Workout Adaptation - Opinions Seeked

[BrigidForged]

Hello,

I am doing the following workouts in supplement to my running but I find I am struggling to do the requested reps. I also have an issue to one of my shoulders at the moment due to sleeping badly on it. For information I am doing upperbody 1x per week and lower body 2x per week. I rotate the lower body workouts but always do the same upperbody workoug. I also do tendon workouts after every run and daily ankle strenghtening exercises due to a sprained ankle back in April.

So I have been modifying them as follows, and I wanted to check if this works or whether I should find a new workout:

Workout 1 - Upper Body:

Runner Strength Upperbody Workout

Runner Strength is an upper body strength Darebee home fitness workout everyone can benefit from.

darebee.com

I can't do the ten push-ups: so I do Incline Push-Ups until failure then wall-push-ups. I have not tracker so far my improvements but I will start doing so.

Until my shoulder is better, I won't do rotations but static side-planks, arm raised, starting with ten second sets.

Climber taps: I can't do 20, so I started woth 10 and try to add 2 every week

Workout 2 - Lower Body:

Runner Strength Workout

Runner strength is a Darebee workout designed to help runners run easier and be faster.

darebee.com

No need to adapt - just need to improve mobility on side to side lunges. It is almost too easy in fact. On the other hand I don't really understand scorpion twists.

Workout 3 - Lower Body:

Legs of Steel Workout

Legs of Steel workout

darebee.com

No need to adapt - but more challenging. Doing 4 sets at the moment.

Workout 4 - Lower Body:

Strength & Balance Workout

Strength And Balance is a Darebee home-fitness, bodyweight workout that will help you develop better balance and strength.

darebee.com

I don't manage to do 20 one-legged squats so I am doing 10 at the moment. Will add 2 per week.

Same with the alternating arm/leg raises, trying to build them up. Will do 2 per week.

Doing 3 sets at the moment.

Any opinions, comments, suggestions?

 

[Tileenah]

It may be very obvious but have you tried knee push-ups instead of on your toes ? If it's already the case then wall push-ups are a good option to reduce the difficulty, as you are already doing. Seems like a nice routine !

 

[BrigidForged]

It may be very obvious but have you tried knee push-ups instead of on your toes ? If it's already the case then wall push-ups are a good option to reduce the difficulty, as you are already doing. Seems like a nice routine !

Hi! I don't like knee push-ups as I always seem to end up with destroyed knees after. That's why I sdo incline push-ups isntead which is also a push-up progression.

 

[Laura Rainbow Dragon]

I would suggest increasing the frequency of your upper body workouts to at least three times per week.

I'm a runner too. So I get it: The lower body work is fun. The upper body work is hard. But this is because we already have strong legs. Our upper bodies are quite weak in comparison. You will progress much faster if you can convince yourself to do the upper body work more frequently.

Try adding additional upper body workouts to your rotation if you don't want to do that Runner Strength workout more than once a week. Push-ups are an excellent exercise for upper body conditioning. But if you're like me and struggle to force yourself to do them more often, there are plenty of other upper body exercises that will also help. I personally find that sun salutations and even burpees are easier than doing straight push-ups--even though these exercises incorporate a push-up--because the additional parts to those exercises give me the break between push-ups my weak upper body needs at the moment. But easier exercises will help too. Something is better than nothing. (And sure: one day per week is better than zero days per week. But you'll find it very difficult to progress that way.)

 

[BrigidForged]

Thank you @Laura Rainbow Dragon !

ActuallY I was doing this rotation because I was basing myself on the 8 weeks to 5K program where 2 days are dedicated to lowerbody and 1 to upperbody, and was planning to switch it later on to include more upper body training indeed once I was able to run 3x 5k in a week or more.

But maybe I will append an upperbody exercise (maybe just push-ups and elastic band curls? ) at the end of each lower-body exercise. Thanks for your input!