Workout 3 - Upper Body

I had my upper body workout on Monday, and I was SO tired after it that I didn't sit down and write a post about it.

Let me just start by saying that I LOVE upper body work.  While it can be tough of course, it's really gratifying.  Plus, everyone wants to have nicely toned arms and shoulders for summertime!  I have a wedding in June that I'd love to wear something sleeveless or strapless to - that's good motivation!

Monday we did a bunch of things:

Bicep curls - OUCH!  My biceps are by far my weakest upper body muscle group.  I pushed through, but man, it was tough.  By the time I was finished with those, my arms were burning pretty good!

Tricep extensions - I do these quite a bit at home, so, I wasn't hurting too bad after those.

Shoulder work - I did both external rotation and internal rotation.  After having done the bicep curls, my arms were a little bit weak, but I was able to get through these without too much of an issue...a little bit of muscle shakiness though.

Bent over row - I did this with a 35 lb. bar.  A bit of an awkward motion, but, it's really beneficial and it'd be nice if I could someday add some weight to that bar! Good exercise to eradicate that pesky back fat! ;)

Kettlebell swings!  I used a 10 lb. kettlebell for these and we did quite a few of them.  I enjoyed them because they also give you a little bit of a cardio component too.  I think that I could handle quite a bit more weight for these, but, seeing as how it was really my first time doing a lot of them, we started with the 10 lb. one.

Bent over tricep kick backs - I do these a lot at home too, but, by this point in the workout, my triceps were burning pretty good - felt like they were going to EXPLODE out of my arms!

Wall push-ups - I did a bunch of these and by the end, I was beat.  My right elbow clicks a little bit when I do things like push-ups.  Most of the time it's just a little bit annoying, but, doing so many irritated a tendon in my elbow, so it was a little bit inflamed on Tuesday.  Some ice helped calm it down.

The post-workout pain didn't rear it's ugly head until this morning (Wednesday).  I quite literally could not straighten my arms out all the way!  I would try and it was almost like I couldn't even force them to straighten.  I did a lot of stretching (and whining) all day today just trying to work out the tightness.  It's finally a little bit better, but I'm sure once I'm done typing this post, I'll have a hard time straightening them again for a while.  I felt like a poor little T-Rex!