Wednesday 27 August

Yoh, Des made me work this morning.

After Monday when I really didn't have any energy, I felt good this morning. And made the mistake to tell Des ... shoo, what a workout!

Last week, we started off slowly (that's according to Des) with 35-40 minute sessions of weight training. 'Just to get the muscles used to the idea that they're going to be hurting' ...

Today, we did a 50 minute session. And despite the fact that most of the weights that we use look like their kiddie-size, they damn well start hurting after the first set of reps. And now we're doing 3 sets of reps as opposed to just 2 last week.

The idea is to quite quickly get to 1 hour sessions, at full tilt (high intensity). Des says that weight training burns less calories than cardio, but keeps your metabolism higher for a lot longer. About 4 to 5 hours after the training, whereas with cardio, it drops after about an hour or so.

We'll have to see how this develops. I reckon that as I get fitter, there will be less need for cardio, so I may step up the weight training from the current 3/3 ratio (3 days cardio, 3 days weights) to 2/4 or maybe even 1/5.

Another thing that I've noticed now that I've got my Polaris monitor is that my heart rate goes beserk when I'm doing weight training. I regularly hit over 170. Luckily, this is just for short bursts and it drops just as quickly after every set of reps, but still - it shows that it really was time to start doing something about my physical condition. And this too should improve as I get fitter.