Today was supposed to be the tennis tournament my son and I were entered into, but because of the typhoon, it was postponed until August 20, two weeks from this Sunday. So, my Tournament Conditioning will happen again in a week. But since I lost some strength, I decided to give it a boost and do The Challenge. I would go up in my numbers, but since I don't feel up to it, strength wise, and since I joined a 21-Day Arm Shaper group through my Beachbody Coach, I adjusted my numbers a bit.
My numbers for this round of The Challenge are 10 Pull-Ups and 25 Push-Ups. I kept the progression of Pull-Ups constant and went up one rep, but I went down on my Push-Ups by five from the last time. I was thinking about going down to 7 Pull-ups and then stick with 30 Push-Ups, but I wanted to make the Pull-Ups the priority because... I like Pull-Ups. The first circuit with the Wide Pull-Ups and Standard Push-Ups was fine, but I started to feel the pump in the second round. The second circuit with the Chin-Ups and Military Push-Ups was tough. I had to split the second round of Chin-ups 8-2 reps. I almost tapped out on the Push-Ups, but I gutted through them. The third circuit of Close Grip Pull-Ups and Wide Push-Ups was brutally hard. I made it through the Push-Ups, but the Pull-Ups were Killer. I needed a triple split. 5-3-2 on the first round then 4-3-3 in the second round. My arms were becoming rubber at this point. The final circuit, Vaulter Pull-Ups and Staggered Push-Ups, required a split on the Pull-Ups and on the second round of Push-Ups. The first round of Vaulters was 8-2 reps and then 6.5-3.5-2 reps in the second. The .5 means that I only got half a Pull-Up then failed and I came off the bar. So I did an extra rep to failure on the last go. Then, on the last round of Push-Ups, the split was 16-9. I was dying. Arms were pumped and burning.
I moved right into Abs and went with a different routine this time. A routine I haven't done for a while, so I was a bit curious as to how it would go. It was definitely a step up over Ab Ripper X in that I was feeling the burn and the intensity right from the start. That very first move, I don't remember the move name, but I remember the burn and the pain from it. Every move brought on some new form of pain except for one, the Scissor Clapper. That is the only move that was done at a quick pace and I knocked out the 30 reps with ease. Other moves had a few as 10 reps, but I felt the burn. This routine went straight to the core.
I thought the 15+ minutes of rest for my arms would have made the Arm Shaper task a little easier, but it wasn't. For this group, basically I have to do a specific arm routine every day for 21-days. Today it was 20 Push-Ups (Which were very tough and slow) followed by a short focused Arm routine that consisted of five moves: 1. Over Head Press 2. Triceps Chop (Over head Triceps Extensions) 3. Inverted Curl to Front Press 4. Rear Fly to Press Back 5. Diamond-Leg Push-Ups. The requirement was to do 20 reps for each move and to do between 1-3 rounds. I wanted to do three rounds, but after The Challenge, my arms were fried already. I wanted to use a heavy weight for the moves, but I ended up using what would normally be a light weight for that move: 6.25kgs. Today, now, THAT was heavy. I changed weights with different moves. On #2. I used one 8.75kg dumbbell, and THAT was also heavy. #3-4. Saw me use only 4kgs. And for #5. I couldn't even barely hold myself up. I had to really push for it. I didn't want to do the Diamond Push-Ups on my knees, but I had to or I wouldn't be able to get back up. When I finished the first round, I said, "That's it! No more." My arms were rubber.
The Splits and Flow were awesome.
In the end, I torched a nice 931kcals. It was the toughest workout in a week and I was feeling it. My arms already hurt so I hope I can hack this challenge. Great beginning to a new week.
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