Kickboxing Chic’s BodyBlog

I’ve wrapped up week 34 and now head into week 35. About a 15-16 pound weight gain so far. If I can get up and get my workout in on a given day, then it is a good day. But what I am able to do in the gym is becoming more and more limited. No more jogging on the treadmill… incline walking only. Even the bouncing from that can be a bit much on my poor ligaments and muscles. The various forms of squats and lunges I do for legs are becoming challenging too… need to keep them shallow. For legs this week, I resorted to the leg extension and hamstring curl machines. Despite these growing limitations, I keep plugging away doing what I can. I don’t plan too much and just do what feels good on any given day. At this stage, I’m ok with just doing a long stint of cardio. As long as I get in a good sweat, I’m happy.

My uterus is measuring smaller than where I ideally should be at this stage. I’m thinking ‘how can that be? I feel so huge and maxed out!’ I’m having an ultrasound next week to check baby’s growth. My little one moves a lot and depending on where she decides to position herself, I have more discomfort some days than others. I’m thinking the reason baby may be small is because all that movement she is doing is burning the calories I’m giving her! Like mother, like daughter.

As for a workout to share in this post… here’s one I did on Thanksgiving Day. It was a good, quick, power workout given that I was short on time. My delts were fried. The high reps for legs kept my HR up.

1.       Treadmill warm-up (walking/light jogging) – 15 minutes

2.       Circuit 1:

a.       Step-ups onto a bench x20/side

b.      Rotator cuff/shoulder press combo x15

c.       1-arm DB swings x15/side

d.      Repeat 3x thru

3.       Circuit 2:

a.       Side-step lunges x20/side

b.      Lateral raises with a twist at the top x15

c.       1-arm DB clean/press x12/side

d.      Repeat 3x thru

This workout took me ~1 hour and I burned 425 calories. Not bad considering there was no focused cardio effort involved. I haven’t done delts this week so I may give this one a go again for today’s or tomorrow’s workout.

Here I am at 34 weeks:

I really enjoyed my first pregnancy, but I’m anxious to get this one wrapped up and get back to my normal self. I want to wear my normal jeans again and get back to higher intensity, challenging workouts. I was watching some Cross Fit videos on YouTube this past weekend, which made me very envious and anxious about getting through the final stretch of pregnancy. Admittedly, I’m already thinking about my post-pregnancy plan. Hopefully my delivery will be uneventful so I can keep my recovery period to about 3 weeks. In the meantime, I keep doing what I can. And yes, I can still do burpees (albeit modified). Here’ my game plan for this week:

Training
Monday: BW/Weight Circuit (similar to what I did last week)
·         Fast step-ups onto a bench step (1 minute/side)

·         Lateral hops over bench (2 minutes)

·         Lunge switches with a DB shoulder press x20 (big HR booster)

·         Curtsy squat/squat x10 sets (curtsy squat on each side with a squat in the middle = 1 set)

·         DB chest press/fly combo x10 sets

·         1-leg deadlifts x15/leg

·         DB Tricep overhead press x15

·         Kneeling kick-backs w/ band x30/leg

·         DB Bicep curls x15

·         Repeat circuit 3x

Tuesday: HIIT Cardio (Elliptical) and Stretching
Wednesday: Treadmill/Superset Intervals

·         Treadmill warm-up followed by speed intervals (increase speed every 1 minute for 5-8 minutes)

·         Bulgarian split squats and rear delt lifts w/ cables – 3 sets

·         Treadmill 90/30 sec intervals x4

·         Step-ups and lat pulldowns – 3 sets

·         Treadmill incline intervals (increase incline every 1 minute for 5 minutes)

·         Hamstring curls and leg extensions – 3 sets

·         Another round on the treadmill if time permits

Thursday: HIIT Cardio (Treadmill) and Stretching
Friday: BW/Weight Circuit
Something similar to Monday, but the upper body work will be more delt focused.

Saturday: Boot Camp
Sunday: Rest, recovery, plan, and prep day
Nutrition
Rather than plan a full week in advance, here are some things I’ve done to prepare for the week.

·         Cut up lots of carrots, celery, and bell peppers for snacks

·         Made a flaxseed oil based dressing for salads

·         Threw some turkey breasts on the grill Sunday night while we were grilling steaks for dinner

·         Made a 3-4 serving batch of quinoa

·         Made turkey meatballs on Monday for spaghetti with meatballs; the leftover meatballs can be used for lunches and snacks throughout the week

·         Stocked up on apples from the fruit stand (lots of good ones on sale) and salad stuff so I can have salads for lunches and dinners

·         Chopped up mushrooms, zucchini, and bell peppers for egg while omelets

As you can see, I am well stocked with healthy options for the week. Easy to just grab and go.

Now it is just time for execution… so far so good! What your game plan for this week?

I’m now into my 17^th week and both baby and Mom are doing well. When I go in for my check-ups, the nurses and other maternal medicine staff all say things like “baby is really moving around” or “baby is kicking.” So it looks like another active, high energy child is on the way. At least now this one will have a sibling to chase around to help expend all that energy. Here I am at 17 weeks:

I’m starting to make some adjustments to my training. However, I generally follow the same routine, minus core work and lower intensity cardio (still high by many people’s standards). I’m finding that cutting out core work also involves cutting out exercises that engage a lot of core, such as chin-ups and pull-ups. Also, no push-ups with feet elevated on a bench or stability ball. And I often drop to my knees for the remaining 5 reps. It’s not so much that I can’t do them, as much as paying the price later with painful cramping from my ligaments and muscles trying to relax while I’m making them work! I’m such a preacher of compound exercises, but in some cases I’ve had to resort to more isolated or single muscle group exercises. For example, I rarely do bicep only exercise (such as bicep curls), instead I do chin-ups which have lots of bicep emphasis but also hit my lats. But to keep my biceps strong for all the kid carrying I’m about to do (well, still do), I started incorporating bicep exercises into my routine. While I prefer the more ‘hard core’ exercises such as chin-ups, pull-ups, dips, and decline push-ups, I guess doing the more targeted exercises has been a nice change up. I’m still doing an outdoor ‘boot camp’ style workout at a local, neighborhood park once a week. I put together the training agenda for each workout and invite some recruits to join me, but soon I may need to play more of a Drill Sergeant role pushing my recruits to their limits. I hope to keep my boot camp workout as part of my weekly routine at least through the early fall while the weather is still good.

Here’s a workout I put together earlier this week. It took me 70 minutes, which included a 10 minute warm-up. It kicked my pregnant but pretty good. I burned 423 calories with this one… not bad considering it was all interval work.

1)      Warm-up: Elliptical and light BW exercises (prisoner squats, kneeling push-ups, stick-ups)

2)      Jump rope: 500 jumps

3)      Mini-circuit #1 – Repeat 3x

a)      Side-step lunges x15/side w/ 20lb DBs

b)      DB flies on stability ball x10 w/ 20lb DBs

c)       Tricep overhead press x10 w/ 25 lb DB

d)      Lateral hops over a bench x15 (over and back counts as 1 rep)

4)      Jump rope: 500 jumps

5)      Mini-circuit #2 – Repeat 3x

a)      Plie squats x15 w/ 20lb DBs

b)      1-arm DB clean-press x9-10 w/20lb DB

c)       1-arm DB swings x12-15 w/ 15-20lb DB

d)      Burpee push-ups x10

Give it a try… change it up if you like… let me know what you think.