Thursday and Friday: Heavy Lifting

I worked late on Tuesday and Wednesday--ugh!--so I missed my regular Wednesday butt-kicking. I went on Thursday and Scott more than made up for my missed workout. Five rounds: 12 dumbbell cleans and front squat with 25-lb dumbbells 12 push-ups Then one set of 30 pull-ups. Yikes! Those 25-pound weights were heavy. Letting them down by my sides after each rep felt like the most fatiguing part. And five rounds, my goodness, I wasn't surprised I was the slowest person to finish! This was followed on Friday night by shoulder presses, also with dumbbells, and I was still tired enough that I wimped out and used 15-pound ones. Friday night we did several minute-or-shorter alternating intervals of shoulder presses, side-to-side jumping lunges with a medicine ball (like something from the boxing gym!), dips, and rowing. Then Dave told us to get some heavy kettlebells out--32 kg ones for the guys and 24 kg for the women. Our "assignment" was 100 kettlebell swings. One hundred! That took a while. Twenty-four kilos is pretty heavy. I think I did 25, then sets of 10 or fewer. My frequent Friday workout partner Erika finished ahead of me. After we recovered and goofed off for a little while, Erika and I started warily circling the 32-kg kettlebell that was still sitting out, which Tom had used. We joked about not even being able to lift it; Erika pointed out it is more than half our bodyweight. I pretended to make it talk to us, calling us wimps. Finally I picked it up and gave it five swings. Hey! That wasn't so bad. Then Erika took a turn. We did sets of five until we'd done 35 each. It was gratifying to be able to control that heavy thing after trying it a few months ago and almost being pulled off my feet. I can tell I've gotten stronger that way, even though the workouts don't get any easier, and today I've got very sore muscles in the rear. Video and an article on how to do kettlebell swings. The guy in the video swings it over his head; in our gym we only swing it up to about eye level.