Lifting ... slightly heavier things?

[owlectomy]

Hi! It's my first post!

I was on the brink of finishing stage one of New Rules of Lifting for Women when I changed my work schedule (so I had fewer mornings free) and came down with a bad cold, and when all was said and done I decided to start stage 1 over again. (I'd been considering doing that anyway, because I wanted to get stronger before starting stage 2 -- some of those exercises are scary.)



Squat - 30 lbs (That sounds low, but I had a very crunchy knee. I think it's getting better, but I've had to be super careful about form and not overdoing things.)
Seated row - 55 lbs
Push-up - I haven't made it past knee push-ups yet!
Step-up - 30 lbs
I'm not doing the jackknife thing at all, since my gym doesn't have Swiss balls.

Deadlift - 30 lbs
Shoulder press - 30 lbs
Lat pulldown - 55 lbs
Lunges - 0 lbs. See aforementioned crunchy knee. I have gone up from sets of 6 unweighted lunges to sets of 10 unweighted lunges, though! It's a start!

Comments

[laurashapiro]

That looks terrific! And boy am I envious. (:

[daedala]

Those weights are great! I approve of non-crunching knees. :)

Ignore the next paragraph if you don't want advice!

For the pushups, it might help to do pushups with your hands on a countertop, couch arm, or bench and work your way down (or go down a stairway); there's a really big gap between knees and feet, so it's really hard to progress that way. At least, I found it so.

[mongrelheart]

Hi & welcome! :):):)

[lyorn]

Hi, and welcome!

Congrats on finishing it!
Crunchy knees are un-fun. :-/

Regarding phase two, I started doing most of the exercises with a broomstick or the 1-lb-dumbbells, because if I topple over I prefer not to do it with iron in my hands... :-D