Here’s the new workout program for the next 8 weeks. (Last 8 weeks’ program I posted about here.)

I had been doing a 3 day per week rotation with a body split (back/biceps Monday, chest/triceps Wednesday, and legs/shoulders Friday). I didn’t mind the split program but after doing it for 2 rotations (16 weeks) I’m ready to go back to a total body routine.

There are two schools of thought on the total body vs. split debate. The total body people say that since you are working more muscle groups and therefore a larger mass of muscle that you are burning more calories. Plus, you work each muscle groups multiple times per week. The body split people say that focusing on 2-3 muscle groups per day allows you to sufficiently fatigue them and really isolate and work them. There really isn’t any dramatic evidence that either way is better so I’ll probably continue to float between the two. I think they both have merits.

The big news with this rotation is that I’m going up to 4 days per week. 4 days! Gasp! I decided I needed to stop making excuses for not being in the gym more and step up. I’m a little concerned how it will work with my schedule and if my body will have sufficient time to recover. We’ll see.

Workout 1

• Deadlift (gotta start off the week with deadlifting!)
• Decline Bench Press
• Lat Pull Down
• Rear Delt Raise
• Lateral Raises
• External Shoulder Rotators

Workout 2

• Bench Press
• Romanian Deadlift
• Clean and Press (oooooooooohhhhh, Olympic lifts, watch out)
• Bicep Curls
• Tricep Kickbacks
• Face-Pulls

Workout 3

• Squats
• Close-Grip Bench Press
• Machine Rows
• Shoulder Press
• Preacher Curl
• Front Raises

Workout 4

• Good Mornings
• Wide-Grip Pull-Ups
• Step-Ups
• Dumbbell Chest Fly
• Upright Row
• Hanging Leg Raise

Wondering what the heck some of these are? ExRx.net is a great resource for finding movements to work certain areas. Want something to cover your latissimus dorsi and teres major? No problem, they’ve got you covered.

Here’s a deadlift, my favorite lift.

Here’s the clean and press, a new exercise for me. This was the only good video I could find of what they look like. The guy in the video says they are for “anyone who needs insane amounts of upper body power.” Be prepared…I’m going to turn into She-Hulk doing these. Just kidding. They are an Olympic style lift so they are much more dynamic. Interestingly enough they used to be part of the Olympics until 1972 when they are removed from weightlifting because it was difficult to judge proper technique.

This is an uncommon version of the good morning that I’ll be giving a try for the first time as well.

Pictures Source

To Whom it May Concern,

You looked ridiculous using the shrug machine with 180lbs and grunting very loudly before I started deadlifting the same amount next to you. Now you really do. Stop looking so shocked.

Thanks,

Audrey

P.S. - Thanks for actually making my day at the gym. I love showing up the guys.

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Griffin and I did our part in stimulating the economy this weekend… (It’s not normally like this, I promise.)

Friday Night: In-and-Out

Saturday: Shopping downtown (Griffin brought me for my birthday! More on this later.)

Saturday Night: Chez Maman (A really, really good French place just up the street from us. It’s super tiny, seating all of about 14 people. It has 2 two-person tables and 10 spots at the counter. It’s fun because you get to watch them cook everything. Oh, and their onion soup is to die for. I would take Mom and Dad here while their out but it’s so hard to get a group of 4 in.)

Sunday: Pride 2008 and lunch out at Sally’s (one of our favorite bunch places)

Shopping on Saturday was very successful. Old Navy had most things marked way down and I had a Gap gift card from Don and Cheryl for my birthday.  At Oly Navy Griffin got two nice polo shirts (one if the same style Mom and Dad got him for his birthday, just a different color) for $8. I got a nice cotton top, some new workout shorts ($6!), and a fun tank top. The tank top has black sequins on the shoulders and I’m seeing myself wearing it out to late night summer time dinners out (nevermind the fact that it is to cold to wear just a tank top out at night here in San Francisco year round). I also got a cute top at Gap (yep, burning that gift card already). It’s white and is embroidered with lavender flowers.

So that’s a total of 3 meals out and about $80 in clothes. What recession?

Another signature San Francisco event: the annual Pride Parade. Being new SF residents and all we had to go check it out. I was really excited because I had heard good things but it wasn’t quite as cool as I thought it would be. It’s super long and moves pretty slowly (started at 10:30pm, finished at about 1:30pm). But the historic significance of the event (this is it’s 38th year, 38 years ago you could lose your job for being gay), and the significance of this year’s event (gay marriage legalized) made it fun. There was a large group of recently married couples marching with the legal team that helped win the legalization which was incredibly moving. A lot of them had signs stating how long they had been together (some 30+ years) and that they had finally been married in the past two weeks (CA started marrying couples June 17th). It’s so sad we’ve been shunning these people for so long. What makes their love any less valid?

We didn’t get any really good pictures, here are two:

Vote no on the ban in November

Recently married couples

Now here are some good pictures from the folks over at the San Francisco Chronicle:

New whey protein experimentation last night: chocolate cake! It’s 170 calories, 7g of fat, 3 g of carbs, and 28 g of protein.

Chocolate Cake

• 1 scoop of chocolate whey protein
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon of water

Mix the whey, egg, and water together well. Microwave for 1 minute.

I’m not going to claim that it’s the most delicious cake you’ve ever had but I will take the bet that it is the healthiest and easiest to make chocolate cake ever. Surprisingly, it does actually fluff up like cake. Griffin really enjoyed this one. I highly recommend you try it for yourself. What do you have to lose? 2 minutes? :)

I’m going to experiment with adding Splenda (to make it a little sweeter) and also with making a sugar-free frosting. I’m thinking Splenda might blend with milk to make a frosting since it’s kinda light and fluffly like powdered sugar. Or, if the frosting fails, sugar-free caramel flavored syrup. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Older whey protein recipes can be found here.

Via Mental_Floss:

Scott Wade’s Dirty Car Art Gallery

Dear Dude-in-the-Squat-Rack-Next-to-Me,

I’m sorry but your loud grunting, counting of reps out loud (seriously who does this?), 315lbs of weight, and incredibly poor squat form do not impress me. Stop looking at me to see if they did. Next time try doing squats with more than 3″ of depth with a proper amount of weight (i.e. less than 315 lbs).

Audrey

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Dear Girl-with-Bubblegum,

If you can blow and pop bubbles in your gum while doing a set of “lunges” you’re not working hard enough.

Sincerely,

Audrey

Today was legs/shoulders. It’s almost the end of my 8 weeks on this workout program, time to start drawing up a new one. I can’t decide if I want to stay with splits (back/biceps, chest/triceps, legs/shoulders) or go back to a full body routine…

Note to self: Never let one crew of operators find out that you baked for another crew. They will not forget… even after 3 months.

After finally being harassed enough by A crew (”When are you going to bake for us?”, “Did you bring us cookies today?”) I broke down and made some bar cookies for them last night. Not only will it stop the whining for a little while, they also served as a bribe (I needed help with some step testing and sampling today and tomorrow). This works like a charm as they will do pretty much anything for food I’ve found.

I modified the recipe a little bit based on some other people’s reviews on Allrecipes.com and on what I had around the house. Instead of raspberry filling I used strawberry. I thought the extra jam I had on hand was raspberry (the jar was red, I was close) but it wasn’t, so to avoid an extra trip to the store I settled for strawberry. It worked well but I think raspberry would have been better, it’s a more pronounced flavor. I used butter instead of margerine and I used lemon juice instead of water. I also used a box of lemon cake mix instead of yellow as recommended by others on the site. This worked really well. They were very lemony but still very good, and probably more interesting than they would have been with yellow cake mix. Think crunchy lemon bars with a hint of strawberry filling.

These were also super easy to make (the main criteria for selecting the recipe), so I definitely think I’ll be making them again. I think I’ll experiment with different cake mix flavors and different fillings. The structure of the recipe lends itself to a lot of variations. For example, you could simplify the Caramel Bars I made awhile back using white or butter cake mix and caramel filling with chocolate chips and nuts. Or what about chocolate cake mix and strawberry filling? Or butter pecan cake mix with caramel filling? Or spice cake mix with… well I don’t know… but I bet the crumbles would be really good with spice cake mix. Mmmmm….

Recipe is from AllRecipes.com. Here: Raspberry Oatmeal Bars - Allrecipes

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (18.25 oz) package of yellow cake mix
• 2 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
• 3/4 cup margarine, melted
• 1 cup raspberry jam
• 1 tablespoon water

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9X13 inch pan.
   
2. In a large bowl, mix together oats, cake mix, and melted margarine so that it makes nice clumps and there is no dry mix left. Press 1/2 of the oats mixture evenly into the bottom the prepared pan. In a separate bowl, mix jam with water, and spread over the crust. Sprinkle the remaining oat mixture evenly over the top.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 18 to 23 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. Cool before cutting into bars.

And I mean really like them.

On Sunday/Monday* this blog received 118 hits… whoa. And I thought it was only my Mom that read it… 70 of those hits were to a post I did over a month ago on theh dog breed Shiba Inu. On Monday/Tuesday there were 50 hits to this post (out of 64 total page views) and there were 94 hits to this post on Tuesday/Wednesday (out of a total 104 page views).

I know they are cute dogs but… seriously?

What is up with this? There aren’t any major referrers so I’m pretty confused. Ideas?

*I say Sunday/Monday because the page hits record in GMT meaning that they are 7 hours ahead. (Hits shown as received on Monday actually occur between 5pm Sunday and 5 pm Monday PST.)

Gas in San Francisco: $4.75 for regular… Ick.

And if you want premium (like the Acura does) it’ll cost you $4.95.