If you want a great leg workout...

...do this one:

For time

15-16-17-18-19-20 reps per round of:

back squats 95/135
box jumps
lunge switches (R+L= 1)

Holy cow.  It's HELLth week at my gym, and they are trying to kill me.  I was SO SORE after this workout and my legs were complete jello.  I could barely walk downstairs!  This sucker took me a whopping 31 minutes and 20 seconds to finish, and I was sweating buckets by the end.  I couldn't even do the prescribed weight--I had to drop to a 45 lb squat because I was still sore from last week.  Absolutely nuts.

Our gym is selling T-shirts with the HELLth week workouts on them.  I hope I am worthy to earn one!

Today's workout also promises to be miserable.  It's called Hells Bells and I will be spending the next few hours motivating myself to go to the gym and actually do this beast:

For time:

200 KB swings 25/35
interrupt KB swings every minute, on the minute to complete 8 burpees.

Instructions:
-Starting with "go," then every minute after that you must complete burpees.
-Continue completing burpees on the minute and performing kettlebell swings until you have accumulated 200 KB swings.
-This workout times out at 35 min.

I'm not sure you can understand how miserable this will be until you've tried doing burpees every minute on the minute.  This will be so exhausting.  Mental prep--COMMENCE!

One thing I wanted to mention is that even though these workouts are seriously kicking my butt and hurt so bad while I am doing them, my recovery is quite quick now.  I wake up sore in the morning, but at a very manageable level.  It's crazy how quickly our bodies can adapt and adjust to the things we throw at them.  Thank goodness!

I am going to go back to a weekly weigh-in with measurements for the next little while.  Mostly I want to do this for my own memory when I look back a few months later.  This blog = my journal.  Anyway, I weighed in today at 159.2.  I nearly died.  That's a 7 lb weight gain in one month.  I know my eating was bad in December, but not that bad.  So I decided take measurements and compare them with the last time I took measurements.  Taking measurements is important for so many reasons, and I'm glad I have some recent ones to compare to.  My results:

I gained 6.8 lbs, but lost inches on my waist.  I gained inches on my biceps, but I can attest that I have bicep muscles like I never have before.  I even blogged about them a week or two ago!  I am really happy with the definition that is starting to show in my arms.  I can't wait to have "guns"!  :)

I am trying my best to not freak out about the weight gain.  It really is driving my bonkers, but seeing the measurements today really helped out.  We've all heard over and over again that muscle weighs more than fat, but I've just never had it show up so strongly on the scale before.  Deep breaths, Becky.  Deep breaths.  After HELLth week ends and my muscles can do more than just basic functions, I will be running after my gym time.  I miss running!  I think the extra cardio will help melt the fat while the strength training helps me build the muscle.  Should be a great combo!  It will also help me reach some of my mileage goals I have for the month and year. 

Thumbs up for that!

Has anyone else gained a lot of weight when beginning a strength training program?  How did you stay motivated when the scale kept going up?