Matrix Reloaded

I made some changes to the blog design… I wish I could do more, but visuals are not my forte.  Still, I hope you like it; it’s wider for bigger pictures now.

On Sunday I took another crack at a Matrix Workout.  For my warm-up, I did kettlebell swings, 1 minute of mountain climbers, 10 burpees and 25 pushups.

Sorry about the orange… as if you weren’t sick of pumpkin themed stuff already.

Remember the structure?  Here it is again, at least, the current draft:

And here’s how I varied it this time…

Here’s me doing the Single-Leg Bent-Over Rear Shoulder Flys…not perfectly graceful, but whatever.

I used a pair of 8lb pyramid shaped weights I have, instead of 12lbs on this exercise, so I ended up doing more (15) reps instead.  At home, I did the pull-ups in more of an inverted row position; putting my feet on the bench takes weight off, and being closer to diagonal makes it easier on my shoulders. 15 reps done.

Some support on my lower body plus a less punishing angle for the lift.

For pushups this time, I managed 40 in one minute – I’m proud of that.
I found the resistance band I have at home is not quite as tight as the one in the gym – even if I placed my feet (see below) further apart, I still couldn’t get a lot of resistance from it.  I’m considering scrapping this as my endurance/back exercise, but I like how the continuously increasing resistance during the motion feels.  It’s different (better?) than using a free weight – I just need the magnitude of force used to be bigger.

Rows with the resistance band

I managed 2 circuits this time, and the second circuit was done in 10 minutes.  I want to get a little more used to the load and the current exercises (maybe make it to 3 circuits) then switch things up a little.