6 months of hitting the gym
6 months ago, I started this blog to lock in and get fit. I'm a skinny female with very little muscle mass and I wanted to dedicate myself to working out consistently and to view strength training as a necessity rather than something to put off.
I made a post a few months ago about the first routine I started with. It was a very simple full-body 3x week routine with 3 compound exercises per day. While it did the job, a few months into the routine, I really wanted to get my first push-up, so I started training push-ups 3 times a week by doing knee push-ups and negatives until I got my first one. However, I got cubital tunnel syndrome a week or two after, so I stopped. That sucked because I heard that it never really goes away. You either manage it or let it get bad enough to need surgery.
I stopped working out for a few weeks because of how demotivated I was with my injury. My arm was injured but was too sad to even hit legs. This isn't my first exercise-related injury and not even the first time dealing with nerve compression, so it really demoralized me to have to keep dealing with them.
I'm now in doing physical therapy for the arm and it is a lot better now. I'm wary of bending my arm past 90 degrees when doing push-ups since that was the main trigger. I've also changed my routine from a 3x week full body to 4 days a week upper-lower. This is what I'm doing:
Upper:
3x8-12 incline pushups
3x8-12 lat pulldown
3x8-12 dumbbell overhead press
3x8-12 wide grip cable row
Lower:
3x8-12 back squat
3x8-10 Romanian deadlift
2x8-12 leg extension
2x8-12 leg curl
2x8-12 calf raise
Sometimes I get lazy and skip the calf raise though...
My first routine had only 6 exercises total; this one has 9 because I added in some isolation exercises for my legs. I think I like this routine a lot more because a full-body routine was very mentally taxing for me. I also switched from goblet squats to barbell back squats recently (with really low weight to practice my form) and I really enjoy them.
I also gained around 5 pounds (115 lb -> 120 lbs at 5'1"). I've been trying to eat more without really tracking what I eat, but now I want to make a conscious effort to eat in a caloric surplus. I also started taking creatine.
I know I have not been updating much; I actually wrote this post a few months ago but forgot to post it. However, I will try to write more in the future. Thanks for reading!