Thank you for the replies. Its reassuring to know others are pushing through noisy knees. I am not new to exercising but I am definitely new to lifting so I am tentative about increasing too quickly. Sounds like keeping form is going to be an important part of preserving my knees. Twinmom, I hope you post what you did for complete leg day. I'm always interested in seeing what people are doing outside of the book.

sunshinelively - I did my B7 today too, since I missed a workout last week. Well this week work had been crazy and I could not do anything on my non lifting days. I thought tht should help me with my lifts and it DID!!!
I almost killed B7 today, progressing on weight in most of the workouts.

DL 85
OHP 15lbs - for the first time EVER!!!
Lat Pull down 82.5
Lunges, tried it with the barbell instead of dumbbells since it sounded easier. I feel I can carry more - I just get tired holding the dumbbells - did 50lb with oly bar almost easily.
Crunches, weighted with a dumbbell overhead.

Ofcourse tahts with some added warm up sets and ended with 2 wall sits of 45s and 2 squat sets with just the bar.

I am very happy with today's workout.

Holy crap mnsmov, that's great. Getting ready to leave for b7 in a couple minutes - had a late lunch and still feel too full. Did an interval run yesterday legs a bit sore but no worries. I guess stage one is almost done anyway - are you going to do the AMRAPs? Feel like I'm going to be massively weight training for likely a whole year, then I'll do a massive cardio shred. More later - hoping for a slammer today, going down to 8 reps.

Hey all!

I'm back from my short vacation in Portugal. It was great to see my family, and that country is just amazing! I love it!

The bad news is that I haven't lifted for a long time now, because of my knee problems and of the trip, except for just one day last week. This week I also haven't managed to go at all and tomorrow I'm off again for the weekend (holiday again here in Italy)! At least the diet part was mostly in check Oh, well, next week I'm back on track, hopefully! I'm planning on repeating A4/B4 and keep going from there.

But the good news is that even without lifting, I've achieved yet another victory: my second goal jeans now fits well! Woohoo! I'm ecstatic!

I must say, however, that I'm fed up with calorie counting and with eating at a deficit, even if it is a small one (TDEE around 1750, I think, and eating at 1600). I'm seriously considering upping my calories to maintenance (since I now fit in both my old jeans) and then keep tracking for some week or two, before finally stop tracking and see where that leads me. If I start gaining fat/inches, then I get back to it. I still haven't made up my mind though... Let's see!

Cheers to all! Keep rocking!

Cheers back!! Great NSV!!!

Just did my bicep/tricep workout.
Only got in 10 minutes of HIT because of time~ legs were dead from yesterday so I alternated between quick at level 2, then slow at level 6.
Bicep curls 25#DB's 1 set of 10, then 2 sets of 15 at 20#/Tricep Kickbacks Single Arm 20# DB
Hammer Curl 15# DB's/Single Arm overhead Extension 15# DB
Standing Pulley Curls 30# each arm/Single Arm Tricep Pushdown, 1 set 40#, 2 sets 30#

Again everything 3 sets of 15

Have a great weekend!

TOM week..
I did my B8 today and officially done with all workouts but for AMRAP A and B!! I did not feel like I could increase my weights today, so just stuck with B7 workout stats. Felt weaker though so I am worried how AMRAPs will go.

Hope to be able to do at least the regular sets
Then a week break from lifting and Stage 2 baby!!

sunshinelively - We are almost in same stages.


Anyone else start stage 2 yet? We might have to consider creating a new thread for stage 2 and continue the discussions there!

Hey all!

Congrats to all of you moving on to stage 2! I'm excited for you all and so proud!

Yesterday I repeated A4, which was the workout that busted my knees last time. I was glad to see that I didn't lose any strength in the upper body. In lower body I lowered my weights on purpose to avoid injury again. Not sure if I lowered them enough though... Crossing my fingers that this achiness in my legs is just regular muscle soreness . I'm looking forward to having my boyfriend joining me in the gym next month to have someone to correct my form!

