My Three Week Workout Plan Part One
This semester, I took a class on exercise for my science. In this class, we learned about the behind the scenes of what happens to our body when we exercise. We also learned a lot about how nutrition affects ourselves just as much as exercise does.
As the semester is coming to an end, our final project was to create a work out plan to follow for the next three weeks. In this plan, we had to follow specific guidelines. We had to write down all the healthy foods we were going to eat before and after the workout, the anaerobic and aerobic workouts that we were going to follow, the types of muscles that we were going to use, and the strategies that we are going to use to make the workout more challenging. I thought I'd share my weekly workouts as apart of my blog!
My goal for my three week workout plan is to strengthen my core. I'm going to be incorporating my core into other workouts (including legs, arms and cardio).
Monday: On Monday's, I'm going to be doing core and arms. For my anaerobic arm and core workouts, I'm going to be using a 12 pound dumbbell and doing 3 sets of 8 reps for everything. I am going to be doing dumbbell shoulder presses, Standing dumbbell curls, elbow squeeze, chest press, bent over row. On the cable machine, I'm going to set the weight to 70 and do lift extensions. After doing that for my anerobic arm workouts, I start doing some anaerobic ab exercises. These exercises are going to be in 2 sets of 15 reps. I'm going to be doing seated knee tucks, leg raises (with 5 pound leg weights), side crunches, toe touches (with 10 pound dumbbell), and cable core torso twists at a weight of 40. For aerobic workouts arm workouts, I'm going to be doing them in 3 sets of 12. These exercises include oblique twists and planks. For my cardio, I'm going to be doing a half hour on the elliptical and doing intervals. Before doing my workouts, I'm going to eat foods with a lot of protein and greens. These are some foods that I'm going to eat: salad with corn, tomato, kale and spinach, Kashi cinnamon cereal (for breakfast) and a whole wheat sandwich with turkey and cheese. After working out, it's important to replenish the muscles by eating healthy foods or else it's going to start using the fat that is already stored in the body. These post workout meals include yogurt, chicken breast, potatoes, and protein shake.
Tuesday: Before my workout, I'm going to be eating foods like Kashi honey and oats cereal, fruits, and turkey sandwich with whole grain bread. For my anaerobic leg workout plan, I'm going t one doing everything for 3 reps of 12 or 15. I'm going to be a sidewalk using an elastic band, squat kicks with 5 pound leg weights, 15 squats with 2 25 pound weights, sumo squats, and leg kickbacks. For ab workouts, I'm going to be doing side crunches, jack knife sit ups, seated knee tucks, chair leg raises, toe touches, Russian twists, and pike leg crunches. For aerobic workouts, I'm gong to be doing elevated leg raises (using 10 pound leg weights), cable core rotations, oblique twists, the steps (intense for 10 minutes), hip raises, elastic band side walk, fire hydrant, decline plank, one sided leg raise, and plank (for 2 minutes). After this intense workout, I'm going to eat foods like blueberries, protein shake, pineapple, belvita bites, Whole foods chicken breast and whole foods potatoes.
Wednesday: Every Wednesday, I go to bar class at the Bar Method. Bar is a good class to take to strengthen every muscle. In class, you do some ab exercises, a decent amount of arm exercises, and a lot of leg exercises. I definitely find the leg exercises to be the most intense because I always feel sore in the legs the next day. Bar incorporates core into basically every single workout through a number of ways. Throughout the entire time, they remind you to "zipper up" your stomach, which helps engage core a lot. There are a number of aerobic and anaerobic exercises that they teach you. The most that we use is light dumbbells (2-4 pound weights), cushions and the bar (of course). I really like Bar because I learn a lot of new exercises and stretches that I incorporate into my daily workouts. The time also goes by really fast, so even on a day that I'm exhausted from school, the time will fly by. Before class, I eat a variety of different foods like cinnamon raisin toast, apples, blueberries, water (VERY IMPORTANT), natural valley bar, everything bagel, vitamin water. To replenish my muscles after the workout, I have chicken salad, greek yogurt, water and protein smoothie.
Thursday: Before my workout on Thursday, I like to eat blackberries, strawberries, egg omelette, orange juice, wheat thins and peanut butter with ritz crackers. Since the past two days were involving legs, I'm going to make today about arms again like Tuesday. Today is basically the same workout as Tuesday, except I'm switching my form of cardio from elliptical to treadmill. On the treadmill, I do slow to fast intervals. A good way to do intervals is by the beat of a song. When it's a upbeat song, you go faster. When the song is slow, that's when you go slower. I first start off by walking for 3-4 minutes, just to warm up. After that, my fast is a 9 at most. When I go slower, I turn my sprint into a jog at the speed of around 5. For dinner after my workout, I like to have whole foods kale salad, orange juice, and pasta.
Friday: Fridays are usually my off days since it's the end of the week and I like to hangout with my friends or relax after school. Having off days is definitely an important factor of having a healthy exercise routine.
Saturday/Sunday: On either Saturdays or Sundays, I usually work on legs. I workout one day over the weekend just so I feel prepared for the week to come. My exercise leg routine is the same as Tuesdays routine. I like to mix up the form of cardio that I do for each day ( I don't like doing the same one consistently). Since I did steps on Tuesday, I'm going to do the lateral elliptical (I don't know the actual name of the machine, so I renamed it). On the lateral elliptical, you are working the inside of the leg instead of the outside. This part usually doesn't get a lot of attention because people are usually working on the outer part of the leg. I keep it at a constant resistance of 5 and a length of 10, so I get a good range of motion, but it's also challenging my legs aswell.
Watch out for next weeks workout plan, where it gets more challenging!