Hi Peeps! Well here I go, starting a new fitness program this week! I love my Turbo Jam! Cardio really does make you feel like you worked out, you are puffing, breathing hard, all sweaty after a good cardio exercise, BUT I think its time to bring it up a notch and look into more serious strength training. After lots of googling and talking to friends the unanimous consensus is that muscle burns fat! and to not be afraid of lifting heavy. My biggest concern, of course, is to bulk up. Once again the general consensus is that women do not bulk up as men do. Women need to work extra hard to gain that muscle because we are women and we naturally tend to store fat more easily. So after jumping on the idea that I should seriously start doing more weight lifting and switch my 5'lbs dumbbells for heavier weights I started to research which program I should do. Since I am a
beachbody coach I looked at those programs first. I decided for
ChaLEAN Extreme. My reasons are the following: I am not ready for pull ups! lol hence
P90x will have to wait, plus I like Chalene. She has that cheerleader personality that makes want to push more, want more. Although Tony is great too. I have
Power 90 and I totally love his cheesy jokes, but like I said I am not ready for pull ups just yet.
Monday was day 1, of Burn Circuit 1. What I can say is SLOW AND HEAVY! the point of this program is to reach "failure" meaning you can't possibly do another rep without loosing proper form by the 12th rep. I am excited about this Burn Phase which is the first 30 days. Yesterday was a rest day, because you shouldn't weight train everyday. You need to give time for your muscles to repair. But just because it was my rest day for weight training didn't mean that I couldn't do Cardio. So I did my Turbo Jam!. Today is Burn Circuit 2, and I can't wait to get home and do that workout!
I'll still be doing Turbo Jam, and when
Turbo Fire comes out, I'll do a combo of both ChaLEAN Extreme and Turbo Fire. I have the Sneak Peek of Turbo Fire, and its WOW! super intense cardio, lots of jump training. So here I go super ready and pumped to do 90 days of ChaLEAN Extreme! who is with me?
I'm glad you've come to the conclusion to do strength training. Too many women I know shy away from it using the excuse you mentioned of not wanting to get too muscle-y and bulky.
ReplyDeleteI normally try to explain that in most cases, this is not an issue. What many women don't realize is that the reasons for the multibillion dollar supplement and muscle magazine markets are because most men that are lifting heavy weights can't seem to actually get big.
Another thing that people don't realize is that the only way you can build big muscles is to have a large caloric surplus through nutrient dense foods. If your diet doesn't have a large calorie surplus, you could spend all day bench pressing small cars and elephants and you'd get cut but you wouldn't gain much muscle.
Oh, one last thing you want to watch out for. You're right to jump to cardio after the weights but its more than just your muscles that need the break. You're entire system is hard at work with anything you do. Especially your nercous system. You're muscles can feel fine but if you nervous system is still exhausted, you'll be weak. Give that a few ddays rest from everything every 4 weeks or so. Sometimes you might even want to take a week off.
Good luck!
Thanks Kris! This is week 2 of Chalean Extreme. I can't believe I lifting 15lbs dumbbells. In some instances I believe I can even go 20's...very empowering! :)
ReplyDelete