Workout Of The Week June 24th, 2013

 

 

W.O.W.

This weeks workout is simple and you need very little equipment.

You will need a couple sets of dumbbells and a stability ball, although you can do it without a ball too.

Warm up with walking lunges, air squats and jumping jacks for about five minutes.

With dumbbells perform 20 of each of the following exercises (plank row will be ten on each side but alternate right and left):

Curl and press

DB squat thrust

Alt plank row

Squat Arnold press

Skier

Tricep kickback

On ball:

Chest press

Pullover

Stretch abs

Repeat two more times through. If you page back through my posts you can find photos for all these exercises.  Have fun!

Top Four Body Weight Drills

There are four exercises that you can do anytime, anywhere so keep them handy for when you are on the road or stuck in your house for any reason. Here are the drills with variations to keep it interesting.



Push Ups

#1. Decline push ups - put your feet on a chair or table to perform the movement.
#2. Renegade push ups - perform a push up and as you come up out of the push up extend the opposite arm and leg. There are a couple variations on this drill. The most popular one is push up and row (pull one elbow to the ceiling at the top of the push up) but it isn't nearly as effective without weights and the drills I have listed are specifically designed to be challenging without using any equipment.
#3. Tricep push ups - keep elbows close to your body throughout the exercise.
#4. Plyometric push ups - as you come up push off explosively so that your hands (and/or feet) leave the floor.

Squats

Here are just a few squat variations. There are many, many more.
#1. Change the tempo of the squat by pulsing at the bottom for 10-20 reps before you come all the way up.
#2. Take your feet really wide with toes turned out, place your hands on your head and sink down at least to a 90 degree angle at your knee.
#3. Drop into a squat with your hands on your head and walk around the room for 10-20 steps.
#4. Bring your feet together and touch the floor with both hands on either side of your feet. Explode up into a jump while reaching for the ceiling.




Squat Thrusts/Burpees

#1. Just to clarify - a squat thrust is nothing fancy, just down/back/in/up. A burpee has a push up thrown in.
#2. Add a jack with the legs once your in plank and a jack as you hop up.
#3. After you kick your legs back lay all the way down on the floor so legs, belly and chest are all touching then push yourself up and hop in and up.
#4. After you kick your feet back bring your knees into your chest and kick back again before you hop in and up.




Sit Ups

#1. Traditional gym-class sit ups - hands behind the head, knees bent and curl all the way up to touch your elbows to your knees.
#2. Straighten your knee with arms straight over head. Curl up and touch your toes.
#3. Start with legs straight and hands behind your head. Curl up all the way, bringing one knee into your chest, touch it with your opposite elbow (you should twist across).
#4. Put your hands behind your head and tuck elbows and knee together so they touch. Extend legs out parallel to the floor. Bring them up some if your lower back bothers you.

Mix up sets and reps for the above exercises to create even more variation.

W.O.W. March 1st, 2011

Workout Of the Day

Warm up on the treadmill for 5 minutes then increase your speed and run hard for 3 minutes. Drop your speed and increase the incline to 10% and run for 2 minutes.

Hold one dumbbell up in your RIGHT hand, so it's overhead with a straight arm. Lunge forward and back with the RIGHT leg. Repeat 10X on each side for 4 sets.

Run fast for 3 minutes, decrease your speed and increase your incline to 8% and run for 2 minutes.

On the cable machine. Adjust a single-grip pulley about waist height. Step back and lunge forward with your LEFT foot and hold the lunge. Make sure the lunge is deep and static so don't move. Grab the handle with the RIGHT hand and pull it back in a row to your waist. The weight should be heavy enough that you feel off-balance. Repeat 12X on each side for 4 sets. The illustration on the left shows a one arm cable row and the height that I want but her feet are not in the position I want. If she puts her left foot forward and right leg and bends both knees she will be in a static lunge position.

Run fast for 3 minutes, slow down, increase incline to 6% and run for 2 minutes.


Perform decline push ups (feet on a bench or a couple of stacked plates, depends on how easily you do push ups). 4 sets of 20 reps.

Jog easily on the treadmill for 5 minutes.

And yes, stretch. Again I know it is highly unlikely that you will stretch on your own but please, stretch at least your low back, hamstrings and chest (see illustrations below).

Hamstring Stretch

Chest Stretch on the left, low back stretches on the right.

More Evidence on the Benefits of Interval Training

Interval training rocks. If you haven't been totally convinced yet read the following information as written in a Men's Health publication.

