It's All Working Out Pt.2

Today I'll be proving why this blog deserves the name 'Consistently Inconsistent'... I've only gone and changed my entire perspective on why I want to work-out.

My whole goal when I returned to the gym this time round, was to reach a target weight of 84kg and I've realised in the last couple of weeks how unrealistic and unnecessary that is...

I don't think the aim of the gym should be to reach a certain number or burn a certain number of calories each day. To me, success in the gym is almost entirely about how you feel, so long as it's accompanied by a healthy body too... (of course being delusionally happy when you're unfit and unhealthy is not the best thing).

I could be a hefty 90kg, but if I'm lean, my weight is in muscle and I'm happy with my physique and mental health - then I won't care about the number on the scales.

My journey to 84kg started pretty well - I lost 3kg in a few weeks but since then, the scales just haven't budged and I've quickly realised my happiness in working out doesn't come from seeing that number drop. More importantly, I've likely hit a wall because I'm turning fat into muscle as I work out - otherwise known as body-recomposition - not just because I've stopped burning fat. I can see changes to my physique almost day-to-day now, and this muscle growth will only make me heavier, not lighter - that's why my weight, if anything, is slowly creeping back up.

So, I only see it as a good thing that I've hit a wall in losing weight, because it's only opened my eyes to the real goal, which is feeling good about myself regardless of what the scales tell me.

Basically, I've taken a leaf straight out of Freya's book, or her blog I should say. I'd highly recommend you check out some of her posts on her bi-weekly blog - Off the scale.

To cover more on just how I'm achieving this body recomposition - I thought I'd share the other half of my workout plan, with my chest and arm workouts.

Chest Workout

I find that with my chest workouts there's far less exercise variation as there are essentially only 3 different sections to should aim to hit - upper, middle and lower chest - and you can do this with just a few workouts. This also means a shorter session, so if I have time (especially at the weekends) I tend to merge my chest workouts with something else like shoulders and arms and extent to roughly 2 hours instead.

Arms Workout

For arms, I also find that variation is quite hard - with biceps, there are only two specific areas I focus on, with triceps there are of course three. As always, I aim for 8-12 reps for each set depending on which exercise I'm performing, but I'll always reach 10 reps at a given weight before progressive overloading to a heavier one.

As with all my workouts, my main priority is slow, precise reps with a big focus on mind to muscle connections. I'll always try and progressive overload for each session and I tend to add in new exercises as I go, this is just what I'm working with at the moment.

The workouts I've posted so far, should give a beginner in the gym a good basis to work up from. Most of the exercises are simple and easy to execute with no complicated form requirements, so none of it should be too complex.