Exercise Goals, in progress

Review of Exercise Goals:

twice a week - yoga, building up to doing the entire 45-50 minute session, with focus on constant improvement

twice a week - cardio, elliptical trainer, 30 minutes, building up to 450 calories burned in a 30-minute session, to build strength, stamina and quickness in lower body muscles

twice a week - weight lifting for upper body, to regain strength

So far this week

- I've done the yoga once and succeeded in finishing the full 45-50 minute session, yay. Have to do the yoga again tomorrow to satisfy the twice a week commitment.

- cardio - Monday opted for swimming instead of elliptical for some cross-training benefits and because I was cold. Today (Thursday) got on the elliptical for 30 minutes and succeeded in doing better than last time - needed to do better than 415 (or 418?) calories, and made it to 425!! Achieved this goal with the use of a few higher-intensity intervals which actually brought my stamina up throughout the entire workout. However, I do keep an eye on my heart rate, which stays a little above the recommended rate for someone my age for cardio, however, I don't feel that this is dangerous for me.

- weights for upper body (arms and chest and back) Monday I skipped this because the swimming worked out my arms and fatigued them so I didn't think the weightlifting would be advisable. Today I finally lifted weights at my original gym which has the same scorecard I've been keeping since 2 years ago with my inconsistent bouts of weightlifting in that time. My most recent bout was this past summer, when I went in and lifted weights for a couple of months pretty regularly and saw some improvement. Today, I saw that I had fallen back. It is not my imagination that I have weakened! I don't know whether my weakness was partially due to having just kicked ass on the elliptical trainer, and I'm sure that I will make some degree of improvement rather quickly, but, at least now I know where I am and what goal to aim for, so I have a target now! And here it is:

Weightlifting Goal (by Christmas)
(each exercise is done in two sets and is represented by "reps*weight")

Exercise
Current Scores (reps*weight)
Goal (reps*weight)

Pulldown
8*120, 8*120
12*125, 12*125

Row
8*85, 8*85
12*90, 10*90

Chest Press
9*55, 9*55
12*60, 12*60

Incline Press
8*40, 8*40
12*40, 12*40

Lateral Raise
9*35, 9*35
12*35, 12*35

Overhd Press
5*20, 5*20
8*30, 8*30

Dumbbell Curl
8*15, 8*15
12*17.5, 10*17.5

Tricp Ext
8*40, 8*40
10*60, 10*60

back of leg stretch (degree angle)
L-83; R-87
L-90; R-90

These are moderate improvements especially in the shoulders which is a hard area for me to improve in - but I only have about 3 weeks to get this done anyway. I will obviously have to lift AT LEAST twice a week, maybe more, to achieve this.