STS Disk 1 Complete!

So I started Cathe's new STS workout series. There are 36 workouts in the series and you do them in order. You're supposed to do three per week. It's divided into 3 mesocycles and you take a recovery week after each one. The whole thing comes out to be a 3 1/2 month program. Since the STS workouts are only weight training, I get to just do my cardio on the in between days. One thing she wants you to do is find your 1 rep max for each exercise so you'll have a more effective workout each time. Basically, you pick a weight that you think you can do 10 reps with and then do the exercise until you can't do any more. Then you plug the weight and number of reps you did into the calculator on the website and it figures out your 1 rep max and what weight you should use when you do that exercise in the workouts. So for my Thursday night workout, I spent lots of time finding 1 rep maxes for different exercises. It ended up being a pretty insane workout all by itself. I didn't do all of the exercises just because it would've taken forever so for similar exercises, I just put in the same weight. So I took it easy all weekend and did disk 1 last night. Disk 1 was shoulders, biceps and chest and holy crap my arms are jello! Most of the weights were just about perfect for me but apparently some of my 1 rep maxes turned out to be really optimistic. I'll just have to use the calculator on the website again and plug in the weight I used last night and the reps I actually did to calculate new 1 rep maxes for those exercises. One thing that's really nice about the workouts is that you can print out a card for each workout that lists each exercise you'll be doing and what weight you should be using and has spaces to record the weight you actually used and how many reps you actually did. That way you can make adjustments for later workouts and see how you're improving from week to week. In the first mesocycle (the one I just started), legs are the third workout of the week but I think I'm going to make it the second one so I'll be able to walk during the weekend.

Here's my plan for Mesocycle 1:

Week 1:
Sunday: STS Disk 1 (Chest, Shoulders & Biceps)
Monday: Step Blast (Combos 1,2,3)
Tuesday: STS Disk 3 (Legs)
Wednesday: Step Jump & Pump (Step & Hi/Lo Circuit)
Thursday: STS Disk 2 (Back & Triceps)
Friday: Rest (Grand Canyon Trip)
Saturday: Hiking (Grand Canyon Trip)

Week 2:
Sunday: Hiking (Grand Canyon Trip)
Monday: Hiking (Grand Canyon Trip)
Tuesday: STS Disk 4 (Chest, Shoulders & Biceps)
Wednesday: STS Disk 6 (Legs)
Thursday: STS Disk 5 (Back & Triceps)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Hiking or Body Max 2 (Timesaver Cardio)

Week 3:
Sunday: STS Disk 7 (Chest, Shoulders & Biceps)
Monday: Drill Max (Timesaver Cardio Blast)
Tuesday: STS Disk 9 (Legs)
Wednesday: Low Max (Step Combos Only)
Thursday: STS Disk 8 (Back & Triceps)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest

Week 4:
Sunday: Rest
Monday: STS Disk 10 (Chest, Shoulders & Biceps)
Tuesday: Cardio & Weights (Timesaver Step)
Wednesday: STS Disk 12 (Legs)
Thursday: Imax 2
Friday: STS Disk 11 (Back & Triceps)
Saturday: Hiking or Low Impact Circuit (Cardio Blast Timesaver)

Week 5: Active Recovery Week - No weights!
Sunday: Low Impact Step
Monday: Step Blast (Combos 1,2,3)
Tuesday: Step Jump & Pump (Step & Hi/Lo Circuit)
Wednesday: Body Max 2 (Timesaver Cardio Only)
Thursday: Drill Max (Timesaver Cardio Blast)
Friday: Off
Saturday: Hiking or Low Max (Step Combos Only)

Hiking, Star Trek and a plan for the next 3 months

On Saturday I went hiking instead of the workout I had planned. It was 3.6 miles and awesome. The cactus flowers are coming out and it looks like the giant saguaros are holding bouquets. It was a really good hike. It started out flat for a while and then it started climbing up the back side of Wasson Peak so it was a really good workout.

Saturday afternoon, I hit the fabric store. Why? Because I'm making me and Sean Star Trek uniforms for the midnight showing of the new Star Trek movie. We're going for the 1960s look. Sean's going to wear a captain shirt and I'm wearing one of the short little dresses in engineering red. I'm about 3 quarters of the way done. The dress is turning out really cute. I just need to hem it, put the trim on the sleeves and iron on the insignia.

I've decided that after my current workout schedule, I'm going to start Cathe's STS series. It's 40 DVDs and will cover all of my weight workouts for 3 months. It's insane and I'm a bit scared of it. But after seeing my friend Janet at lunch on Friday, I decided that I need to buy it. She's got a week left and she's reached her goal weight and she's looking amazing! I plan on ordering it on Wednesday when I get paid so between the time I finish my workout schedule and get my new videos, I'll plan my workouts 1 week at a time.

