EDIT Apr 5, 2024: I just wanted to pop back to this post to say I got an email from the gym saying I'd worked out 10 or more days last month, which is a first for me! So another little thing to be proud of.
Since getting back into workouts, I've been increasing the number of days a week I've been going to the gym. At first I was planning on just one day a week, Sunday, since that's what I originally did and still saw muscle growth after one and two years. But from some encouragement from my personal trainer, I've been adding in more days slowly. Originally I didn't really have the time for it, but I've sort of forced the time in and other things fell around it, and it's just worked out somehow.
A few weeks ago, I logged my 100th workout in my tracking app. I'm sharing the screenshot even though my weights here are lower than normal, since I'm easing back into workout out after being sick for a couple weeks, haha. In truth, I've done more a hundred workouts, since I haven't logged most of my sessions with my personal trainer (I only started doing that recently so I could keep track of what exercises he's teaching me) and I also logged my workouts on paper when I first started. This 100 milestone is also stretched across a huge timespan - I got the app originally in 2019, then stopped working out because of the pandemic, and only started up again last year. So I guess this is probably closer to two years of logged data. At any rate, it's still fun to see the "100 workout" text pop up, so I'm letting myself feel good about that, haha.
My workouts over the last year have been much better than before the pandemic as well, since now I'm working with my trainer. I mentioned on my last fitness post that he's helping me with things like targeting muscle groups, learning the gym equipment, and more. Overall it's been a great experience since he's very knowledgable and also cautious - any time an exercise doesn't feel right, if we can't improve my form to get it to, we just don't do it and move on. He's careful to not let me injure myself and that's great. And I feel like I'm understanding a lot more about how to get the results I want - which is mostly a tone body. Not trying to be a body builder, but I'm not worried about that happening accidentally, since I know that look is very very hard to achieve. More than that, I want to be strong and have energy to do the things I want to do. The looks are honestly secondary, but seeing how I look in the mirror is still very exciting.
On that note, I don't know if I'm going to share progress photos in this blog or not. I don't really want photos of me just kind of floating around online. I've posted some very mild pictures on twitter in the past (my face) and got weird comments, so I don't know that I need to actually show anything here. This blog is more to just dump the stuff in my head anyway.
Anyway. With my trainer we're moving from two full-body workouts a week to push/pull/legs instead. Which is you target specific muscle groups on the days you come in, and since I'm aiming for three days a week, it's split up nicely with that.
- PUSH days target the chest, shoulders, and triceps.
- PULL days target the back, traps, and biceps.
- LEG days are obviously legs, but I'm also doing core those days.
My workouts can vary from around 40 minutes to about 70, depending on what all I decide to do and how busy the gym is. The full-body workouts are about an hour. So spending that ~1 hour time targeting specific groups of muscles lets me do more for them while also being more flexible with my time. Full body workouts need at least a day of rest (probably more) in between each other, so if I go to the gym on Monday, now I can't go Tuesday since I need to recover. But if I just work one group out on Monday, now I can go in on Tuesday for another group - which is great if my schedule changes. Very happy with this setup. It also helps to keep the gym from being boring; if I'm changing up what I do whenever I go, even just a little, it doesn't become monotomous and it stays fresh. That combined with having a trainer teach me how to work out the same muscle groups in different ways, I can swap out the individual workouts for targeting muscles too, and it's always interesting. I'm definitely the type to just fall into the same routine, but once I've gotten used to something, I can keep that rotated in.
