Burn Sets & Grading: Make the commitment!

This morning I was up very early because I have to finish my procrastigrading before school resumes tomorrow (ugh).  I decided to work out first, and, since I destroyed my legs with a faster-than-normal 12 mile run yesterday, pumping iron was on the menu for today.  I chose Cathe's Burn Sets from her new XTrain series, dragged out all of my weights (3 lbs-20 lbs) plus some other equipment (resistance tubing, firewalker band, stability ball), and got started at about 6:30 this AM.

See this face?  I made this face a lot this morning.  Only with my face, not Cathe's.

I chose to do the complete upper body workout, which is about 70 minutes long.  It worked chest, shoulders, back, biceps, and triceps, doing three sets of about 10 reps each with some pretty heavy weights; the last set you were supposed to go to failure.  My idiotic self kept choosing weights that were too light, so when the failure set came around, I was all like, "Hey!  This was easy!" as all the people on screen were having their arms fall off by the middle of the set and were struggling to put them back on before Cathe started the next round.

Not really.  But I never felt like my arm was going to fall off.  Note for next time--heavy up.  I was having weight envy the entire time, what with Cathe busting out 30 and 35 pound weights; the heaviest weights I own are 20 pounders. I felt so inadequate.

Overall, this workout is a nice solid weight-lifting grunt-inducing workout.  The moves are not complicated (in fact, a lot of them are traditional moves we all know and love to hate), and she does give you about 30 seconds of rest between most sets. This workout can be broken up into two separate ones (Chest, back, and shoulders vs. Bi's & Tri's) if you'd like to split up the pain over two days.  Or, you can check out one of the many premixes available if you want a longer or shorter workout, depending on your preference.  You can also add a core routine to your weights if you are so inclined to torture yourself further.

And there's DUDES in the background.  I felt kind of weird about that, as if they were hanging out in the women's locker room or something.  I'm sure I'll get used to it.  Maybe.

My only criticism of the workout are the burn sets, which are exercises right after you do three sets of exercises for the same body part.  They really weren't burning me.  Maybe just lightly singeing me.  Perhaps it's because I didn't really go to failure on most of the failure sets that I wasn't feeling their firepower, but on my first go-around with this workout, they seemed like more of annoying add-on afterthought than anything else.  My other only criticism is that Cathe keeps using the word "commit" throughout the workout.  "Commit to this set!" "Show your commitment!"  I felt like I was going to have to buy her a ring after awhile just to prove it.  I'm doing the workout Cathe--I'm freaking committed already.

Speaking of commitment, I now have to commit to grading 90 final exams that I haven't graded yet, and they must be graded by tomorrow.  That's going to take more mental strength than I needed this morning during my workout, for sure.  If you would like to come over and do this grading for me, please leave your name and address in the comments.