This weekend Jeremy’s brother Kyle and his girlfriend Danielle were in town and Team WODS joined them at the local LA Fitness for a weight lifting workout. Kyle and Danielle are serious about weight lifting and although I consider all of us serious athletes, our strengths are very different!
Here’s Kyle:
Here’s Danielle:
Me Trying to Be Like Them:
Danielle, Asia and I headed off from the boys and did a “back” workout while the boys did chest. Danielle and Kyle typically work one body part hard a day rather than training multiple body parts. I put “back” in quotes because there’s no real way to isolate only the back muscles so essentially this workout felt like a full body workout! It didn’t help that we also added on some squats at the end so I could feel what it was like to do squats with a heavy bar (85 lbs!).
We started the workout with assisted pull-ups. Danielle told us to make the weight heavy so we could only do about 6 reps per set. We did 5 sets and by the end I was wondering how it could get much harder! We moved on to dead lifts (pictured above – me and Danielle both doing them) and then a row with the barbell (below). Between sets we did a few more moves before moving to a machine for a different type of row and one more machine that I can’t even describe. Although I’m familiar with weight lifting and a lot of the machines, I definitely learned something new at the gym that day!
Asia had done a leg workout with Danielle the day before so she wanted Danielle to show me the weighted squat. I have only done squats with hand weights (usually like 10s or 12s at most!) and never with a bar. She set me up with the bar on my shoulders and I was able to do about 5-6 squats with 85 lbs on the bar! It was heavy and hard but it was fun!
We had so much fun that Mike and I signed up for the gym so that we could all work out together! The plan is 3 days a week of strength to supplement our other workouts. For now I’m still going to Pilates until the wedding but I do plan to get in more heavy strength training! I enjoyed the change in routine and also the camaraderie of weight lifting with friends. I think I’ll take it a little easier next time as I was VERY sore for literally 3 days after!!!
Do you lift weights at the gym? Do you prefer the heavy/less rep method or the lighter/high rep method?
WODS is going to get STRONG!
I kind of do a hybrid of the two. I generally do 10-12 reps but try to lift as heavy as I can and increase weight whenever I can.
Wohoo! Looks like a blast – and definitely intense. I would’ve been a little intimidated! I’m curious to see how you like gym lifting after having completed P90X. I’m a huge fan of variety, so I imagine the social aspect would be awesome.
Oh my- the arms on you gals are gorgeous!
I was actually thinking I’m going to try a new strength program in fall and winter. I surprisingly quite enjoy the quick strength workouts I generally do but really need to spice it up!