Just the beginning

OK, so today was my first official Belly Off! 2008 workout. I have to say, it kicked my ass! I knew, just from looking at the workout, it wasn’t going to be easy, but WOW.

I started off telling myself (for once) not to try and kill myself since this is my first time doing this workout, let alone any hard exercise routine. That’s always been a problem of mine. I start off thinking I can do anything and I’m invincible, instead of listening to my body and doing what I am truly capable of at the time. So I did the warm-ups (those had me winded, this was going to be a long workout) and moved into the supersets. I made it through the 1st superset (shoulder press push ups and step ups) OK, though those shoulder press push ups were a pain in the ass. I moved into the 2nd superset (1-leg RDLs and Swiss ball mountain climbers) and, while they were pretty easy, I had a hard time balancing on the swiss ball. So I cheated a bit and put the ball against my couch so it would be stable in one direction at least.

By now, I was sweating pretty good and sucking air, but I felt good. It was a challenging workout, but one I was enjoying. Then I got to superset 3 (inverted rows and wide grip push ups). I was only able to push out 8 of the 12 inverted rows, and the 8th one wasn’t very pretty. But, remembering I wasn’t going to kill myself, I was happy with 8. I quickly got into push up position and pumped out 20 quick ones which surprised me actually. Between the push ups in the warm up (regular and spider man), the shoulder press push ups, and the inverted rows, I didn’t think my arms/shoulders/back would be able to do 20, but they did.

Then, when I went to stand up for my rest period, I learned my first lesson of the program. Your body needs food & energy to do this type of work. I had went right from bed to my workout with nothing but a cup of water before I started. Early morning work outs on an empty stomach had worked for me before, but those were cardio workouts (typically 2-3 mile runs). Had I thought about it before starting, I would have known my muscles need energy to perform the way I was asking them to. And the stored energy in my body wasn’t enough, I needed to eat something that would fuel my body for the workout.

I almost passed out when I stood up. While sitting down, with my head between my knees, I almost threw up. I had to lay down for a good 10 minutes before I was able to get up and walk upstairs. I didn’t make it through my final 2 sets of the last superset and I sure didn’t do my interval training like I had planned.

So, I learned that I need to do my workout in the afternoon or early evening, when my body has the fuel it needs for the demands I’ll put on it. I’ll go ahead and do my interval training in the mornings, but only after I have an energy bar or chocolate milk.