Exercise Progress Update - April 2013 Edition

After returning from my trip home to the U.S. I decided to design and execute my own fitness routine. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible so I went with a full body routine following an  ABAB pattern (I've been doing this Monday, Wednesday, Friday). I've been tinkering it some throughout the month and I can't say that it is quite where I want it but overall I'm happy with it. Each workout consists of 5 pushing, 5 pulling, and 5 lower body exercises. I also have added in 2 to 3 sets of core work and 1 set of bridge work during every workout both of which I have been liberally borrowing from Convict Conditioning (which I may review here at some point).

Workout A

Pull - chin ups x 2, v pull ups, and close grip pull ups x 2

Push - pike press x 3 (I've been trying to work my way higher up the wall instead of just using a chair to put my feet on), diamond push ups x 2 (I was originally doing 1 set of diamond push ups and 1 set of wide grip push ups but I found that the wide grip push ups were not challenging enough)

Lower Body - pistol squats x 3, wall squats x 2 held for as long as possible

Core work - flat knee raises x 3

Bridge work - straight bridges x 1


Workout B

Pull - pull up x 2, wide grip pull ups x 2, close grip chin ups x 1

Push - dive bomber push ups x 3, military push ups x 2 (I originally had 1 set of incline push ups instead of 2 sets of military push ups but soon found the incline push ups weren't challenging enough)

Lower Body - 1 leg lunges x 3,  1 leg wall squats x 2 held as long as possible (I've tried other exercises here such as the body weight deadlift but haven't found an exercise I really like)


Core work - flat knee raises x 3

Bridge work - straight bridges x 1

On Tuesday and Saturday I have been doing modified Insanity workouts. I generally redo the first half of the video instead of the floor work with the push ups, ski abs, and burpees because I am already doing pushing exercises on other days. Thursday is consists of either yoga or stretching. When I do yoga I tend to try different routines I find on the internet or go back to yoga videos I already own like the P90X Yoga video. 

Overall I am happy with my current routine but I definitely feel there is room for improvement with it. As exercises become more simple I'm swapping them out for more challenging ones. I've also been thinking about moving all of the lower body work to the cardio days. I want to avoid overtraining and keep my workouts as focused as possible. For now the lower body work is staying put though. Later this week I'm off to Milan and will most likely be taking a week off from exercise but, I will be getting in plenty of walking!