We are on week 5 of 12 of my getting my pre-pregnancy body back challenge.
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Are you following along? How are you doing so far? I would love to hear how much weight you have lost.
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To date, I have lost 8 pounds since week 1. After I gave birth I had 18 pounds to lose. For the first 6 weeks postpartum, I watched my diet with no exercise (other than walking) and lost 5 pounds.
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I have 5 POUNDS TO GO! And I can’t wait to see my body after these next 5 come off.
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My goal is to have all the weight off by December 1st and I think it will happen. All I need to do is ramp things up if my progress stalls and I’ll teach you how.
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This week we are going to introduce TEMPO into the mix. Working with tempo is pretty fun and challenging.
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Weight lifting tempo refers to the number of seconds it takes for you to complete a full range of motion of one repetition, usually called a lift.
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Tempo has a particular numeric scheme to describe the different phases. For example, 20X1 would mean:

• The first number 2 is the time in seconds to lower the weight after you’ve reached the top of the lift. This is the eccentric or negative phase. Working with eccentric tempos helps to increase strength.
• The second number 0 is the pause at the completion of the exercise or at the start of the lift.
• The third character X means an explosive lift in the concentric phase. You can think of the third number as the contracting phase. Here we typically use a faster momentum to return the weight to the start position.
• The fourth number represents the starting point of the movement. Here you can either pause or immediately begin the next repetition

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Here’s another example using a bicep curl with a 4120 tempo. What this means is: 4 seconds on the way down, 1 second rest at the bottom, lift for 2 seconds and do not rest at the top.
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Another change this week is the introduction of high intensity interval training (HIIT). Here want to get really winded and keep intervals short with short rest periods.
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I tend to stop my workout right before I feel like I am about to start wheezing; which is what happened during my stair workout this week.

 

Workout 1

Exercise		Reps	Sets.	Tempo
A1	Bodyweight Hip Thrust (shoulders on bench/feet on the ground)	12-15	3	2023
A2	Push Up	12-15	3	3020
A3	1-leg Standing Calf Raise – toes neutral	12-15	3	1111
	. *Rest 60 seconds between sets .
B1	Heels Elevated Narrow Stance DB Squat – GO DEEP	12-15	3	3020
B2	Inverted Row	12-15	3	4021
B3	Seated Calf Raise – toes neutral	20	3	1111
	. *Rest 60 seconds between sets .
C	Side-lying Leg Raise	20-25	2	1111
D	Lying Leg Curl	12-15	2	3020
E	Superset – Rope High Pulley Triceps Pressdown w Rope Low Pulley Curl……	12-15 each	2	3020
	. *No rest between sets C, D, E .

Workout 2

Exercise		Reps	Sets.	Tempo
A1	Single-Leg Glute Bridge – shoulders on ground/foot on bench	20-25	3	2011
A2	1-Arm DB Shoulder Press	20-25	3	2021
A3	1-Leg Standing Calf Raise	20-25	3	1111
	. *Rest 60 seconds between sets .
B1	Dumbbell RDL	12-15	3	2011
B2	Wide Grip Lat Pull Down + 1-3 eccentric neutral grip chin up (3 second lowering)	12-15	3	2021
B3	Seated Calf Raise – toes pointed inward	30	3	1111
	. *Rest 60 seconds between sets .
C	45 Degree Back Extension	20	2	2021
D	Reverse crunch on floor	30	2
E	Left lift (for abs)	25	2
	. *No rest between sets C, D, E .

Workout 3

Exercise		Reps	Sets.	Tempo
A1	Single-Leg Hip Thrust – shoulders on bench/foot on ground	15-20	3	2021
A2	Push Up	15-20	3	3030
A3	1-Leg Standing Calf Raise – toes pointed outward	15-20	3	1111
	. *Rest 60 seconds between sets .
B1	Split Squat with front foot elevate 6 inches. Get butt to ankle……………………	12-15	3	2020
B2	Seated Low Pulley Row to Waist – overhand grip	12-15	3	2021
B3	Seated Calf Raise – toes pointed outward	20-25	3	1111
	. *Rest 60 seconds between sets .
C	Russian Twists	30	2
D	Side-Bend	20/side	2
E	Palms Down DB Standing Lateral Raise	15-20	2	2021
	. *No rest between sets C, D, E .

Workout 4

Cardio — same as last week but increase intensity. We want to start HIIT

What I want you to do here is 15-20 minutes of high intensity on stairs, treadmill, sprints etc.

I did stairs again; 10 sets of 100 stairs (running up)