Hello!
Today I had a training session with Coach Candice and as usual we were focused on glutes. Now I say glutes because it's not a leg workout. I'm not focusing on my quads I'm focusing on building up for lack of a better term my backside. I'm trying to lift, form, and tighten it all up! I've been having a tough time engaging my glutes during the work out and not my quads for a couple of weeks. It makes me realize that I might not have been lifting as accurately as I thought before. I'm having to learn how to position my body and weight in order to get the right muscles firing. Well today was that day where things clicked like crazy! We did a lot of supersets and by the end of the leg portion of my workout I didn't think I could walk! Consider that a glutes engaged workout! Here's a little bit of what my workout was:
I went through about 4-5 sets with 15-20 reps in each set (sometimes more depending on how Coach Candice is feeling :) this is only a few of the workouts because others are just too much to explain on here!
Wide leg smith machine squats, feet wide apart and really sitting into the squat.
This was superset with a Good Morning move and holding a weight and pushing it out as a shoulder workout combo.
Lunges (lots of lunges!) but all the focus was on driving through my heel and making sure my weight wasn't too far forward.
Leg presses, lots of leg presses! Starting with the consecutive sets of single leg presses (which is more like pulsing and squeezing the glute muscle) starting with my foot center, wide and then on the very edge. I did all three positions on one leg and then just switched legs. NO breaks and by the end of it my legs were on FIRE! That was just with 50 lbs. on the press and then we upped it to 85 lbs. and did both feet for the press starting with shoulder width and then wide and full range of motion. We did two sets back to back.
I did a little bit of shoulder workout after too and we did some supersetting. All in all it was a great workout and I'm sure I am going to feel it tomorrow! And that's an awesome thing! The entire time all I focused on was building the right muscles and doing the right motions so that when I step on stage I am confident in all my prep work!
When I was talking with Coach during my work out (which was when I had enough breath!) I was talking with her about my new job and how it's going. I told her about bringing in my water jug to work and feeling strange having to explain it and she put it perfectly. She said "just tell them you're an athlete and you have to drink that much water". Did you hear that? That one word in that sentence? Athlete. I'm an athlete. Do you know how long it's been since I've felt like an athlete? Not since I was playing high school basketball! I know I am athletic but it's been a long time since I've felt like I'm training myself as an athlete. I think that's what I like the most out of this whole process. I like identifying myself as an athlete. It's an empowering feeling and I've missed feeling like this. In high school you get to become an athlete and be built into an athlete and then you graduate. If you're not amazing at sports so you can continue in college then you go from life revolving around sports to not being apart of it anymore. It can leave you feeling a little empty and it feels great to have that part of my life back! Here's to the athlete and possibilities in all of us!
Cheers!
Ash
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