Today's workout. Monday is ALWAYS leg day for me. Granted, I'm following a routine from the amazing Cori of Redefining Strength but even when I design my own routine I always have Mondays (and Thursdays!) as my leg days. Gotta start the week with the strongest and most energy-demanding muscle group.
The first three exercises are part of my warm-up. My main lift for the day was the sumo deadlift. Four sets of varying rep ranges, with a minute of rest in between. The first set was 10 reps so I decided to do 125 pounds. Second set was 8 reps so I increased it to 135. Third set was 6 and at this point I debated how heavy I should go.
My 135 pounds for 8 reps felt really strong but I didn't want to mindlessly push myself. This exercise is actually still fairly new for me. It was actually just 3 months ago that I FINALLY figured out what my optimal stance was! So I'm still building my strength with this exercise.
I decided to do 150 pounds for 6 reps and oh boy, I felt really strong. In retrospect, I think I could've pushed it to 165 but ah well. There's always next week. Besides, the 4th and final set was a drop set type so I immediately removed the plates and went back to pulling 125 pounds for 10 reps. I have a love-hate relationship with drop sets on compound exercises like the deadlift because while the weight is light it's usually done immediately after you did a really heavy one, so you're most likely nearing your max heart rate X_x Still, I finished this exercise strong.
By the time I got to my supersets (B-Stance Romanian Deadlift + Step Up to Reverse Lunge) and trisets (Goblet Squat + Alternating Front Lunges + Single Leg Hip Thrusts) though.... yeahhh. 😫 The exhaustion was starting to sink in. I was OK until I started doing those Step Up to Reverse Lunges. I pretty much did the same thing in that video (even the height of the step is similar)... except I was holding a pair of 25 pound dumbbells and I couldn't really stand on my toe at the top of the movement. It was simply taking up too much of my concentration and energy just to actually lift and balance those weights up 😱It's got to a point where I had to pause and take mini-rests in between reps because I was simply breathing too hard.
I still love doing supersets/tri-sets/giant sets though even if they kick my ass. 😆