Here are my stats for A4 - the return:
Squats: BW/12 reps, 22 kg/12 reps, BW/20 reps, 32 kg/10 reps, 32 kg/10 reps
Pushups (regular, woohoo): 12 reps, 12 reps
Seated row: 35 kg 12 reps, 11 reps, 11 reps (not sure if my form was good though... Maybe I should focus on getting my arms further back)
Step up (2 steps): BW/12; 8 kg/12 reps, 8 kg/12 reps
Prone jackknife: 12, 12

And finally, I decided to stop logging my food intake. I'm still more or less eating the same things, but I'll try to follow the "eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm full" to decide on the quantities. And also I have some maximum amounts of treats that I allow myself every day or on weekends and I'm using the food scale to make sure I'm not going too much over on the very caloric food (like cheese, which I love). Let's see how that goes!

And can I join you girls on the stage 2 topic even if I'm one month away from starting it?

Cheers!

Good afternoon ladies, twinmom your workouts look very intense. I can't believe some of you are over 100lbs on your squats. I am at 70 and find the last one difficult. I went hiking on the weekend up and down hills on a beautiful nature trail but I awakened an old hay bailing upper quad injury. I found out today, I am unable to do lunges with my left leg so instead of trying and rendering myself completely immobile, I did some squats instead. I am loving the whole weight lifting experience. Aside from my lunge issue, I have made some nice gains. I hope the injury doesn't impair my weighted squats ability. I guess I'll find out in a couple days.

deadlifts - 3 sets of 10 - 80, 95, 95 (feel like I can probably go a little higher)
barbell shoulder press 3 sets of 10 - 61, 56, 56 (tried to start with 65 but could only do 5)
wide grip lat pull downs - 3 sets of 10 - 100, 100, 100
lunges turned into squats due to injury
swiss ball crunch - 3 sets of 10 with 40lb barbell (didnt notice I was suppose to do 12)

congratulations to those of you moving on.

Morning! I'm doing 2B1 tonight so that means dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnnnn INTERVALS! I'll be doing Tabata's because well let's face it I have the attention span of a two year old and the patience of one too. Plus they're really supposed to get the fat moving. And I need this fat to move. I found a great article on T-Nation about Tabata and I'm going to be using their body weight and barbell complexes. I have a million errands to run tonight but this workout will DEFINITELY be happening. Oh and here's the link for the Tabata workouts in case you guys want to check it out:http://www.t-nation.com/training/6-new-tabata-workouts-for-fast-fat-loss Side note -> I have now become that woman that spends almost as much money on exercise equipment as I do on shoes and I recently noticed that you can buy an elliptical for $78-99 not including tax and shipping of course. I'm thinking of getting an elliptical. ......

Hi Chelsea - I started on 3/31 but have added an additional routine on each as I am totally new to weights. I did my first Stage 1 workout 3 today where you move up to 3 sets of 10. I started out at 15 pounds and have moved up 85 pounds on the squats and deadlifts and 75 pounds on the seated rows and lateral pull downs. I decided to add an extra session for this stage (taking it out to 24 workouts) as I am new.

Susan

alasin1derlan - welcome to our group!

I have found that working on form, though slower increase in weights goes a long way. We wont be able to sustain the workouts and not getting injured if we progress too quickly and cannot get the form correct till the last set of last rep.
Hope this helps. !

I appreciate these words of wisdom. I wasn't feeling 100% today and started my squats at 70 where I left off last time. I wasn't feeling any work in the glutes so I know my form was off, I dropped to 66 then decided to do my 3 sets of 10 at 50. I was successful in going all the way down at 50. Normally going backwards like that would drive me nuts, but I don't want to risk injury and I am not competing with anyone but me. lol I kept my barbell row at 70 but I upped my prone jack knife to 3 sets of 30 as they are just too easy. I don't feel anything till about 27.

