TRX Newbie

TGIF. Wow this day is finally here! Nothing special about this weekend, just couldn’t wait for it to start and get some MUCH NEEDED sleep! I will be doing a lot of that this weekend, my body needs it like never before.

During my work morning, I sat down to my normal cottage cheese and jam. Yum. I plowed through it! I usually bring tupperware, but I had one serving left in the container so I figured I would just use that and toss it when done. Well when I went to throw it away this caught my eye….

I didn’t get sick, so that was a plus. It didn’t taste funny, so I guess it was okay?

My lunch was NOT old food 😉

Part of my day was quite interesting with conversations I had at work. The medical students receive lecture every day from the attendings, and they came back and started talking about the “ideal weight” for a woman. Supposedly it starts at 100 lbs for a 5 foot person, then every inch you add 5 lbs. This seems BIZARRE to me. I don’t care what title you have after your name, MD, PA, DO, PhD, Rocket Scientist, I do not agree with this. Can you imagine if I was in the room for this discussion? I probably would’ve been kicked out. I’m usually quiet during our morning conferences, but you guys know how I am about weight and feeling happy in your own skin no matter what the number!

As I revealed the other day, I am about 5’3” and 118 lbs, well since then I lost about 5 (not trying to, I guess it’s stress), so technically before I was overweight? Wow could that theory be more wrong? Supposedly the students said there were a few exceptions to the rule, like if you are a lot of muscle. I guess I would fall into this category. I would have had to go to the front of the room and throw a fit and then flex saying I’m not overweight. Okay really I’m kidding, I would not flex at work 😉

Anyway, I just thought I would share this little story because I am 100% against BMI charts and anything like this. I guess they are to give you a round about number at where you SHOULD fall, but come on, I’d say for 5 foot 3 anything below 130-135 is super healthy! I guess we do all carry weight in different areas and it looks different on all of us though. Just want to point out that these charts and numbers do not make you. It’s what you are doing to change your lifestyle, how you feel everyday, and all around health, not a silly number!

Now that my daily rant is out of the way… by the end of my work day I was desperate to leave for the gym. I finished almost all of my dictations. Really I only had 3 left, but was in weekend mode so I will finish them up next week!

I was mostly excited to wear one of the new tanks I bought to ROOT ROOT ROOT for the Home team! Orioles 🙂

When I got to the gym I started with a cardio warmup, 12 minutes on the stairs. Then I went straight into my chest workout!

• Decline Chest presses, 100-115 lbs, 15 reps x 4 sets
• Incline Chest Presses, 55lbs-65 lbs, 15 reps x 4 sets
• Smith Machine Bench Press, 95 lbs, 10 reps x 4 sets, then 75 lbs, 15 reps x 2 sets
• Pec Squeeze (like a fly but shorter range of motion) with 17.5 lb weights each hand, 12 reps x 4 sets
• Push ups, 10 reps x 5 sets (In between my pushup sets I did squats holding 17.5 lb weights in each hand, this was 4 sets of 10)

Then I hit the elliptical for 20 minutes and onto more chest stuff!

I finished with some TRX training. If you’ve never used TRX suspension ropes before this is a full body workout focusing on using your own body weight to strength train. You really determine the level of difficulty you want to do by using these ropes. I’ve been doing some research and watching YouTube videos for ideas of all the things I can do with them. Theres a section in my gym that has a few set of ropes, but they are hard to come by because the trainers usually snatch them up!

Here’s what I did on them. I plan on doing more later today!

• Chest Fly’s, 12 reps x 3 sets
• Pull ups from a squat position, 12 reps x 3 sets
• Chest Pulls, 12 reps x 3 sets (basically you pull your body into the ropes, body is in a straight line but at a lean)
• I alternated the 3 above!

Then I finished with the mother of all TRX exercises. Well at least for me because I am new to them. PIKES! You bring the loops close to the floor and put your feet through them, so you are in a plank but your feet are completely off the ground, suspended by the ropes only. Then you bring your body up into a PIKE and back down. Your body creates a triangle or downward dog. 10 reps x 3 sets. They are SO tough! Abs were killing me and I was out of breath. It feels really cool though because your feet are in the air the entire time. I felt like a little acrobat. Definitely going to keep trying them 🙂

After stretching it out I grabbed my things and left to get home to my baby girl! Weekend is upon us.

At home we had a banana for recovery, a pita pizza with goat cheese, a salad, and some granola. Then I sat down to blog and AGAIN this happened…

how does she keep getting up there? I never see it happen!

Technically today is supposed to be shoulder day, but I think my arms are a little too sore for that to happen. So it’s either going to be leg day (although I am not in the mood for one), or a cardio power hour and some TRX ab training. I think it depends on how the day goes and the mood I am in. Sometimes I feel the need to sweat it out with lots of cardio, and then some days I want to lift out all my aggression! We will see.

TGIF!

XOXO With a Cherry On Top,

-Minnie