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Elliptical Intervals Eases the Pain

Shoulders & Elliptical
Today started off with wind chills of 23 degrees and gusts of 23 mph! Wow. Thank goodness my car was going in the shop this morning to get the heat fixed. At least it was sunny out all day. Not sure I could have handled any ice or sleet today. It's way too early for that here.

At lunch I headed home and did shoulders from Meso 2, Disc 19. This week is going up to 75% of my 1RM except for the first exercise as it's what Cathe refers to as a "double wave load." Basically you repeat a drop set twice through. Ouch.

Seated front press: 12,10,8,12,10,8
Standing lateral raise - 12,10,8
Prone incline rear delt raise - 12,10,8

It was a good workout and I'm pretty sure I'll be feeling it by tomorrow. After work I hit the gym for the elliptical. I bought a stack of new magazines yesterday to help ease the pain of the monotony. I was also armed with an interval workout my friend Lindsey @ Cotter Crunch posted yesterday. I had to make a few adjustments just because of the elliptical at my gym, but the basics were the same.


  • Warm up 1 mile easy - I warmed up .25 miles which took 5 minutes.
  • three progressive 400’s (.25 mile)- get faster with each 400m. - I tried to increase speed, but ended up increasing the resistance .5 for each .25 mile interval
  • Recover (walk or easy run) for a 400m (.25 mile) - the distance stopped tracking in tenths, so wasn't a full .25.
  • repeat this 2-5x depending on your TIME MANAGEMENT - because it seemed to take longer on the elliptical, I just did this twice.
  • Cool down 1/2 mile to 1 mile easy. - used walk to car as my cool down.
This definitely helped me to stop focussing on the time.

Simple Dinner
Jason had decided to do the spin class after work. It started at 5:30, so I was already heading home by the time he was getting to the gym. That left me plenty of time to stretch then roll my IT band.

Since he was getting home a little bit later, I went with the Red Bean & Quinoa Burgers that I made yesterday along with baked sweet potato fries. It was something super easy that I could just toss into the oven. Very little clean up involved, which is perfect for a Monday night meal if you ask me.
 

I topped the burgers with some leftover Chipotle Cranberry Relish, spinach, roasted red bell peppers, and Soy Kaas.

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