2B1 is in the books and I'm so excited. It's hitting my shoulders and abs and back which are all areas that I really want to work on. Plus I got my tabata in so I'm feeling super badassery. I was worried about whether this program would work even after seeing so many success stories. But now I'm back and so pumped!
Maya: Stage two definitely works all those areas. I didn't take a week off between stages. As a matter of fact I don't see myself taking a week off until I get to the end of stage 6. I feel like this stage is the stage where all the magic is going to happen as far as changes in body comp. I'll probably throw a tabata on the end of every workout not just the B work outs.
Twinmom: If I can post about stage 2 on a stage one board you can certainly talk about your independent work outs! I personally love hearing about them. It gives me an idea of what I could be doing when I finish New Rules. I also haven't been seeing much of a change in weight. I cycled my calories down by 300 and the losing has started all over again. If these upcoming stages are as horrible as I think they are I'll probably have to cycle back up to maintenance and then go back down again.
mnsmov: Have you calculated your calories to make sure you're eating enough? I did the scooby calculator and then just subtracted 300 and that really seemed to get me moving again. That and starting phase 2

I just did my first stage 1, workout A. I have been doing NROL4L for the last month, so I decided to bump my reps to 12 instead of 15 (10 for prone jackknife).
Squat: 65lbs, 12 reps, 2 sets (Can anybody give me pointers on how the bar is suppose to feel--I find it rather uncomfortable--is that normal?)
Pushups: 8 reps, then 10 reps
Seated Row: 60 lbs, 12 reps, 2 sets
Step-Ups: 15# using a bench, then #25 because it was too low
Prone jackknife: 10 reps, 12 reps

I am thinking maybe I need to add HITT now. NROL4L has a much longer warm-up and it has a five 1 min rounds of metabolic training at the end. Thinking about subbing that warm-up and adding on the metabolic training. Do you all think that's a bad idea? Or should I start HITT training now if I feel like I have more to give?

BTW, I've enjoyed reading this thread and seeing everyone's progress! I haven't read all the pages, so if someone else already posted the same thing, I'm sorry.

welcome new ladies!

@write2nicole Please check and recheck your form in the initial weeks. Don;t hurry to increase wights. Yes, doing warm up sets or entire work set even without weights for lunges is best. Make sure your knees are not crossing your toes when you lunge. And it should feel more like a vertical movement rather than forward and backward when done correctly. Doing it with weights, initialy I felt very wobbly and had to work on my balance and up the weight v slowly.

Deadlifts also - get the form right with light bar first. You can check the videos and even use the FB forum for NROLFW for posting video and get form correction/suggestions etc - Esp if you are doing it by yourself without trainer's help.

twinmom here is # 1 help to all of us as she is a personal trainer herself!! She might be able to help further.

@mayaysf Congrats!!!! I finished stage 1 too and taking a break next week! Hope stage 2 kicks butt err... kicks gut more so and makes our tummy shrink a bit further!!

@sunshinelively I am right there with you sista!!! Just finished AMRAP B and soo happy. Since I finished just the 1 set, did some HIIT at the end. This week, I am done with TOM and next week just cardio and some HIIT workouts and no lifting. Hoping that would show some progress 1.5" each thigh is GREAT!!! I would love slender thighs someday, moving away from my perfect pear example.. - although I like my hourglass shape just fine :P

Pretty excited about stage 2
I am eating @ 1400 based on ETP groups suggestion since I started NROLFW and yet to see any changes on the scale. Have 9 more lbs to go for my UGW. This is homestretch, so I expect this will be S L O W - though it frustrates me.

I have swollen face most days after I lift heavy and feel cushy. Hoping I will eventually lose some water weight and feel the scale go down. I have been slowly losing inches

My AMRAP B

DL 65 * 35
OHP 12 * 25
Lat Pull down 75 * 30
Lunges 10lb each * 40
Crunches 60
followed by HIIT for 20 mins
Happy Friday all!!