NROL Day One

The New Rules of Lifting for Women is a six month weight lifting program. There are seven stages, and each stage lasts a number of weeks with goal of increasing the amount of weight each week. I don't think I ever would have come upon this program on my own, but the ladies on my fitness forum suggested it overwhelmingly. So I jumped on board.

The book itself is substantial, but I dug in as soon as I purchased it. The premise really resonates with my beliefs about fitness. As I've talked about a little bit before, I'm a big believer in understanding your body and figuring what works best for you.

Pure cardio doesn't work for me. I've done solely cardio before without seeing positive effects on my body. I need heavy strength training for me to feel my best.

Which leads me to NROL.

NROL is three strength training days a week. That's a little low for what I'm used to, so I'll be supplementing with 5k training and interval training on rest days to keep my body active.

Today I did Stage 1, Workout A. This consists of intervals of squats, pushups, seated row, step-ups and   prone jackknife.

Week one, from what I gather, is kind of a test run week. I wasn't 100% about how much weight I should use for my squats, row and step-ups. I ended up with 55#, 110# and 30#, respectively. I went higher on the step-ups initially but had to downsize (the "up" of the bench I'm using is pretty substantial).

I also warmed up with a five minute jog and cooled down with a five minute jog + five minute step in place. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to work up a good sweat, but I really did.

If I can get a nice workout on with a 40 minute routine, I am on board.

Baseline measurements and a training run tomorrow morning (for the record, I'm not looking to gain/lose weight or gain/lose inches, but I like to keep track). For now, I'm very much looking forward to Workout B on Friday. Let's see where this goes.

P.S. Homemade pumpkin gnocchi is on the menu for this weekend (food review coming your way).