Today was shoulder day and a little wee bit of triceps added into our routine! As you will see from the heart rate monitor stats – I was able to burn out almost 500 calories. This came as a surprise to me, because truthfully I wouldn’t think I could burn out that many calories in a shoulder workout. Our first hour is a pretty hard and intense hour. We spend very little time resting. Although my Polar Fitness HRM shows a 2 hour workout time, we spent about 30 minutes just goofing around, trying new exercises and seeing whether we could challenge ourselves with this really cool looking core movement using the squat rack. Check out this video of Alan! We made him try this! We spent a good 15 minutes attempting it – It’s pretty hard, especially for a woman with small hands to grip the big bar – We’re going to get there! Need to get a few hand grips to try it again!
Here’s how our shoulder day rounds out –
- 15 – 20 minute warm up, including a 5 minute cross train warm up on the elliptical. Then we hit about 3 sets (4 – 5 exercises each) of shoulders. It varies from workout to workout but always includes things such as front raises, cable exercises, shoulder press (either free weight or machine)
- 60 – 75 minutes of high intensity back to back shoulder exercises which often vary. They vary in intensity, weight load and duration of exercise. There is minimal rest time between workout exercises. We generally might take a minute between sets, enough time for a quick water break or chit chat about the next sets coming up.
- 20 – 30 minutes of low intensity work to include triceps and abdominals
Entire workout time including breaks was just under 2 hours (as pictured below) and my calorie burn was just under 500 calories (shown by the Polar Heart Rate fitness monitor below). WOW! Not a lick of cardio and truthfully its only about 200 calories less than a huge leg day. Again, I’m pretty surprised by the calorie burn
It really has opened my eyes up in terms of how many calories I”m actually burning during a workout. This will help me figure out how much food I need to eat over the course of the day in order to preserve muscle mass and reduce the muscle burn. It’s easy to under eat especially in weight lifting because it’s hard to comprehend that one could truly burn so many calories on simply a shoulder workout.
I highly recommend you purchase a very good heart rate monitor such as the one I am wearing in the photos. It will help you understand more about the work you are putting forth during your fitness sessions.
I’ll leave you with a little shoulder burn!!
Ciao for today! Make it a great day!!
Jenn @ DYB
(Co-Founder Do You Bake & Founder of CRAVE IT)
PS : Follow our exercise routines on Teresa Bragado’s Instagram Feed! and don’t forget to check out CRAVE IT newly launched Instagram feed too!
Remember! Before starting any workout routine, any new movement or exercise consult with your physician and a certified personal trainer to prevent any strain or or injury.
