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Week 22: My Next Phase of the Fitness Journey, May 18-24
By Cindy | May 28, 2008
Much of this week was devoted to finding a new goal and direction for my fitness journey. After completing the Half-Marathon, I panicked a little thinking that I would need a major time consuming goal to maintain my motivation on a daily basis. As I started looking at various options, I realized that I don’t need a brand new sport or huge endeavor to feel fit. I need to bring my focus home.
My new goal is to focus on fat loss which means that I need to change my eating habits. Despite running long distances and lifting weights, fat loss has been slow. Consistent, but slow, which I have been content with during the transition from having babies and making exercise a priority in my life.
My goal is to achieve 22% body fat. I also want to limit my cardio routines to 30-45 minute sessions and my strength training routines to 30-45 minutes.
On Bodybuilding.com, I found one that fits my current level of fitness and allows me to mix up strength routines. It’s designed for an endormorph. The cardio requires medium-high intensity levels which I need to elevate my heart rate. Due to my past years as an athlete, my body is accustomed to long bouts of exercise and my heart rate remains low, so I have to compensate by varied intensity levels or very long running sessions of which I do not have the time to dedicate to training. For strength training, I have always completed full body routines. I’m excited about the focused, higher intensity sessions per muscle group. For four days, I plan on devoting one hour to the combined routines. For the cardio days, I can devote a fast 30 minute session if I run into time constraints. Here’s what a typical week will look like:
- Monday: Chest / Tricep
- Tuesday: Back / Biceps/ Cardio
- Wednesday: Cardio/ Abs
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: Shoulder / Traps / Cardio
- Saturday: Thigh / Calves / Abs
- Sunday: Cardio
For this week, we were still in Puerto Rico and completing our travels. Sunday was spent driving back to San Juan. Monday, I completed an abdominal workout following a Fit TV show for 30 minutes and spent time doing the Kiddie Pool Workout/Playtime. Tuesday, we hit the pool again and flew back home. Wednesday, we spent the day at the Zoo and golfed for an hour. Thursday, I ran for 30 minutes and incorporated 1 minute sprints every five minutes of the run. I was able to achieve 8 minute miles and completed 4 miles with the cool down. After the run I completed 20 minutes of abdominal exercises. Friday, I completed the shoulders and traps strength training routine and jump roped for 30 seconds between each set (approximately 10 minutes of cardio). Saturday turned into a moving and garage cleaning day!
I’m excited about the new changes in my routine. I’m ready to make the nutritional changes to fuel my body effectively and build lean body mass!
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Topics: Personal Journey |
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you know I LOVE seeing this
I struggle with back and bis so Im curious what you think…it feels like a lot for me & I tend to skip or glossover biceps.
If your goal is fat loss, then I don’t know that this is the best program for you. Splitting body parts is not really a time- or effort-effective way of getting in shape. Total body workouts incorporating multi-joint exercises are far more effective for general fitness, fat loss, and health. You might want to look into a program from Alwyn Cosgrove or Ryan Lee. I’ve had really good luck with Cosgrove’s programs in the past, and am just starting a series of daily short workouts by Ryan Lee that uses a modified version of tabata intervals to compress the workouts down to 10-15 minutes. Let me know if you are interested and I can shoot you some info on them.
blaine is ENTIRELY CORRECT—depending on what you enjoy doing.
for me I just do NOT adore the multijoint stuff (I do cave and do it with hubby on weekends sometimes) and Id end up not working out.
Great Points MizFit and Blaine!!!
The Back/Bicep day combines the exercises. So I only do one bicep exercise (dumbbell alternating curls). The rest of the exercises are different rows and pull ups/pull downs and deadlifts. I don’t feel like I’m just targeting biceps and all back muscles are being tapped into by the end of the workout.
What I really liked about the routine is the use of dumbbells and exercises that focused on multi-muscle groups with an intensity focus on the primary muscles of the day. In many ways the routine does cover multi-jointed exercises, using pull ups, dips, deadlifts, squats, etc.
I also enjoy traditional strength training, so it’s kind of a mix of both worlds. I throw in the short bursts of intensity as my rest periods between sets in the form of jumping jacks, BOSU side lunges, pushups etc. Therefore my opposite body parts are getting a short intense workout on their “off-days.” I’m always moving, my muscles are sore, and it’s new for my body.
Next week, I’ll break down the routines. My past strength training routines have been dynamic in nature, but I may not have been intense enough.
I may return to dynamic routines after this trial run, but I’ve really enjoyed it thus far and am interested in how my body will adjust over the next 4 to 6 week trial.