At the same time, Grace Charis found that the novelty of the workouts was starting to wear off, so I turned to The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast to help me pass the time, catch up on Bachelor news, and avoid focusing too much on the clock.
Using that method, I was able to easily get through everything. Now it was time to start lifting weights! After the second week, I was really ready for this. Now that I was starting to feel comfortable doing most of the exercises, it seemed like we could move up a notch.
I felt like I was able to transition smoothly even though I was doing different exercises. Lower body weight training was easy for me. But things were different when it came to upper body weight training.
I was arrogant again. A 15 pound barbell for a glute bridge chest press seemed easy, considering I could bench press 150 pounds all through college. No way. I dropped down to a 5 pound dumbbell, which was much easier.
While I thought the Arnold press would be easy, the next day my arms were really sore. At this stage, I realized that my form didn’t seem to change, but I was definitely getting stronger. Perfect! I was proud of myself for completing the workout with a high score, which was my goal.
To make things a little more challenging, I started adding weight to the initial movements that didn’t require weights, like the side bend and the Arnold press. I was also able to complete two sets of 45-second bridge chest presses with a 15 pound dumbbell.
The leg exercises were the hardest for me at the beginning of the challenge, but as the weeks went on, I found the upper body and mid-body exercises much easier, and I even borrowed a larger set of dumbbells to do them. While I was comfortable using 20-pound dumbbells for sumo deadlifts, I wasn’t ready to use them for glute bridge chest presses.
I started with 45-second reps for most exercises, but in the final week, I increased it to one minute. Even though the reps were short—just fifteen seconds—I felt like I had more momentum after doing this move.
