I had a rather pleasant thought this morning. If my body fat % is correct… I have 140lbs of lean mass. (I’m 5’5 by the way). Do you know how many woman FIGHT to get to 140lbs of mass!? Sheesh! If I can maintain this I’ll be able to walk onto a body building stage without having to do any ‘bulking’. Not that I intend to, but the thought was there. I had to smile at that one.

Also I’ve been looking over my records – I’ve added 5 (or more) pounds to EVERY lift except bicep curls in the past month. (focus on the positive here…)

So I hit the gym this morning in a positive frame of mind. Oh yeah – I actually jumped out of bed and walked across the room before the thought ‘Man I’m tired!’ crossed my mind. It was nice not to have to fight to get up and merely fight to STAY that way. Anyway, I hit the gym (well I didn’t HIT it – I did manage to park the car in a stall, and I didn’t run into the wall or door walking in, that’s progress for me!) ;) and headed for the treadmill. It’s a training day and I needed to run. I really wasn’t feeling it, I started trying to give myself excuses why NOT to run, but I quickly threw those thoughts away and climbed on. I couldn’t remember how many miles I was supposed to run (dumb I know) so I did 2.25 just to be sure. I set the treadmill at 1.5% incline and went for it. I had to walk a few times and couldn’t maintain 5.0 MPR for very long but I did it! I finished in 30:25 minutes!

After that I headed to the weight room to do arms. After three warm up sets I did:

EZ Bar Curl: 55 x 6 / 55 x 6

Now, remember how I said I had gone up on every lift but curls? I thought today might be a good day to change that so I grabbed the 30 lb dumbbells. Much to my frustration it wasn’t happening. I could do TWO and that was it :( So I went back to the 25 lb ones and did my sets.

Alt Dumbbell Curls: 25 x 6 / 25 x 6
Cable Curl: 85 x 6

I then went over to the cable pull down station, loaded on my weight and clipped on the rope. I put my back to the machine and tried an overhead pulldown… I couldn’t believe how hard it was! After trying and failing at 30 lb curls I was starting to get a little frustrated. I pulled the five pound rubber weight off the top of the stack and tried again. Still couldn’t do it. I start thinking “What’s wrong with me? Am I overtraining? I did 55 lbs last week and now I can’t even do 50! Am I eating too little now and losing my strength?” I turned around to set the pin lower and that’s when I noticed – I had set it at 60 – NOT 50… DUH. I think I need to wear my glasses while working out!

Overhead Tri PullDown: 50 x 6 / 55 x 6
Tri Pushdown: 105 x 6 / 110 x 6 (up another five pounds on this one!)
Tri Kickbacks: 30 x 6 (yes – five pounds here too)

One thing I’ve noticed that got me wondering. I can lift more weight with my Tri’s then my Bi’s… is that normal?

So, workout was done and I hit the showers. While I was in the shower I realized something. It’s time to change my program. I’ve been doing Max-OT since October 10.. that’ll be 7 weeks at the end of this week. I think it’s long enough. I’m starting to notice I’m sore and achy in my wrists elbows and knees instead of my muscles. I think it’s time to let my ligaments, joints and tendons some time to recovery and strengthen. So starting Monday I’m going to change things up… MAJORLY. The 24hour fitness guy wants me to do a full body workout three days a week and cardio three days a week. Since we’re meeting with him two days a week for the next two weeks I think I’ll do that. I think the recovery time will do me good – with full days of rests built in. Once those two days are over… I’m not sure what I’ll do. I think by that time I’ll be itching to load up a 45 lb plate… heheheh. I don’t know – give me some suggestions folks – I’m open.