I’m not going to lie, sometimes I wonder if these posts are helpful or interesting since they don’t include a ton of workouts anymore. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked out 5+ days a week and while I love working out and believe fitness will always be incredibly important to me, I feel like my headspace surrounding fitness has shifted a lot. I could write a looong post all about this — and I feel like I summarized a lot of my thoughts in this post about Fitness in my 20s vs. Fitness in my 30s — but I guess I’m trying to say that while these posts aren’t workout-heavy, I hope they help show some of you out there who may feel like fitness has to be all or nothing that you don’t need dedicate hours to your workouts every day to reap the benefits of exercise both from a mental and physical perspective.
I’ve been averaging three (sometimes four) workouts a week for a while now and aesthetically don’t feel like I look much different from the time in my life when I was working out much more often. My kids keep me active and on my feet seemingly all day long and that lifestyle combined with three (or four) strength sessions a week is something I feel is working best for me right now. I love the workouts I do and this less-is-more approach to fitness is my jam in this phase of life with three young kids and work-from-home life to juggle.
I’d love to hear from any of you out there who might have experienced similar shifts in your exercise routine. Has your approach to fitness changed? Are you working our more or less than you were 5 or even 10 years ago? I’m curious and am considering diving into this a little deeper in a future post if it might be of interest but for now, here’s a peek into last week’s workouts!
Week of Workouts: August 2021
Monday: Total Body Pyramid Workout
I began the week with an early-morning garage workout that looked a lot like the above total body pyramid workout. I actually swapped out a few of the more intense cardio exercises for heavier strength exercises and lowered the rep count so it was a little different but it was still a pyramid-style workout. In case you’re curious, here are my substitutions: Heavy deadlifts in place of the tuck jumps (15 reps), overhead press in place of the mountain climbers (15 reps), triceps extensions in place of the jump rope (18 reps) and low rows in place of the skaters (12 reps per side).
The format of the pyramid workout looked like this: I worked my way up the pyramid completing the five exercises listed in the 20 reps section before moving onto 40 reps section followed by the 60 reps section. And then I went back down down the pyramid and completed the 60, 40 and 20 rep sections in reverse order.
Tuesday: 3 Mile Walk
No traditional workout happened for me on Tuesday other than a 3-mile walk with Ryder and Rhett while Chase was at kindergarten!
Wednesday: Leg Workout
I did an early morning garage workout on Wednesday morning inspired by a Burn Boot Camp leg day workout I streamed from my iPad. I love the fact that Burn offers new workouts six days a week and have been regularly using their streaming option since early 2020 when everything shut down due to the pandemic. Though I miss the community, trainer and access to additional weights and equipment, one thing I’ve loved about doing Burn workouts from home is the ability to swap out exercises and do my own thing if I feel like changing the protocol a bit. That’s exactly what I did on Wednesday morning and my rendition of the workout is featured above in the graphic. I actually changed three of the main exercises and changed the way I did squats. In the Burn online workout, they began with heavy squats before each exercises (15 in the first round, 12 in the second and 8 in the last). This ate into the time I spent doing the exercises in the workout so I did 10 heavy squats in round 1, 10 lighter squats in round 2 and bodyweight squats in round 3 before moving onto the designated exercise. It was a squat-heavy workout and I was definitely sore the next day!
Thursday: Upper Body Workout
On Thursday, I streamed another Burn Boot Camp workout during Rhett’s morning nap and followed along with the upper body strength session as Ryder played next to me in the driveway. The workout was similar to this upper body session I previously shared and focused on biceps, triceps, shoulders, chest and back. The only thing I changed was the TRX rows which I swapped for single arm rows.
Friday: 2 Mile Walk
My sister and her family arrived in town on Thursday afternoon and since they love walking as much as we do, a lot of little walks have occurred over the course of the past few days. On Friday morning, after Chase’s kindergarten drop off, we got the babies down for their naps and left their monitors with the dads (they’re both working out of our house right now) so we could take Callie and Ryder on a 2-mile walk around the neighborhood. The walk included a stop at a park for some playtime on the swings and was a particularly lovely walk because temperatures dropped dramatically and it was in the low 70s and sunny!
Saturday: 3 Mile Walk
We kicked off the day on Saturday with a big ol’ family walk around the neighborhood. We were quite the crew since my sister and brother-in-law and their dog and two girls joined us. There were a lot of bikes, strollers, kids, water breaks and snacks on this one!
Sunday: 4 Mile Walk
Rhett was up before 6 a.m. and wouldn’t settle back down after I nursed him so we were up briiight and early on Sunday. The big kids were awake by 6:30 a.m. and since everyone was ready to rock soon after the sun came up we let the kids stay in their pajamas and did a “jammie walk.” We covered four miles as a family and it was a nice way to kick of an otherwise eeearly morning with the kiddos.
Question of the Day
What does your exercise routine look like lately? Has it changed a lot in the past 5 to 10 years?
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