Exercise Log 11.1.13 (Ab & Fun Day, No Cardio)

Just a quick log of tonight’s short exercise. I’m still resting up from arm day, tricep day was actually super effective and my triceps still hurt, so going to the gym for chest day (after tricep work) is out of the question… just requires too much triceps for most chest pressing exercises and I don’t want to risk injury. Back day was out of the question too, I have a 5K tomorrow. I’m not screwing up my whole rotation by bumping up leg day this far either. One thing I skipped though was ab & fun day, so I decided to make up for it with a little bit of that.

First I decided to try a new exercise by making a makeshift roman chair. Recently Mike Chang of the Six Pack Shortcuts Youtube channel highlighted this interesting and simple piece of exercise gear. It’s one of the simplest ab workouts ever… lean back and automatically your body has to engage the abs. I tried it by using a small expired heater I long since use as a footstool to support my back, and put my legs under my bed… voila, homemade roman chair.

Mike Chang shows off the Roman Chair

Like in the video, when I leaned back, I felt an immediate engagement of my abdominals. Good I thought, hit it for 5 sets of 10, really felt it work all the way through. Polished off my abs with a interval workout of four exercises 10 reps each set – lower ab leg lift, cross elbow to knee ab crunches, toe touches for upper abs and then 45 degree jackknifes. 4 sets of that, and I felt pretty good.

I didn’t want to leave it at that though, ab day is also fun day… and I felt like tonight since leg day is still a couple days away (doing back ideally then chest this weekend), to do some goblet squats. I got nice and low, also did some posture work. Didn’t have a big dumbbell but goblet squats I think are more about form than weight. Got nice and eased into the motion and I think it really makes me more confident for squatting proper. Near the end I felt like it was definitely helping me widen my hips, which is an important component to strengthening and lowering the squat. Then afterwards I did that breathing exercise to work on vacuum packing my core that I mentioned a few blogs ago.

So reinforced the squat motion, got my core worked out, neither of which will impact my 5K tomorrow (I think) and my evening still gets to give my triceps a little more rest before pounding them (back day will use a little tricep but chest day is the hard day on triceps and that’s still two days away). So I think all accomplished, good work for just a very short workout before bed on what was otherwise a rest day.