Wednesday 28 March 2018

Resistance Training - The Workouts



   On Monday I started my new workout plan. I'm still following my usual 'new DVD/Program every month' habit because I like the variety that can offer, but the difference is that I'm putting half an hour of resistance training in first.
   I've always put the DVD/program first because I wanted to see how effective it was at weight loss and toning and all of that, but I never posted any before/after pictures due to being cripplingly self-conscious, and my DVD reviews always focused more on the technical side of it, difficulty and things like that, with results being only one small part of it. In short, despite my intentions, I've always approached it from a long-term fitness perspective rather than fat-shedding.
   I also realised that that wasn't working for me, personally. It meant I was prioritising the wrong thing and not getting the results I could have for my own goals, and, in the end, why else am I doing it?

   So, by putting 30 minutes of resistance training first, I can use up the glycogen in my muscles (readily-available energy) without exhausting my heart rate like I would with circuit training, HIIT or cardio. This meant that, by the end of the 30 minutes, my cardiovascular system would feel like it had only done 5 minutes, and yet my body would have already started turning to its fat stores for fuel, all of which means that any cardio I do after those initial 30 minutes is much more effective at burning fat and calories, and I don't have to do it for 45 minutes to reap the benefits. 15+ minutes of HIIT is enough, and it is that much more effective in itself.

http://www.ablackbirdsepiphany.co.uk/2018/03/workout-shake-up.html

   These are the workouts I've chosen. While I will continue trying new programs and DVDs every month, I intend to stick to a single resistance training regime for 9-12 weeks. These are the routines I've chosen for this first attempt, which I will carry for 9-10 weeks, until the beginning of June when I will change it up to something else. This is to avoid plateaus, but it's also long enough for me to really reap every benefit from it that I can, as long as I progressively increase the weight and the reps when it starts to get 'easy'.

The Workouts

[Warm Up]
Dynamic warm up via Shape.com

Monday
Lower body via Whitney Simmons' Youtube (landmine replaced with over-shoulder kettlebell) followed by 20-30 mins FitFlow HIIT & yoga/FitFlow

Wednesday
Total body via Gemma Atkinson & Women's Health Magazine (Jan/Feb 2018) followed by 20-30 mins FitFlow HIIT & yoga/FitFlow

Friday
Lower body via Whitney Simmons' Youtube followed by 20-30 mins FitFlow yoga/FitFlow/Corefit

Saturday
Back/upper body Whitney Simmons' Youtube (cables replaced by resistance bands behind a bench) followed by 25 mins kickboxing

   My favourite fitness magazine, Women's Fitness, came to an end a few months ago (one sodding month after my 6-month renewal - yes I am still bitter), and I've turned to Women's Health, a competitor, as my alternative. I never thought much of the magazine, but now that it's the next best thing out there (Health & Fitness is just appalling), I'm finding that it does offer things Women's Fitness didn't, even if it also lacks a few things. That said, the workout from the Gemma Atkinson feature was from the third copy I ever purchased, Jan/Feb 2018, and I was interested, though I didn't have a barbell until now.
   As for Whitney Simmons, I found her Instagram via a viral post of the top fitness Instagrammers, and I began following her among a few others quite some time ago. But, again, the lack of a barbell and suitably heavy weights, and my commitment to using DVDs and programs instead of a home gym, meant that her workouts weren't an option until I made this drastic (as far as I'm concerned) change to my routine.

   I'm confident that I can work with these two sources for a while; Whitney Simmons has plenty of videos and all of which are her own workouts, so I'm confident in the nature of their potential results, and Women's Health has already had a workout or two in more recent issues that have caught my eye. So I remain enthusiastic!
   I'll blog in a couple of weeks about my efforts and progress - I'm still so excited!



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