FB Strong diary: Week 4

Grande Finale incoming! :D

Day 1:

So for the last week we are back to twice upper body, twice lower body and once core, and the first workout targets the lower body.

For the start, there's a fast paced HIIT routine that provides a nice mixture of relatively static exercises, taxing the quads, and upward jumps. The difficulty felt moderate most of the time with some nice spikes. I focussed on putting alot of energy into the jumps, trying to touch the ceiling of my living room with every jump.

The second workout on todays plan was split in two, starting with Pilates exercises for the legs and finishing with heavy lifting, again for the lower body.

The Pilates part was surprisingly challenging and my future self writing these words currently feels some nice soreness in his inner thighs.

For the strength part, I really challenged myself by using my heaviest dumbells (29 lbs per hand) for all exercises and trying "real" pistol squads without assistance and without weights. I really want to be able to do proper form pistol squads one day! Still way to go, since I still cannot do the full range of motion. For the bridge, which is usually a bit too easy for me, I used 58 lbs, which made the exercise really challenging and gave me a nice burn in the glutes.

I added my posture exercises and a short but very interesting core routine, which was extra challenging because my drunken self proooobably fell on his but heaviely last weekend xD

Day 2:

I already knew this workout, so I knew what to go for: The decreasing number or reps made it too easy with the dumbells I have availible, so I went all out 3 times 10 for each exercise.

For the record: Reverse Fly, Lateral Raise and Ventral Raise with 4.5 lbs per hand, Tricep Extension and Pullover with 18 lbs per hand, Hammer Curl, Chest Fly (did this instead of Chest Press) and Shoulder Press with 29 lbs.

This approach made this workout an aaaabsolute killer! Focussing on clean form, every single exercise was quite a challenge. I am really happy that I see great progress on sume exercises, especially Chest Fly and Shoulder Press come to my mind. On the other hand, for quite a while I am now kinda stuck with my curls. They really challenge me alot and I absolutely try to go to my limit, but neither weight nore number of repetitions seem to increase.

Answays, my upper body got some fantastic work today and I added my posture exercises and my good old goto core routine.

Day 3:

This was a very fun, challenging core routine! The static exercises really gave the muscles a special challenge, especially the Toe Touch Hold, the Back Bow Hold and the Leg Raise Hold. Not much more to say about it. Thumbs up for this workout! :)

Another cool thing about today: My biceps (wahooo!) and chest are really sore from yesterday!

Day 4:

In comparison to Tuesday, this was a rather light upper body workout. I got a good sweat and of course it was not easy, but it didn't really push me to my limits. For some exercises like Chest Press and Close Chest Press my weights are just too light. I really want to buy a nice pair of powerblocks soon! :)

Since I had quite some fuel left in the tank and my core wasn't sore, I added a longer core workout of 18 minutes today, which I really enjoyed.

Day 5:

Yeeeees, one of my favorite lower body strength workouts! :D

I used my heaviest weights of 29 lbs per hand for all exercises and pushed myself really hard. And I actually found that I did better than I used to on several exercises.

As always, the last round with two times 50 seconds Jumping Lunges, supersetted with weighted Alternating Lunges was the perfect burnout, leaving me screaming and moaning out loudly x) During the second set of Jumping Lunges, I had to take a break of 5 seconds in the middle... let's see if I can do 10 more seconds without a break next time!

Apart from my posture exercises, I added my favorite go-to-core-workout to finnish off my last week of FB Strong. For my final review, I will probably make another posting, where I might link the four weekly diaries.

But for now: Thanks to all of you who have been reading my textwalls and posted motivating comments! You really helped me alot! :)