Road to Ironman Week 4

Week 4. Kind of crazy to think that I am already four weeks into this journey.

This week I started some strength training for my hip flexor in order to help push it to the next level.  That level being the ability to start running level!!  Strengthening your hip flexor is actually really difficult as there is not many specific exercises that target the hip flexor.

Here are the exercises I did:

Hip Flexion with cable machine Seated knee raises with dumbbell on knee (this is kind of a made up exercise) Biking, this really helps with the endurance of the hip flexor due to the piston like action of your leg. Runners stretch (LOVE THIS!!)

It took about three days before I felt like I was no longer going to buckle at the waist after beginning the strengthening.  I was so sore for a few days and not just in my hip flexor but the whole damn leg was sore and weak.  Luckily my body has this amazing way of quickly responding to when I put it under stress and rebounded pretty quickly.

Monday

Monday mornings are my sleep in morning. I have a tendency to back load my weeks with workouts so I always allow myself to sleep in on Monday Mornings.

Afternoon: Was shoulders and a little bit of glute work, followed up by 45 mins on the elliptical.  For shoulders I did more overhead press work than I normally do in order to work on some of the powerful muscles in the shoulder.  I want to send a big Thank you to Netflix for making the elliptical bearable. :)

Tuesday

I switched things up a bit today and did my lifting in the morning.  On Tuesdays I have physical therapy at 6:30 am so if I was going to get the planned swim in I would have had to have a very early wake up call, where as with the lifting I could get that done a lot quicker.

I followed that up with a 2500 m afternoon swim in which I did the following workout: 300 w/u 3X500 10X50 400 c/d

Wednesday

Early morning spin class Whoop Whoop!! These are quickly becoming one of my favorites, however I am finding that since post surgery I am a lot slower to warm up in the mornings.  I swear it takes like 20 mins of the class in order to even feel like I am on the right track.

I followed that up with a decent leg workout.

Thursday

Had a great swim this morning in which I put up some of my fastest times that I have ever done.  I did my first 1600 m of the workout in 26 mins which is about 2 mins faster than ever before and I completed 2000 m (relatively equivalent to 1.2 mi swim) in 36 mins which is also about 2 mins faster than any of my swims before!

I followed swim today with 45 mins on the elliptical again.  Hopefully running is allowed next week.

Friday

As per usual early morning spin class and today I followed it up immediately with 25 mins on the elliptical.  My legs were starting to feel a bit trashed by this morning, and I think it has to do with the increase in elliptically (in place of running) that went on this week.

Evening lift to round out the Friday!

Saturday

I like Saturdays due to the 2 hour spin class that is offered at our gym. Like most people I have a hard time pushing myself to do intervals on the trainer at home so I am lucky to have such an awesome spin class that I can go to that will push me.

Sunday

Seriously lack luster day.  I had plans to go for a bike ride, it was cold and windy.  Plans to go swimming, didn't feel like it.  It just went on and on.  I believe I took two naps today.

As per usual we took the puppy for his Sunday morning walk.  This is probably my favorite part of the week.  I can't wait till the sun stays up longer and we can do it more often than just once a week.

Following that we lounged around the house until we forced ourselves to the gym around 3:30.  Did a lack luster whole body lift and then I walked while Brandon ran.

Next week kicks of a low or active rest week in preparation for upping the mileage, time, and introducing running back into my training!!!

What was your favorite workout this week?