At times you can stumble upon ideas and information in an unusual manner.
We all know that boxing workouts are great for your fitness and great for burning fat because of the high intensity and full body nature of the workout. Basically anytime you do a full body, interval based workout, you are going to get fit and lean in a hurry!
Now as you might know, Racheal managed to injure her knee last week and has been unable to do much lower body exercise during that time. But Rach loves her boxing and she was keen to make a comeback even if it meant that she would only be able to really use her arms.
Now when I teach people how to box, I really do emphasize the importance of working from the ground up with each and every punch. You have to be strong from the floor and deliver all of the power from the legs, through the hips and core and then finally deliver the punch with your fist. If you don’t do this you will run into a number of problems.
First of all your arms have small muscles when you compare them to your core and leg muscles. If you let your arms do all of the work they are going to fatigue very quickly. This is a problem because once your arms are gone the whole intensity of your workout is going to suffer and you will struggle to get your heart rate up and then miss out on most of the benefits of boxing!
Secondly, if you aren’t using your legs and core to generate the power behind each punch you will severely limit your output from both your heart rate and therefore your ability to burn calories and boost your metabolism.
So Rach certainly found out the hard way on Thursday that if you don’t use your legs, your arms are going to cop it. But please don’t take this as me saying that if you want to tone your arms and get a great upper body workout to use your legs less. In fact the opposite is true.
By using your lower body more you will be able to go harder for longer and get a better full body workout. This doesn’t mean that your arms are working less it is just that you are working smarter and by the end of the session your whole body (including your arms) will be done!
Box this way and you will get all of the benefits that go with intense boxing workouts. Fitness, fat loss, tight stomach and toned arms.
Today we have the pleasure of a guest post from up and coming strength coach Marcello ‘Chel’ Marchioli.
Now I must admit that I haven’t tried this one out, but Chel tells me that he used it with one of the high level soccer teams he trains and that the boys were sore for a few days!
The Killer Quad Circuit is one I designed for a pre-season training session earlier this year. Pre-season is a good time to mix it up because there is only so much running and drills you can do before you go crazy.
The circuit has 6 exercises and each player partners up with a team mate. It is interval based which is a favorite technique of mine to use for boosting fitness and fat loss. While one player works for 30 seconds the other player rests before they move on to the next exercise to complete.
We mix it up between a resistance exercise and a running exercise to keep the legs working but also give them a slight break.
1. Diamond Shuttles – Mark a diamond with 4 markers. Run forwards and touch the cone, travel backwards to the bottom cone, and travel back to the middle then move laterally to each side marker.
2. Plyometric Lunges – Do a split lunge and as you come up jump as high as you can. Before you come back to the ground alternate legs and complete the lunge on the opposite side. Keep it quality and controlled throughout with a focus on vertical power.
3. Box run – Set up a box with 4 cones 3m apart from each other. Run forwards to the first cone. Side step to the next cone, run backwards to the next cone and travel sideways to the start.
4. Burpees – Start at the top of a push up position, kick both feet up towards your hands and then explode up into the air. Once you land put your hands to the ground first and then kick you feet back to make the push up position you started in.
5. Shuttles – Set 5 cones in a straight line, one at 0m (start) 5m, 10m, 15m and 20m. Run forwards to the cone, touch it and then run backwards. Start with 5m and work your way to 20m
6. Squat Jumps – Complete a squat, once you hit a good 90 degree angle with your legs, explode up and jump as high as you can with your arms above your head.
Repeat three times for a total of roughly 20 minutes.
This is a good session to do as a change up to your normal lower body workout or instead of a typical cardio session. But expect to have some sore quads for the next day or two.
For more of Chel’s workouts and other training insights be sure to check out his blog
In one of my recent posts I mentioned that if you are short of time and can only do three, half hour, sessions per week that one of these sessions should be an interval sprint session.
Now running doesn’t agree with a lot of people (neither do I for that matter!!) so the sprint session doesn’t just have to be running. What we want to do is get the heart rate and intensity elevated quite high and then have a rest. So you can do this on the track, in the pool, on a bike or if you’re mad : burpees! It doesn’t really matter what the input is as long as the output is high.
These sprint/interval type sessions have been shown in a lot of research that it can be up to NINE TIMES more effective for fat loss over steady state or endurance training.
Put in the extra effort and you will have your body’s metabolism revved up for 24-36 hours after you have left the gym.
Just a quick word of caution though. Don’t go overboard with this type of training. Too much of a good thing can easily make it bad (think red wine). If you overdo these intervals (more than say three times per week) then you run the risk of injury and burning out. Incorporate it with the rest of your training and you’ll be fine.
Here are a few quick samples of how to set up your session. Remember that you need to do a proper warm up prior to going crazy at it.
Session One
2 minute warm up (specific to your task after your general warm up)
30 seconds hard (8-9/10 Perceived Rate of Excursion) : 90 seconds easy (3-4/10) x 8
3 minute cool down
Session Two
2 minute warm up (specific to your task after your general warm up)
120 seconds hard (7/10) : 120 seconds easy (4-5/10) x 4
3 minute cool down
Session Three (specific to your task after your general warm up)
2 minute warm up
60 seconds hard (8/10) : 120 seconds easy (5/10) x 6
3 minute cool down
Try to increase your intensity with each session either by increasing the level or the speed on the hard section of the interval. You will be rewarded with a new level of fitness and a leaner, toned body.
Do you have a favourite sprint or interval session that you do? Let us know about it in the comment section below.
You know, it really bugs me when people say that they don’t have enough time to train. I can vouch for the fact that time is a very valuable commodity, in fact it is probably one of the most valuable to me at the moment.
But here’s the thing. You don’t need to be spending hours upon hours in the gym. If you are doing nothing, then simply doing something will be better. If you can spare 30 minutes 3-4 times per week then you can still make improvements by increasing your fitness, increasing your strength and burning more fat. Not to mention that by exercising with some intensity you will become more efficient at work, have more energy and decrease your own (and the nations) healthcare costs. Not bad for a few investments of 30 minutes hey?
So what do I do in 30 minutes that will help me to get leaner, stronger, fitter and sexier?
Well I would break it down like this.
If you can only do three days, then one day would be interval sprint session (bike, running, swimming doesn’t matter), day two would be the Killer Upper Body Workout (video below) and day three would be a full body circuit.
If you can get the four days in there I would simply double up on one of the workouts. It doesn’t have to be too complex. Either redo your favourite workout or just restart the cycle above from the sprint session.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This post was supposed to be about my new upper body workout. I sort of went off on a tangent there!! Here’s the video.
