You Workout On Saturdays?

This morning Drew and I got up for a long session at the gymnasium. He wanted to go swimming again, but because that isn't much of a workout for either of us, we both wanted to workout prior to the swimming. I figured I'd use today as a lifting day and also do some cardio before swimming.

When we got to the gym, the woman at the front desk looked at us and said, "You workout on Saturdays too?" She was impressed with our dedication, so it was nice that someone else noticed that we've been coming consistently. Although Drew probably will end up actually going to the gym more than me because I've now decided that for running, I'm going to be staying outside whenever possible.

I'm starting Week 4 of my weight training plan. This week all exercises are done to fatigue. Generally, I was supposed to be aiming to hit fatigue somewhere around 10-15 reps. The book had a good point in saying, "Your muscles do not count, they respond to stress. Do not do 10 reps and stop if you can do more." Drew and I did a quick 5 minutes on the treadmill and then headed over to the weight area.

This was the workout I did:

Dumbbell Squats: 1 set of 25 reps @ 15 lbs (per arm) / 1 set of 12 reps @ 25 lbs (per arm) / 1 set of 12 reps @ 25 lbs (per arm)
Dumbbell Rows (right arm): 1 set of 20 reps @ 15 lbs / 1 set of 15 reps @ 20 lbs / 1 set of 12 reps @ 20 lbs
Dumbbell Rows (left arm): 1 set of 15 reps @ 20 lbs / 2 sets of 12 reps @ 20 lbs
Barbell Curls: 2 sets of 10 reps @ 35 lbs / 1 set of 8 reps @ 35 lbs
Ab Bench Crunches: 3 sets of 15 reps
Crunches: 3 sets of 15 reps

Drew said that he would help me with my squat form so we did about 12 body weight squats so that I could get the feeling of the motion. He said that my form looked really good. I started with 15 lbs in each hand, but was able to do too many reps, so I decided to go with 25 lbs in each hand. Then I felt like the hardest part of the squat was holding the weight, not the actual squat itself. I still think that next time I could bump up the weight some more if my goal is to get to 10 reps.

I had a really hard time trying to figure out what weight to start out with. On the dumbbell rows, it was really hard for me to not just duplicate what I had done with my right arm, even though 15 lbs was clearly too light. I had to remind myself that my muscles would be just as stressed even though I didn't do as many reps. Good advice from the book!

After that I had about 25 minutes to do some cardio. I have seen people using this Nautilus machine at the gym that is essentially two treadmills next to each other (one for each foot). I decided that I would try it out. Um, yeah. It's practically impossible to figure out how to program that thing. I tried to program it, which involved about 25 steps, and gave up and did the 5 minute demo. Twice during the demo, my foot fell from one treadmill to the other, so I realized that is probably not the exercise equipment for me and I headed over to the stairs.

I hopped on the Stair Mill, set it for 20 minutes at Level 10 and climbed away! So much better. I didn't fall off, I understood how to work the machine, I was happy. After my 20 minutes, we headed up to the locker rooms to get changed for the swimming. I drank my Muscle Milk while I was changing in order to get some calories and protein in after my workout.

Then it was time to hit the pool. Drew is definitely looking better in general, but I still don't think he's going to win any contests. I had him do more of the same thing that we did last week - use a pull buoy and work on breathing and his stroke. We then did some kicking with a kick board for the first time and he's not so skilled at that. I wish I knew what the problem was, as I'd really like to try to fix it, but when he was kicking, he wasn't moving. At all. Of course, I wasn't helping matters, as I found the whole thing to be silly and was laughing. I'm going to have to research this a little bit further.

We then spent the rest of our time in the pool goofing off a little bit and seeing how long we could swim underwater while holding our breath. As much as Drew is a sinker while swimming the front crawl, he is a floater when trying to swim underwater and holding his breath. I definitely am better at holding my breath, but I'm not sure whether or not that's a good life skill?

All in all, I am glad that Drew is getting into the pool more. I find the whole thing to be a little bit of a challenge and am going to have to see if I can research some tips on kicking for beginners in swimming.

Weight Lifting
Time: 34:20
Calories: 256
Maximum HR: 162
Average HR: 127

Nautilus / Stair Mill
Time: 24:44
Distance: 2.00 miles
Calories: 272
Maximum HR: 170
Average HR: 159

Swimming
Time: 30:33
Calories: 166
Maximum HR: 156
Average HR: 113