Catching up

So while I haven't posted here on the blog, I have been working out.  But as usual, life has been crazy.  Let's see, I'll start with last Thursday: I ran my 3.64 mile loop and it went alright.  I did it in my regular Asics.
Friday: I did chest and back.  As I said in my previous post, I was having issues with incline barbell presses, so I thought I'd start with them and see how it went.  And if paid off, I was able to do three sets with 40 lbs in each hand.  So here was my workout:
1. Incline dumbbell bench press, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
2. Flat dumbbell bench press, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
3. Decline dumbbell bench press, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
4. Machine row, 120 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
5. Machine Lat pull down, 100 lbs, 10 reps, sets.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday- I didn't do anything! I know, but I never claimed I was perfect.

Tuesday: I ran my 2.3 mile loop in my Asics.  I did it in about 28 minutes, and I just felt like crap.
Wednesday: I worked on shoulders:
1. Lateral raise, 15 lbs, 10 reps, 1 set; 10 lbs, 10 reps, 2 sets.   I really liked this exercise because I felt it in my lats as well when I was bring the weight slowly down.
2. Dumbbell shrug, 50 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
3. Dumbbell diagonal raise, 10 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
4. Ez-bar curl, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
5. Ez-bar preacher curl, 40 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
6. Barbell squat, 50 lbs, 10 reps, 3 sets.
7. Kneeling cable crunch, 200 lbs, 25 reps, 3 sets.

And today, I decided to take a break from running and give my joints a break.  So I cleaned the bike up and took the little monkey with me.  I hooked up the bike trailer, stuck the monkey in it and rode 10 miles in about 54 minutes.  Now I know what you all are thinking- but that's 5 miles less than you usually do in that time.  But then, I'm not usually towing 40 lbs worth of trailer and giggling, book reading child.  And let me tell you- it made a difference going up.  All told, I wish I could have gone faster, but I think I did pretty well.

So that's the last week.

Chest and back with a side of abs

I've been reading this strength training book, Strength Training, The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to a Stronger, Sculpted Body.  And it seems to be a proponent of simple, complete workouts where you work a little bit of everything, instead of split training, where you focus on one or two muscle groups at each workout.  What I've been doing thus far is split training.  So I decided to somewhat combine the two ideas today.
Today would have ben mostly chest and back, but in the spirit of a more complete workout, I threw in a few squat exercises and some abdominal stuff.  Here was my workout:  (By the way, to make things simple, unless I say otherwise, a set is 10 reps.)
1. Decline dumbbell bench press, 35 lbs, 1 set; 40 lbs 2 sets.
2. Seated row, 140 lbs, 3 sets.
3. Flat dumbbell bench press, 40 lbs, 1 set; 35 lbs, 2 sets.  (I was reaching near muscle fatigue too early in these sets with 40 lbs, so I dropped back down to 35 lbs)
4. Lat bar pull downs, 90 lbs, 3 sets.
5. Incline dumbbell bench press, 25 lbs, 3 sets.  (For some reason, I'm not at the same level with this workout.  I'm a newb, so maybe you're not supposed to be able to lift the same amount of weight, since these seem to rely more on the shoulders and triceps than the pectorals.  That, or I'm just a puss.  Or maybe I should start with the inclines and work down to the declines, so I'm less worn out.  I'll try this next time.)
6.  Back squat, barbell only, 1 set, 65 lbs 2 sets.
7. Woodchop (ab/core workout), 80 lbs, 3 sets for each side.
8. Roman chair side bend, 3 sets for each side.
9. I also did a workout where I set the cable machine all the way to the floor, put a handle on it, and pulled it up to shoulder level and then leaned over and pull it up, using only my core.  I have no idea what this workout is called, but it felt pretty good.  I used 80 lbs on each side and did 3 sets on each side.

All in all, this whole workout took me about 40 minutes, so I was literally running at times from one machine to the next.  I wanted to really work up a sweat and not rest too much between sets.  All in all, it was a pretty tough, effective workout.  If I'm not mistaken, I increased my dumbbell bench press from 30 lbs to 35 and 40 lbs.  Next week, I hope to use only the 40 lbs (except of course my disgraceful incline bench press.)