Day 2, Week 1: Boot Camp, Barbells, and Ab Creases

It's officially back to the weight-lifting grind this week, and I did my first non-recovery weight workout in about two weeks at 4 AM this morning.  Why 4 AM?

• Because on Thursdays I have to be at work super early every week
• The animals like to wake me up at 3:30 AM, so I was up anyway
• Because why the heck not?

I wanted to ease back into my weight-lifting groove, so naturally I selected the workout from Cathe's Strong & Sweaty series titled "BOOT CAMP" because boot camps are known for their relative ease, amiright?

The reason I like this series is that the workouts are on the shorter side for Cathe, but man do they pack a punch.  This workout doesn't use as much equipment as her other workouts, but you don't need fancy schamncy workout stuff to be suffering and sweaty after 45 minutes or so.

I know what you're thinking - WTF WOMAN, you need a BARBELL?  Well...yeah.  But you can use dumbbells if you want.  Don't get all crazy on me.  But I prefer the barbell, so I asked for one for Christmas one year and Santa lugged that heavy box under the tree for me.  I also didn't have a step for many, many years even though I had workouts that required one, so don't let that stop you from doing this workout either.

This workout has a lot of variety.  She does six "rounds" of exercises, with each round consisting of a cardio burst using the step, a lower body exercise, a compound exercise, and an upper body exercise.  She hits all of the major muscle groups (no abs, though-scroll down to see what I think of the ab workout on the same disc) and wastes no time.

So how did the workout go?  Let me tell you in a picture:

Even the dogs were like, WIMP. PICK IT UP.  And no, I didn't really work out in sandals.  Relax.

I could totally tell that I hadn't done anything like this in a while.  The cardio left me wheezing, and I was struggling on some of the upper body exercises.  But I soldiered on, because I like to have enough muscle definition to discourage any would-be attackers that may pop out of the corn on my runs and get me.  And I also must love not being able to walk later in the day, because this workout is just that glute-tastic.

Anyway, after wheezing my way through the actual workout, I did the ab workout that was on the DVD.  And then I died.

Just kidding.  But man, this ab workout is not for the faint of heart.  I felt as if I had a permanent crease in my mid-section after it was all over.  Just know this: the soul of this workout is every evil muscle-trembling move ever used in pilates.  And then she throws some planks on just for fun.  Consider yourself warned.

So, if my glutes ever unclench and the crease goes away in my abs, I will be doing a 7 mile tempo run tomorrow at around a 9 minute pace.  I plan on attaching a dog to me so he can pull me along, which, in my book, still counts as "doing a tempo."