Week 4 cont. What weights work

As promised, here are the details of my weekly training sessions with my personal trainer, but first a quick review of my runs during the week.

I managed 20km on Monday which consisted of the usual 12km after work river run followed by 8km on the treadmill in Virgin Active Broadgate. That ticked the box of the one long run a week as I’d missed out by skiing on the weekend. Thursday was the usual 12km along the river after work followed by 20mins on the cross trainer in the gym and Friday was back in the gym for a hill session. On the treadmill I usually warm up for about 15mins then do 5 minute chunks either speed or hills or both – with 3 mins on and 2mins off. The 3mins on this time was on hills ranging from 3% to 6% at a speed of 13kmh. Overall hill work is very good for both stamina and strength in the legs.

Personal Trainer
Wednesday had my usual session in the gym with my trainer Ian Holmes – he’s at Slim Jims gym (http://www.slim-jims.co.uk/) in Broadgate having moved there  from Virgin active at the end of last year – it has been fun for me to try out a new gym and new surroundings. This year we have been working on strength work for the legs as I get enough stamina during my weekly runs. Strength training involves less sets and reps but heavy weights – we're doing a program with two sets of 10 reps with a minutes rest inbetween. To get the weights right they should be heavy enough that the last rep on the last set is almost a fail. He has a funky ipad with diagrams on but hasn’t worked out how to do a link to them on the web - until he works out the technology below is a fairly boring list of the current program we are working on – Google or message me for explanations of any of these. For all the weights we do two sets of ten reps and the whole thing takes about one hour.

Exercise                                  Weight

Dumbbell  pull-over                  25 kg

Dead lift                                   70 kg

Dumbbell lunge                         20 kg

Dumbbell side bend                  25 kg

Machine leg curl                       90 kg

Sumo squat                              50 kg

Back squat                               80 kg

Good morning                          50 kg

Romanian deadlift                     70 kg

Concentration dumb bell curl     17.5 kg

Abdominal reverse curl – 2 * 15 reps
BOSU Knee to chest – 3* 1min

Generally you need a rest day after this but my rest day is usually a Tuesday as I have an after work class and can’t fit in any exercise. On the day after weights I try not to do too strenuous a run.