Tuesday, March 13, 2012

ESP-XC Day 21: Strength Upper Body AND the return of Starting Strength

So as I promised, I have restarted Week 5 of ESP-XC! Here's a quick recap.

Friday I didn't work out. Heather's restaurant's grand opening was that night and I went to the restaurant after work. Bitchin' party! There were so many people and the food was incredible! A lot of drinks were present too. Great night!

Saturday morning my cousin Miles and his buddy drove in for the Miles' 21st birthday. We got some sleep, saw my folks, another cousin drove in, and then the five of us (me, 2 cousins, 1 girlfriend and 1 cousin's friend) headed down to Bellagio for a night of ridiculous nonsense. Vanessa, a good friend, met us there as well. We ended up having an incredible night filled with amazing food (like stupid amazing....one of the best meals Vegas has to offer!), nightclubs that overlook the Strip, gambling that actually resulted in winnings for everyone, and more nonsense. There was one negative to the night, but I'm going to leave it out because I want to remember his birthday with a smile for the rest of my life.

I mention the birthday because Sunday, oh man, I was DEAD! I didn't sleep much, went and ran errands for part of the day, so that night I was zonked (good word, right?) and didn't get to work out.

Enter Monday.

Monday morning I was still very tired, so after I got home from work is when I popped in the DVD. I did the workout last week and it's awesome. A good, normal weight lifting routine for upper body, focusing mostly on chest and back. There's a lot of stuff done on the ball too, like flys and bench press. It was a great workout.

Afterwards the group came over. We did a few laps around the park, then got started on Starting Strength again, this time with a few modifications. Vince hurt his shoulder a few weeks ago, so we decided to do Front Squats instead of regular squats. Much harder, and at 135 I was struggling! That said, I did complete them and will be adding weight on Thursday. I did 5 sets of 5 by the way. Since we're only running this program twice a week that's what I'm focusing on.

Next was bench press, and I did 3x5 at 155. I realize I just said I want to do 5x5, but I hurt my back somewhere in the night and that was me calling it quits. The group did ab ripper after, but my back hurt too much.

So overall good workout, and I like that we'll be adding in strength training again twice per week. Tonight I'm going to hit up Legs from the Strength phase. Wish me luck!

Bring it!

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