Workouts from Last Week

Happy Monday! I’ve gotten a ton of requests to do more blog posts on my workout routine and what workouts I do and when. To be honest, I don’t have a tried and true formula. While I was doing FWTFL, I did, but now I kind of mix it up based on what I’m feeling. I still use a lot of the principles I learned from the Faster Way that guide how I land on what I do, but often times, I just go with what sounds good! In all honesty, August was the worst workout month I’ve had in over a year in terms of how many workouts/hours logged dedicated to fitness. I traveled every single week of the month and that seriously threw off my game. However, September is much more calm, especially from a travel standpoint, so I knew I wanted to dedicate more time in the gym this month. Last week I logged 5 workouts [!!] so I figured I’d share what I did each day.

MONDAY – Zumba class! I go to LA Fitness that offers classes [and daycare!] so I try to catch a class when I can. My favorite instructor had a surprise 830AM class so I went to that. I had done Sunday Funday the day prior so really wanted a good sweat to get me back on track for the week. I love Zumba for a good cardio workout [the class is an hour so I burn SO many calories]. I typically try to always do cardio on Mondays to get my heart rate up and set the tone for the week. They have lots of classes [some at 5:45AM and 5:45PM if you need to get it in before or after work] so I’d recommend checking them out if you’re wanting a gym that offers group fitness since there are so many locations.

TUESDAY – I had shared on my Instagram stories that I had NO idea what I wanted to do when I got to the gym that morning. So, I went to my old faithful resource: PINTEREST! There are SO many workouts on there that you could spend all day scrolling through the options. I get a lot of questions on how I choose my workouts, and truly sometimes I’ll just search “strength workout” and see which one piques my interest. I save a lot of my favorites to my Health / Wellness board so be sure to follow me for ideas there.

For that day’s workout, I started out with a 7 minute walk at an 18 min/mile pace on the treadmill at a 7 incline for a warm up. Then, I did the following 2 circuits:

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I did the circuit on the left one time through and did each move 20x with 8 lb dumbells. I then finished with the kettlebell circuit one time through doing each move 10x using a 35 lb kettlebell. WOW that was tough! After that, I cooled down with an 8 min walk at a 20 min/mile pace at an 8 incline going backwards on the treadmill. I love doing that because it’s still a good cool down but great for your glutes! I then finished with 5 minutes in the sauna. It was a good burn and took about 50 min from start to finish.

WEDNESDAY – Zumba again! I loved Monday’s class and wanted to go back for more. There is always an 8:30AM class on Wednesdays so I love to catch that when I can. I try to only do cardio twice a week. In an “ideal” week for me, I’d do cardio twice, strength training 3x, one day of what I call “chill” activity [like going for a long walk or doing some yoga], and then one rest day. Now that I had knocked my cardio out for the week, I knew I could lift Thursday and Saturday, do something chill on Friday, and then take Sunday off! It helps me organize my week/keep me motivated if I know what I’m going to do each day.

THURSDAY – This was going to be another weight day and I had a girlfriend coming with me [which is one of my favorite ways to get my booty to the gym; having the accountability of a partner is a great motivator!] so I knew I wanted to have something planned for us. I went to Pinterest again and found this circuit that I thought would be fun to do with a partner!

Since there were so many moves on this one, we did every move once 10x. I used 8 lb weights! We did my standard warm up and cool down routine that I shared from Tuesday’s workout!

FRIDAY: Chill day! I honestly took it easy that day. It had been a while since I had done 4 workouts in a row and I was feeling pretty sore and tired from the week. And that’s ok! I knew I’d get in a good sweat the next day.

SATURDAY: Weight training at the gym! It was leg day and I decided to do my own circuit.

I started with my same warm-up that I did on Tuesday followed by these 3 circuits:

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from left to right: I started with this and did each move as it instructed with 10 lb dumbbells. For the next circuit, I did each move 20x with a 10 lb dumbbell [where needed]. I finished with this blitz and WOAH was it tough! I did the reps/sets as instructed and I barely made it through. This was one of the tougher circuits I’d put together lately and I loved the burn!

To cool down, I ended up doing a 15 min walk at a 24 min/mile pace at a 10 incline because I had some extra time. After that, I concluded the sweat sesh with 8 min in the sauna! I hadn’t burned this many calories in a long time and it was the perfect way to kick off the weekend.

LA Fitness offers a class on Saturday called Body Works Plus Abs that I love but it was later than I wanted to get at for the gym that day. It’s an hour long and you do a ton of different moves working the whole body with dumbbells, some cardio/HIIT moves, and finishing with abs. I try to catch that if I can, otherwise I just do my own thing like I did this day.

SUNDAY: OFF DAY!

So, there you have it! That was my workout routine last week. I don’t always get to Zumba/do Cardio at the gym. I really LOVE Popsugar Fitness on YouTube for finding at-home Cardio/HIIT/Tabata videos to do! I share a lot of my favorites on my SWEAT highlight on Instagram so be sure to check that out for an idea of the workouts I do [for free I might add!]. I love doing Tabata HIIT for Cardio so I resort to that a lot of time if I’m not doing Zumba. To be honest, I did the elliptical NON-STOP the first 6ish months of my fitness journey so I’m a little burnt out on it so I rarely do that, but will on occasion. I know myself and mixing up my routine is what keeps me motivated, so I love mixing in Cardio videos with my strength training. That’s probably my biggest piece of advice when it comes to working out – find something you ENJOY! If you don’t like your workouts, you’ll dread them. I hope this was helpful! Let me know if you’d like to see me do this again. Every week looks different [for the most part] so I’d be happy to share this when things vary from this week.