Heading to the gym....

So far, Mistah Mike and I are doing well on our quest to become gym rats. ;) We have a 5-6 day a week gym goal.

Last week we went 2 times, but I was out of town for Mon and Tues, and was not feeling well at all Fri. The week prior we made it 4 times. This week we will be doing 5 for sure!

On the list for tonight:

15 minutes walk/jogging (I have a raging headache and running makes it much worse), then off to work out chest and tri's for about 20 minutes. This is good for about 2-3 activity points for all of you Weight Watchers people. ;) DO this 5 times a week and you are talking one majorly fit couple!

We are avoiding burn-out (which is a major concern) by switching up our workouts. The goal is to get in strength training 5 day, but allowing our muscles to rest between 24 and 48 hours in between sessions.

I found out that the old stand-by of 24 hours is OK, but now they (and by they I mean the magical order of 'them' the collective strength training community... oh, and Bally's.) are thinking that 48 to 72 hours are better. You do not want to over work the muscles, because yes they will get bigger/better/stronger, but you will sacrifice flexibility for muscle mass. Scar tissue forms in your muscles if you repeatedly work the same group every day. And that scar tissue shortens the flex/stretch of teh muscle resulting in a loss of flexibility. Consider this my PSA for the strength training set. ;)

So the mix up is to follow a 5-day routine as follows:

Day 1 - Chest/Tris (tris are the assist muscle for your chest)
Day 2 - Legs/shoulders (you use a lot of energy and blood working out the legs, so you should couple it with the smallest mucles, shoulders, so you can get in a good workout without overtiring your system.)
Day 3 - Back/Bi's (bicepts are the assist muscles for the back)
Day 4 - C/T
Day 5 - L/S
Day 6 - rest
Day 7 - rest

Now for the next week - it would look a little something like this:
Day 1 - B/B
Day 2 - L/S
Day 3 - C/T
Day 4 - B/B
Day 5 - L/S

and the next week maybe:
Day 1 - C/T
Day 2 - B/B
Day 3 - L/S
Day 4 - C/T
Day 5 - B/B

And we keep on going. Pretty much as long as we start the week off with the muscle grouping that we did not do twice the week previous, and allow a few days of rest between each muscle grouping, we will stay fresh and on it.

Now cardio we are going to fit in 3-5 times a week as well. Running is a given for me, biking for Mike. however, I want to start to add different things as well. Elliptical machine, biking, stairs, walking, swimming, rowing my boat (not all activities must be at the gym, right?!), roller-blading, etc. A definite 10-20 minutes before a ST session is our goal. We want to be at the gym for around an hour of working out, so half and half seem to be working. We also do about 10 minutes of ab work as well.... oh you know - the plank (my fave!), crunches on the ball, and crunches on teh machine to work the abs and obliques.

Teh great thing is that Mike heads to the gym right after work, so I meet him there. Often we literally meet in the parking lot. It is like our time to get away from the world and to do something just for us. I call them our gym dates. *cue mike's "Awwwwww... how sappy" comment here*

Regardless... so far this is going quite well. I feel stronger, and better every day!