Round 6: Day 40: Shoulders and Arms

It took a long time to get moving this morning. I awoke at the customary 6:15AM (even though it's Canada Day, fitness doesn't take a holiday) and lounged around for almost an hour before getting in the proper frame of mind to exercise. It seems that my mind wanted to take a day off, and needed convincing. It just goes to show you that much of exercising is dealing successfully with the mental aspect. Once you've gained the ability to control your mind, the rest just seems to flow.

Once I got my mind straightened out, the workout moved really quickly. I needed to pause the DVD a couple of times just to adjust the weight of my dumbbells. I noticed that just prior to several exercises, there's an edit in the tape, because at times, Joe is writing something down, or looking for his weights, when all of a sudden he' s standing up ready to do the exercise. I think there's a bit of judicious editing here and there to keep the workout under the mental barrier of 60 minutes. Working out for longer than 60 minutes seems to be too much; less than 60 minutes seems manageable. These BeachBody people really know what they're doing.

I was able to increase the weight on a couple of exercises but, on others, I decreased my weight for the second round. I just found that on some exercises, I really struggled with what I was lifting, so eased up a bit when I had the opportunity. I don't want to sacrifice form for numbers. Also, strangely enough, the tip of the day (don't forget to breathe) really came in handy today. I actually found myself holding my breath a couple of times when I was struggling to get the weights up (shoulder flys, bicep curls). Breathing helped me not only maintain my lifting rhythm, but also seemed to increase my strength.

I'm going to keep up with my workout schedule, but I'll be taking to the road over the next few days, so I won't be posting daily. I'll be bringing resistance bands and power stands with me, as well as a yoga mat and my case of DVDs, so even though I'll be away from home, I'm planning on being a workout road warrior. I'll try to summarize what I did upon my return.

Bring It!