Strength Training

I have never done much strength training, at least never consistently or properly. In my ongoing triathlon knowledge research, I've been reading a lot about what different athletes do in the off-season (aka Season of Pie, see previous post) as well as regular season. I have a ton of room for improvement as far as my strength goes (in other words, I'm pretty damn weak). I have free weights, but have been wanting to try out the Machines. Machines!! So yesterday after spinning class, I went wandering into the weights area of the community center.

It was intimidating, but I know it will get better once I'm confident with what I'm doing.

What I did:
• Curls
• Seated row
• Tricep extension
• Rotary torso (rotisserie chicken?)
• Lateral arm raise
• Shoulder press (really hard...which might explain why I am swimming slowly)
• Abdominal something or other (which I'm pretty sure I did wrong)
• Bench press thingy (awesome- felt very good for swimming muscles)

Then I did some core work:
• Leg swirl thingys (I should come up with better names)
• Reverse crunches
• Crunches
• Plank (I hate planks.)

Then I high-fived myself. Not really.