A SUPER New Year

The hardest part of any beginning fitness program is sticking with it.  Seriously, most of us start out great for a week or two, maybe three being dedicated and on fire.  We have the eye of the tiger and give a 110%.  We sweat, we feel the burn, and we are workout animals hear us ROAR!   Then . . . our busy schedules and sore muscles cause us to miss workout sessions and before you know it you've quit.


Knowing that this could happen, I decided to create monthly themed workouts that would hopefully keep me motivated to go do the workouts.  I put together three monthly themes:  Superhero, Covert Commando, and Toga.


Each themed month has a variety of different workouts that I rotate through alternating between lighter weight/ higher repetition routines and heavier weight/ lower rep routines.  My goal is not to get all pumped up like Aahhnold, but I do want to develop some muscle mass as muscle mass does aid the body in burning more fat which IS the goal.


I kicked off the year with my Superhero workouts cause nothing says strong fit body like a superhero physique.  The monthly workouts that I used were Superman, Capt. America, The Hulk, and Thor.  These workouts were a mix of heavy and light to medium strength training routines.


Typically I do three sets and unless its a heavy weight workout, I'm doing it circuit style.  This means that I kick off the workout with 5 minutes of cardio then go right into my first circuit of one set of each exercise in the routine back to back with as little rest as possible.  That first circuit is then followed by another 5 minute cardio blast so I my routine is:   Cardio for 5 min - 1st Circuit - Cardio for 5 min - 2nd Circuit - Cardio for 5 min - 3rd Circuit - Cardio for 5 minutes.   For me, personally, this style of exercising allows me to really focus and get intense for a solid 40 to 60 minutes and it keeps my heart rate up and the sweat dripping down.  On days that I do heavy workouts, I do a shorter warm-up cardio (about 3 mins) then I do the weight routine followed by 15 to 20 mins of cardio.


The first month doing the Superhero workouts I felt horrible, my old butt was dragging,  and I seriously considered quitting.  However, two things kept me showing up at the gym each week - convenience of going to the gym (I use The Wellness Fitness Center at MSUM) and just knowing if I could get through that first month it WOULD get easier and results would show.


Next time I'll blog more on month TWO with the Covert Commando themed workouts.