Hi Everyone

During the past week I’ve been focusing on building muscle. In my legs primarily, but I haven’t neglected the rest of my body either. I think it was Tuesday when I worked my legs and I did a warm-up set first and then 3-4 sets of heavy weights (at least they were heavy for me). I did squats and really focused on my butt and ball-wall squats (put a ball against a wall, lean back against it and squat – you should feel it in your thighs). I also did curtsy lunges without the kick as seen at the following link: http://www.prevention.com/cda/categorypage.do?channel=news.voices&category=videos&videoID=a8a8e3e5af6bb110VgnVCM20000012281eac____

I was sore for about the next two days, so instead I focused on my upper body by doing back, chest, shoulder and arm exercises.

So today, I’m planning to work my legs hard again, but I want to introduce some new exercises because ‘they’ say that exercise variety will give you the quickest results because your body won’t get the chance to adapt. Let’s see what I find…

I went to the Muscle&Fitness Hers site and I found lunges on a bench – that sounds hard. I’ll do that. Plie’ squats, which I haven’t been doing. Romanian deadlifts to work hamstrings. If you go under Training and do a little searching, you’ll find articles on working your legs:

http://www.muscleandfitnesshers.com/training

The next site, Bodybuilding.com, I find more exercises like the split squat

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/5_exercises_for_strong_shapely_legs.htm

Here’s another workout routine for the butt, but there’s nothing all that different – just more squats and lunges:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/planet46.htm

So I guess that’s the secret. A bunch of squats and lunges with variations every week to keep your muscles guessing. After looking at all those articles, I’m totally motivated to workout now, so here I go!

Good luck and thanks for reading.

The following was posted after my workout

Hi Everyone – I’m back! I just had a super killer workout despite being interrupted twice by my daughter. The first time was a 20minute diversion after she woke up from a nightmare. It was right in the middle of the curtsy lunges. So, I calmed her down, got her dressed, gave her a little breakfast…the second time she needed help changing from a DVD to the TV…but I digress…

The point is I had a super killer leg and butt workout and I had TONS of energy. I did narrow stance squats, regular stance squats, ball-wall squats, dead-lifts, curtsy lunges, plie squats. Unfortunately, I don’t write anything down, so I can’t remember exactly what I did. And I lifted heavy, about as heavy of a dumbbell that I can lift. For the narrow stance squats, I was up to 80lbs (40lbs in each hand). After lifting, I got on the bike for about 20minutes (this is where the second interruption happened) I could have gone on longer – like I said I had TONS of energy. I attribute this to re-introducing starchy complex carbs back into my diet during the past week, like oatmeal and brown rice. I did have one cup of coffee before my workout, but no amount of coffee gives you energy like this! Have I learned the secret to carbo-loading? I wonder.

I know I’m going to be hobbling around for the next three days, but I’m excited about the results. Of course, I need to be careful not to undo my efforts by succumbing to my sugar cravings. I’ll need to be extra vigilant about that.

A few posts ago, I wrote that I had lost my motivation. Wasn’t that just last week. Have I gotten my motivation back? Yes! All it took was changing my diet a little bit and my workout approach. I feel ready to go again.

Good luck and thanks for reading