Oh, yes, the workouts ...

So, yesterday I was supposed to have a squat-intensive day, but I'm worried about my legs getting too thick and bulky, so instead I opted for 30 minutes of fat-burning cardio on the elliptical, trying not to elevate my heart rate too much so as to maximize the % of calories from fat burned. Rocked out to "Muskrat Love" on my iPod.

Okay, I'll stop now. April Fool's Day isn't until Wednesday after all :)

Friday was an active rest day that perhaps was a little more active than it should have been, but then again maybe not. It's sometimes hard for me to gauge how much rest I really need between workouts. I tend to think our bodies were meant to be active every day--we're not cheetahs, after all!--and in any case, real life doesn't allow for rest days as a rule. I mean, suppose you did a heavy upper body workout on Thursday, and then on Friday your ridiculously outsized 22 pound monster cat decides he needs to be picked up and cuddled and carried around the house while you sing to him. (This is all hypothetical, of course ....) Are you going to tell kitty you can't pick him up because this is a recovery day for your upper body? Probably not.

So, anyway, after the feline-resisted farmers walks I decided to do a Turbulence Training thing that looked like fun even though a couple of the exercises were repeats of ones I'd done the day before. The sequencing, rep range, and so forth was different enough that it didn't feel as though I was doing the same thing, so it was fine. And once again I rocked my pullups, though I hesitate to say it because I have to do pullups again today and I don't want to jinx myself!

Saturday was my squat-intensive day. Again, the set/rep scheme was 4x8 with "active rest," meaning that instead of resting between supersets I did bodyweight exercises for 20 reps. I think I could've gone heavier on the first superset in particular (BB squats and Bulgarian split squats, rear leg on ball), but I was feeling a wee bit migraine-ish so I decided to play it safe.

So, here's what it was:

superset: BB back squats, 4x8x95; DB BSS, leg on SB: 4x8x10's

superset: BB front squats, 4x8x75; 1-leg RDL, 4x8

superset: BB overhead squats, 4x8x55; 1-leg SB curls

None of the between-set bodyweight exercises felt all that difficult this time around. I suspected that that would be the case when I created the workout. My real sticking point was my core, which is another reason why I didn't want to go too heavy. If I'm doing an unloaded exercise such as a pistol I'll allow my spine to go into flexion (it sorta has to!), but with barbell and dumbbell exercises I'm a stickler for a neutral spine even if it means I can't go quite as deep or use quite as much weight. I mean, I'm not doing this to impress myself (okay, that's a lie, but never mind), I'm doing this because I want to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible.