The 17 Week Challenge Diary

Week 1 - Workout A2

Second session completed (kind of!). It was a very late workout - having been working from 11 - 10 it was one of those workouts you just don't want to do! - but I know I have to do it and so at 10.30pm I made my way to the gym. After a 5 minute warm up I encountered my first problem - I couldn't get an olympic barbell for the sumo deadlifts! :( Not a problem though - because as the exercises are all done as supersets you can swap the order around aslong as you keep them in their original pairs. So I started with the step ups (I did cross over step-ups) supersetted with the dumbell presses. Another piece of advice - if you start off with a weight that you can do 15 of in the first set but only a few on the second or third set, simply drop the weight down. You will still be overloading the musle sufficiently for adaptations to occur.

Onto the sumo deadlifts and pull-ups combination...oh dear! I said in the first workout post not to go too hard at the start...unfortunately I didn't listen to my own advice! My first set seemed ok, until I checked my form in the mirror and noticed my back was going out of neutral spine (I was losing the curve in my lower back and letting it round - which places pressure on the vertebral discs - NOT GOOD!!). My reaction - lower the weights for the next set. The form was better but there was still some rounding of the back. So my next solution was to raise the bar a little higher so I didn't have to bend down as far. This stopped the back rounding and allowed me to lift with good form. Having done a little research on deadlift lifting technique I came across this site - http://doubleyourgains.com/how-to-deadlift-with-proper-form which explains it all in greater detail. I highly reccommend you all read it as deadlifting is one of the best exercises you can do in the gym!

The final issue I had with this workout was the my grip! My hands cramped up by the 3rd set of exercises leaving me with problems holding the bars. I also had blistered from where the bars were rubbing against the skin. So I would say to invest in a pair of weightlifting gloves to stop the friction rubs.

A real hard workout but again - I feel it was worth it. It's a learning curve this - and I'm still learning. Im feeling good, strong and looking forward to workout A3!