Day 1: Body of an Action Hero

Today was the first day of me and Paula's adventure through the fitness world of working out. After recovering from the unhealthy eating habits and battling sickness throughout the holidays, it was time for us to get our butts back into gear and start exercising and promoting health. As I stated before, we both decided to try different workouts and then blog about it as honestly as we could and relay the results. Also stated before, me and Paula are not certified or are professionals when it comes to personal training. We both know our limits and how hard we can push ourselves where we will not harm our bodies. If you are wanting to tray our workouts please consult a physician or someone such as a personal trainer beforehand.

I was not excited waking up at 5am to get ready to workout, but I knew that my day would be so much better if I got this out of the way. In my personal opinion, it is so much better to workout in the morning because once you get going you start waking up and then you don't have to dread working out later. JUST GET IT OUT OF THE WAY! Anyways, day 1 started today.

For Mondays workout, we started with a 6-minute warm-up on the treadmill/elliptical at an "aggressive" speed (as the workout referred to it). We then started with abs which is different than some workouts because they usually leave that until the end. The first exercise was grueling and we knew that this workout was gonna get the best of us. We were supposed to do 3x50 of crunches (3 sets of 50 crunches = 150 crunches total). I can honestly say that we did finish all of them but not without a struggle. the next two exercises focused on abs which we modified to workout not only the "abs in front" but also our obliques (side abs).
The next three exercises focused on our biceps with a series of bicep curls using dumbbells, barbells, and the cable machines. Since this is new for us and because we have been semi-sedentary for the holidays, we had to decrease the repetitions of each exercise in lieu of getting hurt. Now these exercises, for our biceps and triceps, required us to do three different sets. The first set were 15 repetitions of a low weight (which for us was about an 8lbs weight), the second set were 12 repetitions of a higher weight (about 10lbs), and the last set were 10 repetitions of an even higher weight (we used either a 10lbs to 12lbs). The bicep curls the first time were not so bad, however, when we used the barbells we were having a lot of difficulty. So we decided to decrease the repetitions accordingly.
**If you look on the website that shows our workout (in the first blog below) it says to do cable bicep curls. We changed that exercise to work a differs part of our arms so to get the full workout of the arms. I am not quite sure what the exercise is called but once I find out I will definitely put it in the blog next time.**
The last three exercises pertained to our triceps (back of the arms) doing triceps extensions, cable pull downs, and tricep kickbacks. These exercises were not as bad because we used lighter weights since we both knew are triceps were not as strong. The kickbacks was the only workout that we decreased repetitions at the highest weight to prevent injury.

This entire workout last for about an hour and five minutes. So if you are wanting to try today's workout, you will need a good solid hour to get the right amount of rest in between sets so your muscles can recover. When I asked Paula how she liked the workout, she said that she liked it a lot because we have done workouts (such as Insanity) that is just purely cardio, but this one really focuses on the weights and getting more muscle. Now we are supposed to do cardio later today as the workout (by Michael Torchia) stated that results are most effective if cardio was done 6 to 9 hours after the weight training. We will see how that goes!

Please definitely leave comments, questions, or concerns. I would love to hear feedback and if there is anything I need to add or leave out.

Oh and I forgot. As far as food, I ate a Meal Bar made by South Beach that is 12g protein 9g of fiber and about 180 calories. It was a small bar but it filled me up. And I also drank a bottle water throughout the workout and finished it afterwards. So far so good on the Healy food stuff, but we will see how long that lasts haha.

Well enjoy!