainly have a listen to that......Cheers....

A decent weeks running, mostly good, but no PB's were in danger of being broken.....At least all the off road bits were dry, but the cold blast of wind off the North sea meant no time for dawdling.....

Nice to see Ruthio back in the saddle......So to speak!

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

Good morning from sunny, cool Florida! As I have just made a round of omelets and am sitting out on the dock working on a battle plan to fight back those calories with a few miles later in the day.

Ruthio, I'm thrilled to death to hear that you are not only back in fine form, but celebrated it with a good long walk. That's a very respectable distance for a first go at it. I don't know about you, but I always have a sense of a relief after a hiatus - a shaking of the fist at the universe that is determinedly and unrelentingly trying to return me back into a handful of dust

Floydy, you know I do like to see those free weight preacher curls since the machine version has a bias against those of us with smaller frames - like the fly Funny how gyms are the same the world over in their music choices. While OGF agrees that the best running is music-free, I have a special playlist when I do make it to the gym. The one I visit is on the navy base where all the young pilots are earning their wings, with music is not exactly geared towards quinquagenarians.

Monday morning, the more focused abs work begins, as I have a "gown of reckoning" for a cruise later in the year that tells no lies .

Okay, I'm off. I will see you all in six miles...

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

Thanks surfermom, you're lovely the way you offer such encouragement!
Just walked into the city and back to see A Star Is Born, half an hour in and half an hour home again, so I guess that's about 3 miles.
Off away next week and hopefully walking every day, Woo! Hoo!

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

was it any good Ruthio?

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

Yes! Fabulous!
Except, although we were sitting right near the screen (not by choice!) neither of us could make out a lot of the dialogue.
Why do Americans mumble so?! (nothing personal surfer!)

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

Just got back from the gym.

20 minute power walking on flat treadmill.
10 minute bike
10 minute cross trainer
5 minute stepper
another 15 minutes treadmill speed of 4.6 working downwards from an incline of 10 for 1 minute 9 for 1 minute 8 for 1 minute and so on, last 5 mins on flat at speed of 5
Leg press
Leg Abductor
Chest press
Pull downs

Came home and did 10 minutes My Fitness Coach on Wii Fit (we bought a second hand one the other day for £40 with 24 games and balance board. Graphics are a bit crap but it does the job.

I feel the more weight I'm losing the fitter I'm getting and the more I want to exercise, it's gotten addictive but I guess its a good addiction to have

Good workouts you guys, enjoyed reading all y our workouts

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

That's because we nlunnnw and mrrruibf when we are mnwyfinnble.

Haha, kidding, Ruthio .

Interesting! I haven't seen it yet but I have heard that the sound production was not up to par in some of the scenes.

Re: Post your daily exercise routine

A swift six this morning under the blazing sun.....
Well actually, the sun hadn't come up when I turned out, and there was a blast from the arctic making my knees blue, among other bits.....
But being the competitor that I am, I struggled on to post a very creditable time.....

What was that you said Surfermom??????