Workout and Diet Advice for Women over 45

In Part 1, I outlined the leg workout that I do in 15-20 minutes.  I add in 15 minutes to warm up and stretch, so in 30 minutes I can get a good workout when I am pressed for time.

This is part 2 of the four-part series.  And some may find the split I use to be a little unusual.  I split the upper body into back, chest and arms and I split the shoulders over three days as well, so that I do some shoulders on each of the upper body days.  I almost hesitated to share this workout  – I have kept this little gem a secret for so long.  I also will admit that I did not develop this routine; I was lucky enough to have a trainer share it with me.  I look forward to your feedback on this routine.

And before the guys email me any derogatory comments, let me remind you that my target audience is women, and especially women 45 and older.  So no, if you are training for Mr (or Ms) Olympia I am not recommending this for you  –  and you are probably not reading this anyway.   To continue:

As before I have tried out the workout in the time allotted to make sure it was more than theory.     And feel free to leave comments or send me emails for additional details.

Now the disclaimers and the pointers (and I will repeat them with each new day’s exercises):

• This post assumes a certain level of understanding of weight training, on the part of the reader.  I describe the exercises but cannot give sufficient detail for someone who has not used weights.  That would be dishonest and frankly dangerous.
• Most of the workouts can be performed in 15- 20 minutes.
• The posts assume that the warm-up and stretch are performed outside of the 15 minutes of weight-training; and warm-up and stretch are recommended.
• Most of the exercises are done as supersets with another exercise.  Don’t rest between the two exercises, and rest not more than 1 minute before starting the next superset.
• Do not do the exercises ‘fast’.  Slow down and work intensely.

Day 2 –  Chest and Front Delts in 15-20 minute workout :

• Using the 55cm or 65cm balance ball (depending on your height and comfort) to support your shoulders, upper back  and neck do dumbbell presses.  Go fairly slowly and not heavy.
• Superset (still on the ball) with flys.  Really squeeze at the top of the exercise and again no heavy weights.    Do 12 – 15 reps of each exercise, with no rest between the two exercises, and a short rest after each superset.

Then –

• Do a decline press using a machine.
• Superset with low narrow flys performed on a decline bench and light weight dumbbells.

If you haven’t done this one before: to start  you are lying on the decline bench with your arms hanging down toward the floor, a weight in each hand; raise the weights straight up towards the ceiling keeping your arms fairly close to your body (i.e. not out to the side lie a regular fly).  Raise the weights keeping arms straight but no locked elbows, until your hands are above your body, as though you are trying to get your hands to meet (you won’t get them to meet); slowly lower to starting position.   Do 12 reps of each exercise, and do 2 sets of each.

Then –

• Do incline press and perform the exercise as  ‘drop’ sets.  i.e. start with a weight you an just manage for say 8 reps and try for 10; reduce the weight and immediately do as many reps as possible; reduced the weight once more and do as many as possible – again no rest.  (If you are making good time, do a fourth set.)

Use a machine for the exercise since you can more easily reduce the weight and thus have less rest between sets.

Then –

• Do  dumbbell overhead press, alternating arms on each rep, for 20 reps.
• Superset with a forward ‘boxing’ move using dumbbells and alternating arms on each rep, for 20 reps.

Do two sets.  There is no rest between the exercises or between the sets.  You might find you can use a slightly heavier weight for the overhead press than the forward boxing move.  So the only brief pause will be to switch dumbbells.

The tester (me) was able to complete the full workout in 16 minutes.  10 minutes warm-up and 5–10 minutes stretching rounded out the session.