I had a meeting in the afternoon that was scheduled to last into the late afternoon so I wouldn't have had time to workout after work, so I had to do a morning workout. Which was fine because it would give me a chance to sleep early tonight.
I was looking forward to this workout because I'm finishing ChaLEAN Extreme with this routine. I was going to go back and do one more round of Burn Circuit but here is the thing, I am going to take a month off from weightlifting to help my right forearm heal. Since I did the OCR Dead Hang Challenge in December, the pain in my right forearm has gotten worse. I thought it was tennis elbow, but it didn't really hurt that much when playing tennis. It would flare up most when I did Pull-Ups or any bar work for longer than 30-seconds at a time. So, since I'm taking a business trip to the USA in March, I'll be taking a break from my tennis club through March, and so I will only do Bodyweight workouts and Pickle-Ball during March. I will work my way back from April. That is the plan. I may stay off the bar for a little longer than just one month. I'll re-evaluate my condition at the end of March to see if I can get back to moderate weights. Wish me luck.
Today's workout was a good one. There was a lot of Shoulder and Chest work. The Fly moves and the Press moves were all done to just before failure. Mainly because I was able to go up in weight on most of the moves and I felt the strength increase over last time. Moves 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 all went up by 1.25kgs. I know it doesn't seem like much, but even that small amount makes a huge difference. The one move that didn't go up in weight is a move that no one on Chalene's team even Chalene uses a weight. Move 5. Push-Up Side Planks. I use a weight because it is a move I did in Insanity, and with Tony. I was starting to gas out so I stayed with the same weight for that one move. Everyone knows the move, Weight in the hand that goes up. But one thing also that is a little different is that for the Breakdown, I did two reps on each side of the same move. That is why the Breakdown number is 4 instead of 3. I didn't want to do just a regular Push-Up for the Breakdown. The other two moves were Traveling Push-Ups and Army Crawl. But for the Army Crawl, I changed it a bit to do more Push-Ups into Spider Push-Ups. Still hit my Oblique muscles, but added Chest, Back, and some Arms. There was one move that I was unable to hit 12 reps on, that is move 6. Dead Lift Frontal Press. That slow bend with the weights in hand really zapped my strength. And on the last rep (10th) I almost didn't make the Press up to the top. I paused a moment in the middle. Then, I had to bear down and hold my breath to push the dumbbells up the last 5 inches. When I held my breath, I knew it was over. I couldn't even think about going for two more reps. Now, let's talk about the Pull-Ups. I did the alternating weighted/unweighted sets again, and I was happy with my progress. I did my two toughest Pull-Up variations, first Wide Front, then Close Grip. I added 12 kgs to the weighted sets. The first weighted set, I could only get 6 reps, but on the unweighted set, I got 14 reps. That is the most Wide Front I've done in a long time. Close Front weighted, I got 8 reps done. That is one more than last time, but I stayed at the same number for unweighted, only 14 reps. Because of the overall added weight on most of the moves, I think I gassed out more today. I believe that if I had stayed with the previous weight, I would have had more energy and strength to do at least two more reps and get to 16 reps, but that is all neither here nor there. But I felt good overall.
My forearms were feeling really pumped more than my Shoulders so I focused on forearms in my anabolic stretch. I took a lot of time to try and stretch them out, also to relieve the pain that was there. I did a little stretch on my shoulders as well. For some reason, I totally forgot my chest. I was a bit upset afterward about that. But my forearms felt a lot better when I was done. Then I finished with a good Flow series. Later in the evening, I got in my EMS.
In the end, I was surprised that I burned over 800 kcals. That was a good burn for a morning workout. But since it was cold, I turned on my heater so I got a good sweat on and wasn't feeling cold at all. It was a good ending to the month and to ChaLEAN Extreme. I look forward to rehabbing my forearm.
Happy Weekend!
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