You know you have gotten a good workout when any kind of movement makes you wince with pain.  To be honest, I’ve never really been strength training’s biggest fan. I guess you could call it a love/hate relationship: I love the results but hate doing it!  Cardio, however, I OWN IT J!  As much as I solely enjoy cardio, I am not seeing the results I want any more.  Therefore I have decided to suck it up and replace 2 cardio workouts per week with strength training sessions.

I completed my first proper one yesterday and shock horror, I loved it!  Although it felt weird to leave the gym after merely doing 10 minutes of cardio, I left on such a high: my heart rate was elevated for the whole session & I was sweeeeaaating!  It was pretty hawt 😆 .  What kept me motivated was going in with a printed plan, photos included.  I’m normally SO clueless when I enter the weights section and unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of any nearby body pump classes.  I assume my sesh was kinda effective as I left with a souvenir: NEXT DAY SORENESS! 

Here’s the plan that I rolled with. I’m not including dumbbell weights as it’s subjective but I tried to lift heavy enough so that if I did any more than 12 reps, my form would be compromised. This entire workout took me about 50 minutes, plus a few more for stretching

After 10 minutes warm-up on the cross trainer, I completed 2 sets of 12 of each of the following 12 exercises:                                                              

• Dumbbell squats
• Rear lateral raise
• Dumbbell deadlift

• Dumbbell bench press

• Dumbbell shoulder press

• Overhead triceps extension

• Biceps curl

• Pushups (on my knees)

• Crunches*

• Abdominal hip raises*

• Plank, 45 seconds x2

• Cross Bench Knee-Ins*

*I completed 2 sets of 20 for these exercises

For cardio workouts that will similarly kick your butt, check out this or this.