2009: A year for abdominals

I mentioned earlier that I got these two cool books on weight training for Christmas. The first one, The New Rules of Lifting for Women, is more of a reference resource, while the other, 101 Workouts for Women, is sort of an illustrated guide with a huge amount of sample workouts. I love this, since one of the biggest obstacles between me and consistent weight training (and a lot of other things, for that matter) is structure. I like to have a plan. Unfortunately, I'm not great at coming up with them for myself. The book is divided up into sections for different body parts (abs, arms, shoulders, back, legs, glutes, etc.) with a variety of exercises and workouts for each, and also has individual sections on upper-body workouts, lower-body workouts, full-body workouts, and beginners' workouts. Guess where I'll be starting!

The section on abs consists of 13 individual workouts, one of which is a partner workout. Since I rarely, if ever, workout with a partner, I thought that since there are 12 workouts that I can reasonably do, maybe I would devote one month of the year to each one of them. This way, I am challenging my muscles in a different way pretty consistently, avoiding boredom, and working my way toward a strong core.

My plan is to start with the first workout, which is very straightforward--crunches, reverse crunches, and some oblique work--and do this 2-3 times a week (the book recommends 3 times weekly) for January. By February, I will be stronger and ready for a new set of exercises! I'm excited to see how this pans out. I will keep you all posted about my progress. I know you are all waiting with bated breath to see how this all goes!