Loving my new strength program and the delayed onset muscle soreness that comes with it!

As shown in the last blog entry, I'm on a new program and  working towards getting a little stronger, a little firmer and nicely defined toned muscles.

Each day after warming up I'm going into a strength exercise such as dumbbell bench press, deadlifts, dumbell shoulder press and so on. I start with 25 reps, then 16 - 18 reps, then 12, then 8, and then I'm ready to go on to some heavy sets with a target of 4 - 6 reps.

I think it must be a winning strategy, because I've been nice and sore all this week. Specifically in chest since training last monday, and also very much so in the triceps after training on Friday. I'm starting out with an overhead dumbbell extention for triceps. My triceps happen to be perhaps my best and most responsive muscle group, so even though I really enjoy training them it's fair to say I might not always push them quite so hard as other less responsive muscles. This time though, the overhead extension took me to complete temporary muscle failure (don't worry, this is a good thing!), and that's just the first exercise of the day!

Of course on arms day I am alternating bicep and tricep exercises each set, so I'm pushing my biceps just as hard. I'm certain that this program will have my arms looking their best and the strongest they have ever been in time for Summer.