All Pump Extreme - Chest and Shoulders - Amy Bento

[Guest guest]

So, this week starts my Amy/Cathe rotation for October! I'm very

excited about it, and expect a lot of DOMS, lol. My plan is Amy

Bento's All Pump Extreme (APX) for this week, Amy's Slo-Mo for next

week, and Cathe strength for the last two weeks of the month. I have

the Pure Strength series for my first week of Cathe (body part

splits) and will do 2 or 3 full body workouts for the last week

(Muscle Max, Max Intensity Strength, Body Max). Cardio will be my

choice each week, and I may add on some short cardio to my strength

days, in addition to my cardio days. We'll see!

We had a nice weekend and I'm happy to report that the roof is pretty

much done! Finally! Sunday ended up being cool and rainy for most of

the day, so it was a perfect day for some shopping and a roof

celebration dinner at the Outback, lol! The Outback was tasty, and I

picked up a few new workouts and cookbooks at Half Price Books (we

went to three stores, lol). And DH was super excited because he

found a car book that he had been looking for, for $10 - it's out of

print and was over $40 on amazon. For workouts I got FIRM's Jiggle

Free Buns (which I'd been looking to find for cheap), Tear It Up from

the Slim Series to add to my beachbody collection, and Total Mix from

the Quick Fix series because it looked fun. I also picked up

Abdo's Fat Blaster walking workout. I don't know him or if I'll like

it, but the dvd was only $3 (new), so I figured I'd give it a shot.

And I need cookbooks about as much as I *need* new workouts (and a

hole in the head!) but I picked up yet another slow cooker cookbook

(I love my slow cooker), and a Foreman cookbook (for $1!) so

hopefully I'll use my GF indoor grill more, lol. Oh, and we even hit

Play It Again Sports for kicks and I finally found some lower priced

weighted gloves, and some reasonably priced quick locks for my

barbell so I don't have to mess with those spring clips anymore.

They came in handy today and worked great, too!

So, anyway, back to today's workout! I'm doing APX as body parts

splits this week, and I really, really like body part splits! I

think I tend to push harder, as I'm not worried about conserving

energy for legs or whatever later in the workout, or having to train

chest again in two days, etc. Plus, it's how I started with weight

training, so there's probably a comfort level thing in it for me, too.

Today was chest and shoulders, and there was about 10 minutes of core

work at the end as well. I really liked this workout, a lot! It was

right around 45 min with warm up and stretching and felt just right

to me. I probably could have added in some short cardio afterwards

as well, but didn't really have time. Maybe tomorrow. I even used

the pause button on my dvd player to get the right weights/change

weights, etc. That's unusual for me, as I'm impatient and tend to

just do what I can do and not mess with the player, lol.

This workout is pretty straight forward weight training, though she

does add a few functional moves here and there. For chest, you start

with barbell bench presses doing reps at different speeds, and adding

a few pulses at the end. Three sets, I believe. Next up were

dumbbell pullovers, same format at the bench press. Then she mentions

push ups, and I groan (Hi , lol!) and get ready to do them with

my quads on my swiss ball, as currently that is the only way I don't

hate doing them, lol. But then I see that she's doing these drop

type push ups on the knees, using a step. So I paused it again

(shocker!) and got out my step to give it go. I can do these! I

don't know what they are called, but you are on your knees with the

step in front of you, and you fall forward onto your hands and push

back off again. Amy starts with 3 risers (me, too) and removes one

for each set that follows.

I think shoulder work starts next, doing upright rows. Amy uses a

body bar, and alternates between both hands and one hand at a time.

I started with my barbell and quickly switched to dumbbells for the

one hand at a time part. Then she gets out a resistance band for

shoulder presses. She also adds a light dumbbell to each hand. I

had to mess around a bit for this part to figure out what felt right,

but ended up using my (new!) weighted gloves in addition to the

band. I didn't like the band rubbing the back of my arms during the

movement, so I ended up changing my grip so the band was in front.

Probably not the best modification, but much more comfortable for

me. Next, you use the band for this wicked set of front raises where

you swing your arms past your waist, behind you, at the end of the

rep. Once I got my band the right length so it wasn't flopping

around, I could really feel these! I think the core work started

after this, with a move that also involves shoulders.

You start with a shoulder press with one hand, but curve over toward

the side opposite you are holding the dumbbell with. Then, you come

back upright, hold the dumbbell next to your head and do this

diagonal bent over move. Hard to describe but not too hard to do.

There was a crab to a side plank to a reg plank move that I just did

reg planks for. I haven't done many planks, and that swinging around

to the side planks didn't look like something I wanted to try as I my

muscles were feeling pretty tired at this point. She also uses

gilders for two more core moves, but I didn't want to get out my

carpet and all to use mine for just a few minutes (I have a rubber

mat floor) so I modified and used my swiss ball for similar moves. A

decent core workout for me anyway, and I was even expecting to do

core today.

I like Amy very much, and her cueing was pretty good. A few times

she stops counting which made it a little harder to follow along

without watching the TV, but no big deal overall. I'm looking forward

to the rest of my workouts with Amy!

Sara