Endurance - The Punisher Ep 6 or My Personal Trainer Tried to Kill Me ;)

Wittegen Press

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I'm joking of course, I just feel as if Steve (InterSEPT Fitness) tried to kill me, even after two and a half glasses of wine (it was my parents' wedding anniversary today and we all went out to lunch, hence the wine). I drank water with two of those glasses though, so I'm not tiddly ;)

Today was ENDURANCE DAY and boy, was he serious (yes, it requires the capital letters :P).

I literally could not have done this without Steve there to encourage me and help when I was flagging. This morning I did 460 reps that involved five different exercises. I feel the large font is entirely necessary since I was amazed.

Apparently we all have different types of muscle fibres and endurance is designed to work the slow twitch fibres. Work them it does!

1. Raised elbow rows - 100 reps
   I did these using our new functional trainer (FT1 Inspire - we used a windfall from badly sold PPI to upgrade our old weights machine), but you can do them using a resistance band as well. You stand or sit (I sit since I am unstable standing) and with your elbows up parallel to your shoulders pull back and squeeze your shoulder blades together.
   
   With endurance you also don't have to do it all in one go, you can stop. I think I did it 15, 5, 5, 10 etc until I got to 100.
   
   It is very hard and having someone there to encourage you on is a must. Also to help count :).
   
   ~*~
2. Bench Presses - 100 reps
   I used a bar with 5Kg weights on each end for this one, but you press whatever you're comfortable with. Again I did this in stages - the max I could do was 10 at a time and a lot of the time I was doing five. The important point is doing all 100 in the end.
   
   ~*~
3. Arnie Presses - 100 reps
   Yes, this is named after Arnold Schwarzenegger :) and it is like a normal shoulder press, but instead of starting with your weights at your shoulders and going straight up you hold them in front, inside of fists facing you. Then you lift up twisting until you're at full extension with your fists facing forward. Watch the Youtube vid at the link above to see.
   
   As ever this was done in stages and I started with 2Kg dumbbells and ended up with 1kgs for the last 20 reps. If you have to go down a weight, do so, just complete the reps.
   
   ~*~

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4. Ab Crunches on the Ball - 100 reps
   You lie over the stability ball, then curl up and go back down and repeat. I did all 100 of these without stopping :D
   
   ~*~
5. Raised elbow rows - 15 reps
   We upped the weight for this one and then I did 15 more reps. I managed all 15 without stopping.
   
   ~*~
6. Bench Presses - 15 Reps
   Again we upped the weight to 6.5kg on each side of the bar. I did these five at a time and Steve had to help me for the last couple by taking some of the weight.
   ~*~
7. Arnie Press - 15 reps
   I did these with 3kg dumbbells and had to do them in stages. My left arm really did not want to play ball :).
   ~*~
8. Leg lifts with weight - 15 reps
   Steve said I did the ab crunches too easily so I had to pick a different core exercise :). For these you put a dumbbell between your feet and lift your legs to just off vertical, then lower, without touching the ground and repeat.

Then I lay on the carpet for a while after that, just breathing and wondering if my arms were still attached ;), before stretching out my shoulders. The new FT1 makes doing some of the stretches easier too because I can use the weights to help. After that I did 5 mins on the bike and 5 mins on the vibration plate machine to warm down.

I actually enjoyed the session, even though it felt like torture at times :). The sense of achievement was huge when I actually did 100 reps. It was exhilarating.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend.