I’ll Never Be a Twig
I get asked a lot what I do to have such great arms. Thom came to an upper body training session and a picture is worth a 1,000 words – more or less.
First of all, upper body work always hurts and it’s never easy. I’ve been working with my trainer, Shawna, for about a year now, twice a week. One day is legs and plyometrics, and the other day is upper body. We never do the same thing from week to week and she is always making it harder. I like the challenge.
The first round of exercises started with 15 assisted pull-ups. Then I went to the floor to do rows. The first set I thought she said to do twenty on each side. No, it was suppose to be twenty total! Since I could do so many with 20 lb weights, my next two sets , were with the 25 pounders!
The rows were followed by push ups with my feet on a large ball, one hand on a medicine ball. For this exercise you have to keep your core absolutely tight, otherwise the big ball starts to wobble away. I did ten total in a set – five to each side. I did each of these exercises three times.
Hard stuff!
The next round of exercises started with pull ups with my feet on the ball. The first set I got to keep both feet on, the second set I had to keep one foot up. Very tough ! And again crucial to keep that core area tight.
This was followed by 15 bicep curls with 15 pound weights in each hand, balancing on my knees on the large ball. Thom didn’t get any really good pictures of that. Suffice it to say, it was HARD!
The third exercise in this set was a shoulder press with the kettle bell, standing on the flat side of a bosu ball, on one foot. First you balance on the bosu ball, lean down and touch the kettle bell to your toe, stand up and bring the kettle to a shoulder press. The hardest part of this was balancing on one foot, by about 8 repetitions my ankle was burning from keeping me balanced. I did each of these exercises twice.
We finished up with some ab work. The first set was on a flat bench, the second set on an inclined bench. For these bring your legs up, lift the butt up, and scissor once in each direction, butt back down. The flat bench wasn’t bad. The inclined bench was killer.
So, I’ve got too much muscle to be a twig and I’m okay with that. 
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