Day 7 - Level 1

As you may have noticed, I've decided to rotate through levels 1 - 3. I'm going to do this 3 times and then I will change things up again. Today was Level 1, the first day of Round 3!

For some reason the shoulder presses in Circuit 1 (following the full pushups) were really difficult for me today. I barely managed to make it through them - and I definitely could not keep my arms at 90 degrees the whole time. I did, however, manager to force myself to use 8lb weights for both sets of bicep curls in Circuit 2, instead of going down to 5 lbers on the 2nd set.

I decided to up the ante on the ab moves - I find them so easy in Level 1. So, I simply did the moves on my Bender ball. Yup, that did it. Killer. I highly recommend this ball. The workouts themselves are boring. The set is boring, the leader is boring - it's quite brutal. But the moves themselves are very effective. That ball makes a crunch at least 10 times more difficult than just doing it on the floor. Trust me - it works!

Also - I need to get some heavier weights for some of the moves - the arm rows and chest flies in particular. However, until then, there are ways to make the moves more difficult.

For arm rows concentrate on keeping your shoulder blades pulled together throughout the whole move. Don't release the contraction when you lower your arms out of the row. This will increase the difficulty level substantially!

For the chest flies simply do not bring your arms all the way up to the top. The move gets easier as you bring the weights up, so by stopping the movement before you reach the top, you keep the contraction going, therefore making it harder.

Do not try any of these suggestions and do not increase your weights, until you can do the moves with good form comfortably.

See you tomorrow!