FB Strong diary: Week 2

Wahooo, I am halfway through with FB Strong. Here's my detailed day-by-day review of the second week. :)

Day 1:

To start the second week, I had a short portion of HIIT on the calendar, followed by lower body strength, and I started this week pretty relaxed and regenerated. No more soreness left :)

The HIIT part was a pretty good start, getting the lower body heated up and the muscles already stressed quite a bit.

The following strength part was... well... not 100% my cup of tea. The deadlifts and the bridges were the only classic "pump" exercises, while all the other exercises included certain step combinations. They definitely challended the brain a bit more, but for me they also made it harder to focus on the form and maximum range of motion, and they also all felt reeeeally long, doing ten repetitions per side, each repetition being kinda complex and extended by itself. Like I said, I found it pretty hard to keep my form clean and I even had the impression that it was simmilar for Kelly, because most of her squads looked more like 3/4 squads to me, too.

Also I found it tough to chose a good weight... next time I will go a bit lighter, I think. Sometimes I had a nice weight in the beginning, but the pure duration of the exercises made it too heavy in the end. Sometimes it even became pretty tough to keep the dumbells up over my shoulders for the whole time, which again made it harder to focus on the muscles that I was actually supposed to train.

All in all, I didn't get as good a pump as I did with last week's lower body workouts and the exhaustion came mainly from the very long intervals of staying in a squad-like motion without getting back up. It's been a different kind of a strength workout, so I am okay with it for variety and for getting out of my comfort zone, but it's nothing I would do too often. From my perspective, the whole thing almost felt more like a cardio workout (- the cardio effect was really good btw.! I got a really good sweat almost from the beginning to the end).

Just like last week, I added my posture exercises with the gymnast band and a short core routine of 8 minutes, which turned out to be pretty brutal, apart from the concluding recline oblique twist, which was by far the easiest exercise and thus a little bit anticlimactic x)

Day 2:

As expected, there's not alot of soreness to be felt from yesterday's workout. The only muscle that's really sore is my neck, which apparently got challenges quite alot during my posture exercises x)

Well, today it was upper body time again, and this time for people who get bored easiely. And damn, this was fun! :D I was already used to all exercises, but the combination was really cool and just made the time fly by like it was nothing!

For the record: I used 29 lbs per hand for Chest Fly, Hammer Curl, Chest Press (way too light for this one... need heavier weights), Shoulder Press, Bicep Curl, Close Chest Press (also too light) and Close Row; 4.5 lbs for Bent Over Fly, Ventral Raise (started with 18 lbs, which was clearly too much, so I switched the wights after afew reps) and Lateral Raise and 18 lbs for the rest.

For the Pullovers, I really tried to focus on the form and on activating the lats. Still a bit tough for me, but I think it was better than last week.

I finished my routine with my usual band exercises and a short abs round - today no experiments, but rather one of my faves.

Really looking forward to tomorrow's chest workout! Last week the chest day was the only one that didn't completely get me, so I hope tomorrow will be abs on fire! :D

Day 3:

Time to go for the core again! Which is good, because my especially my triceps were still pretty sore from the recent upper body workout ;)

In comparison the the first week, this core routine felt much better to me! The introducing HIIT part, which consisted of only tough exercises, got the heart rate up to a nice level and the core exercises provided a good challenge, especially to the obliques. The particular exercises were all well known to us more experienced blenders, but the arrangement felt really good and also kept the HIIT-swet up and running untill the end. Maybe I will add some extra time to the final plank next time, since just 50 seconds plank is a bit too easy.

No additional core exercises today, but at least I continued with my posture exercises, which appear to be very effective, judged by the amount of soreness they provide :)

Day 4:

This was an interesting upper body workout! Three sets of 8 made it pretty intense, and especially the last group with the overhand grip really was something I don't do every day.

I went as heavy as possible on the weights, while keeping the form mostly clear. For the bench press and the close row I went for 29 lbs per hand. For the lateral and ventral raises, I actually changed the weight on one set of my dumbells, what I usually rather avoid. I used to do 4,5 lbs per hand on these exercises, which became way too easy, so I went up to 12 lbs. Was quite a challenge, but it worked :) The pullovers I did with 18 lbs, same as the overhand curls, and for the overhand triceps extension again I went for 12 lbs. Usually I lift more on triceps extensions, but at this point and with the strange grip, the lighter weight still brought me to my limits :)

For the core I did a 15 minutes 4/5 routine this time, which was quite tough, too! Great workout day all together!

Day 5:

Holy cow, what a way to end week 2! This was a monster of a lower body workout, which definitely deserves the 5/5 rating! Man, my legs were buuuurning! :D

I used 29 lbs per hand on squads, step ups, side step ups, deadlifts and clean & press (actually that's the heaviest dumbell I have availible atm... definitely need to upgrade soon!), 18 lbs for the quad plus reverse lunge and single leg deadlifts and no weight at all for the pistol squad. I tried to do the full version of the the exercise, but I think I still have to get a little deeper for really good form.

In the end, this workout not only brought my leg muscles to their maximum, but also kept the intensity so hight that is sweat alot throughout the whole routine! And I REALLY enjoyed it alot! Especially after being a bit disappointed with the first lower body workout of this week, it felt amazing to finish the week with such a great blast to the legs!

As always, I added my posture exercises and a short core routine, this time the go-to-routine from my favorites, which actually became extra-hard to do after the tough workout and while focussing on perfect form.

Expecting some sore glutes and legs tomorrow :)

Weekend:

The weekend was pretty relaxed. I did my optional 6th day on Saturday with a couple of posture exercises. It was actually not just easy stretches, but also consisted some harder exercises, and I added a core routine in the end.

On Sunday I did my wife's optional 6th day together with her... which already includes a reeeeally cool point: After doing the one workout together last weekend, she got herself FB Reach, directly started it last week and really enjoyed it so far :D We will try to do one workout together each week from now on!

All in all, the second week was really fun again. The Monday-workout was the one I enjoyed the least, but probably it's intentional to throw one of rather different day in. Like I said, not the worst idea to sometimes get out of your comfort zone ;)

I already took a short peek into week 3 and it seems there will be a big change this week, moving on to more full body strength workouts. I am already curious to see how this will turn out!