Here's where my schedule stands. I tweaked it a little because I realized that I had a bunch of weight workouts back-to-back.

Week 1:
S: Step Blast - done!
M: Legs & Glutes - done!
T: Low Impact Step + Stability Ball Abs - done!
W: 4 Day Split Lower Intensity Step + Weights - done!
T: Imax 2 - done!
F: Body Max 2 - done!
S: Rest - done!

Week 2:
S: Low Impact Circuit Cardio Timesaver Premix - done!
M: 4 Day Split Bootcamp + Weights - done!
T: Pyramid Lower Body - done!
W: Pyramid Upper Body + 30 min. walk - done!
T: Step Blast - done!
F: Rest - done!
S: 9 holes of disc golf - done!

Week 3:
S: 4 hours of moving heavy furniture - done!
M: Pyramid Lower Body + 30 min. walk - done!
T: Pyramid Upper Body - done!
W: Low Max - done!
T: Walked around Disneyland all day - done!
F: Walked around California Adventure all day - done!
S: Walked around San Diego stores all day - done!

Week 4:
S: rest - done!
M: 3 hours of typing - done!
T: 4 Day Split Higher Intensity Step + Weights - done!
W: 4 Day Split Kickbox + Weights - done!
T: Kick Punch Crunch - done!
F: Off - done!
S: 3.6 mile hike - done!

Week 5:
S: Pyramid Lower Body - done!
M: Low Impact Step
T: Kick Punch Crunch
W: Pyramid Upper Body
T: Off
F: 4 Day Split Lower Intensity Step
S: Pyramid Lower Body

Week 6:
S: Step Blast
M: Cardio & Weights
T: Imax 2
W: Complete Aerobic and Weight Training

Holy Crap! I've done this before!

So last night I did Cathe's "Kick Punch Crunch" for the first time and a lot of the combos reminded me of the kickboxing workout I did at LA Fitness in San Diego. Let me take a moment to tell you about Deirdre, the satanic kickboxing instructor at LA Fitness. Dierdre was a bad ass martial arts person. She was very blond and very cute but I'm pretty sure she could kick any guys ass. Her workout was always pretty much the same every day that she was there and I always tried to go to her workouts because they were awesome. She always had me reduced to a quivering puddle of goo on the floor. She was very into the whole mind-body-kickboxing thing so she would make us yell and count out loud and stuff. And she would do this thing where we would kick front and back over and over and if she saw anyone in the room put their guards down, she would make us do 8 more reps. Yeah, she was pretty hard core. So anyway, back to Cathe, towards the end of the workout, there's this section of punching and kicking combos where I realized, I already knew them by heart. I knew exactly what move was coming next. I could even picture Dierdre, the satanic LA Fitness kickboxing instructor making us yell stuff. Apparently, Dierdre totally plagiarized that part of Cathe's workout! Now the majority of "Kick Punch Crunch" isn't quite as evil as the LA Fitness workout was but still, it's the closest home workout video that I've seen. I can't believe I was going to those classes 3 times a week. I was getting into pretty awesome shape then. I MUST do that one more often.

So here's where my schedule's at:

Week 1:
S: Step Blast - done!
M: Legs & Glutes - done!
T: Low Impact Step + Stability Ball Abs - done!
W: 4 Day Split Lower Intensity Step + Weights - done!
T: Imax 2 - done!
F: Body Max 2 - done!
S: Rest - done!

Week 2:
S: Low Impact Circuit Cardio Timesaver Premix - done!
M: 4 Day Split Bootcamp + Weights - done!
T: Pyramid Lower Body - done!
W: Pyramid Upper Body + 30 min. walk - done!
T: Step Blast - done!
F: Rest - done!
S: 9 holes of disc golf - done!

Week 3:
S: 4 hours of moving heavy furniture - done!
M: Pyramid Lower Body + 30 min. walk - done!
T: Pyramid Upper Body - done!
W: Low Max - done!
T: Walked around Disneyland all day - done!
F: Walked around California Adventure all day - done!
S: Walked around San Diego stores all day - done!

Week 4:
S: rest - done!
M: 3 hours of typing - done!
T: 4 Day Split Higher Intensity Step + Weights - done!
W: 4 Day Split Kickbox + Weights - done!
T: Kick Punch Crunch - done!
F: Off
S: 4 Day Split Bootcamp + Weights

Week 5:
S: Pyramid Lower Body
M: Low Impact Step
T: Kick Punch Crunch
W: Pyramid Lower Body
T: Pyramid Upper Body
F: 4 Day Split Lower Intensity Step
S: Cardio & Weights

Week 6:
S: Off
M: Complete Aerobic and Weight Training
T: Step Blast
W: Imax 2