Ok straight into it today with another quick, challenging workout. This workout is designed to tick off the boxes of strength, fitness and fat loss. And sitting here writing it up , I’m not sure which is harder, doing the workout or general moving for the next two days!
Set up a barbell for deadlifts and a kettlebell for swings. I used 100kgs and 30kgs respectively. In between these two exercises you will do pushups. Choose a level, easier or harder, for the pushups depending on your strength.
After you have warmed up you will do the three exercises in a circuit. First round do 20 reps, second round do 15 reps and third round do 10 reps (that’s of each exercise). Rest ad much as you need to but as little as possible throughout.
Remember if you aren’t questioning why you are doing this at some stage, then chances are you aren’t working hard enough.
After you have done all three rounds, take s few minutes to gather your breath and you breath.
Next move onto the chin up bar armed with a stopwatch. All you want to do here is start the timer and do one chin up. When the timer gets to one minute, you want to do two chin ups. Continue adding one chin up per minute until you can no longer keep up. This may seem easy to begin with but it will catch up to you quick enough. I managed to get up to eight reps before calling it quits.
That’s it. Roughly 30 minutes in length but one supreme workout the did have me questioning why I was doing it!!
Squats are one of the best exercises that you can do. Not only are they great for your lower body (think legs: quads, hammies, glutes, calves) but they are also a great core exercise. The problem here is that sometimes your lower body strength increases to a level that your lower back and spine are taking a large amount of weight and stress. Check out the video below for some squat variations that can help alleviate the stress on your back and spine but still give your legs a great workout.
Whether you are training at home or in the gym, putting in the time, you want to make sure you are getting the biggest bank for your buck, so to speak. There are some things which are done time and time again for no other reason than ‘that’s the way we do it’. If there are things you are doing for no other reason than this, it might be time to change. Take yourself armed with the following information to your next training session to supercharge your workouts.
1. Time your rest periods.
Sounds simple huh? I know I have already written about it here, but I have to say it again. 60 seconds should be 60 seconds. If you are meant to have 90 second rest then have 90, not 180 or more. You will be surprised how much more you can get done, or how much quicker you can get it done if you are on the clock.
2. Stand Up
If you can do an exercise standing on your own two feet, then lets do exactly that. If you want to be sitting down doing that exercise you’d better have a damn good reason for it. Chances are you sit down enough already. That’s the way life is these days.
3. Multi Joint (Compound) Exercises only
Let me put it this way. If you are training to get fitter, lose some body fat or get stronger then you have no business doing tricep kickbacks and concentration curls. If you want a quick experiment in increasing metabolism, try the following. Do a clean and press for 3 sets of 15 reps with a minute rest between sets. Next do 3 sets of 15 reps with your favourite isolation exercise. Which one really got your body going?
4. Warm Up, Resistance, Intervals
99% of the time you will want to be doing your resistance training after a proper warm up and before any ‘cardio’ (see next point) or interval work. Why? If you want to get boost your metabolism and change your body shape you want to be doing your resistance training at the start of your work out when you are fresh. If you have just spent half your workout and most of your energy on the treadmill then the effort you can give your weights is going to be be compromised.
5. Reconsider your ‘Cardio’ training
Now this one fits into the category ‘Change the world one step at a time’. Remember however; that the world was once thought to be flat. Just as we once thought that ‘Cardio’ training was great for fat loss. If you really want to use some form of electronic cardio equipment (think elliptical trainer, treadmill, stationary cycle, stepper, rower etc) then at least do some High Intensity Intervals. Say goodbye to steady workouts and you will be saying goodbye to some extra stomach fat as well.
When I write a customised gym program I expect that it only represents the starting point for an individual. Your first session of any new program should, relatively, be the easiest of the cycle. You may feel at the time that is has whooped your ass but that should only be because it is different to what you had previously been doing.
Now when I see someone two or three weeks into a new program and they are doing exactly as they were the first session it does my head in. Your body will have adapted to the change in stimulus already so that feeling of being whooped you got first session has gone.
You need to progress your output at every possible stage if you are going to get the maximum possible result.
“How do I do that?” Well I’m glad you asked. There are four simple ways to increase the output and intensity of your workouts to ensure you get better results in less time.
1. Increase Weight
Oh really. Seems obvious enough, but the number of people who do the same weight for the same exercises week in and week out would amaze you. There will be a time when your reach the weight limit for a particular exercise and this is when you can use one of the other techniques.
2. Increase Reps
Another blast from Captain Obvious. This technique is the most common at being implemented and is probably overdone at the expense of number 1. When using this technique try to stay within a certain rep range (say 3-5, 8-12, 15-20) so that you are not just adding more and more reps. When you can get the target reps on any exercise bump up the weight, drop the reps and start the cycle again.
3. Decrease Rest
First of all I have to say that in order to decrease your rest periods, you need to know what they are to start with. If you tell me they are 60 seconds and you don’t have a stopwatch, second hand or any other timing device available to you then I’m calling you out. 60 seconds is exactly that. When you actually time it you might find it is quite a bit shorter than you expected. If all you did was decrease the rest between sets (keeping the weight and reps the same) your workouts will be more intense, not to mention, finished in less time!
4. Exercise Order
This is probably the most overlooked aspect of a program. It is however one of the easiest ways to change the flow and intensity of your workouts. If you only did three exercises (lets say chin ups, deadlifts and dips) there is a possibility of six different exercise orders, all of which will give you a different intensity because they are essentially different workouts.
So there you have it. Four easy to implement strategies that will keep your workouts at a high octane level for weeks on end.