No matter what exercise you choose, there's only so much fat you can burn during, say, a 30-minute workout. And research shows that the better trained you become, the more your body's 'exercise efficiency' improves, meaning the same amount of activity burns fewer calories as time goes by. For instance, University of California, Berkeley, scientists have determined that to avoid age-related weight gain, avid runners need to boost their weekly mileage by 1.7 miles a year.

Sure, aerobic exercise burns calories. However, if you're already dieting studies show that distance running does little to further enhance fat loss. Most likely, this is because aerobic exercise doesn't boost your metabolism after your workout. But that doesn't mean cardio can't help: high intensity intervals-such as short sprints of 30 seconds or more, interspersed with a slow jog-are great for accelerating fat loss. Why? Because they're similar to weight training. After all, a 200-meter sprint challenges your lower-body muscles hard for 30 seconds or more, just like a set of 8 reps of squats. So by doing a few intervals on the days you don't lift weights, you can spike your metabolism even higher.

In other words, if fat loss is your goal, do intervals. If your just doing steady-state aerobic activity re-read the information study above. If your a runner you would have to run an extra 1.7 miles A WEEK, every single year just to stave off age related weight gain. So there's no fat loss involved. Think about how many more minutes you'd have to add to your elliptical workout every week. The elliptical is really a waste of your time to begin with, but pretty soon you would have to be on that thing for hours.

When I design workouts for clients, and the workouts of the week I post here, they include both weight training and cardio interval training mixed together in the same workout. If's efficient and very effective.

You have to get uncomfortable in order to move forward in your fat loss goals.

Know it. Embrace it. Now go out and do it.

Drink your water!

I know. You've heard it a million times. Drink more water. Drink 8 glasses a day. Replace other fluids with water. Blah, blah, blah.

I don't really care if you are sick of hearing it, you need to drink more water. Period. Essentially, water is about as much of a cure-all as is exercise. Dehydration is the NUMBER ONE cause of fatigue. So if your energy is low, drink more water. Don't drink more energy drinks. Your body does not need more sugar and caffeine, trust me.

Here are other symptoms of MINOR dehydration or, simply not drinking enough water:

Extra body weight. People tend to confuse thirst for hunger and eat instead of drink.

Constipation. Without enough fluid you can't get the toxic stuff out of your body.

Low and high blood pressure. Without water blood volume is insufficient to fill all your arteries, veins and capillaries.

Problems with respiratory system. Without enough moisture your mucous membranes cannot filter out the bad stuff from the air you inhale.

High cholesterol. When you cells lose too much moisture your body tries to stop the loss by producing cholesterol.

Headaches and dizziness. Lack of water constricts the blood vessels impeding blood flow to the brain. This also makes blood more likely to pool in your lower extremities and that can cause dizziness and fainting.

The general rule is that you need to drink enough water that your pee should be almost clear or a very pale yellow.

I know it's a pain in the ass but buy a couple cool stainless steel or aluminum water bottles. Fill them up in the morning and vow to finish BOTH of them by the time you leave work. Fill one up again and drink it before you go to bed. If they are 24 oz bottles then that will get you just about enough of what you need. Any other water you happen to drink will just be a bonus. Pop, juice, coffee, tea, wine, beer, etc. Those do not count. If you choose to flavor your water with any lo-cal drink mix that's fine for one of your daily bottles. Your kidneys process flavored water differently then they do regular water. You need to drink plain water. Learn to love it. Don't complain to me that it's boring or that you hate the taste. Water has no taste. Deal with it. You know the benefits of exercise and the reasons you have to get uncomfortable in order to meet your goals. Apply those principles here and just like exercise, drinking water will be a habit.

When I leave the house it's keys, phone and water bottle. If I don't have one of those things with me I don't go anywhere.

PS - Here is a good trick to get yourself to drink more water, if you use it wisely. Take small bites off of a nutrition bar throughout the day. Those bars always make you want to drink water so if you snack on ONE bar throughout the day and drink water after every little bite you will probably drink your daily allotment without even realizing it. Uh, just don't eat bar after bar. One will suffice.

Goal Setting For Results

Do one thing today to bring you closer to your goal.

Research shows that people tend to give up their goal if they focus on the end result. Let's say that you would like to lose 40 pounds. You set a realistic goal of losing the weight in 6 months. After one month you have lost 5 pounds and you think 'If I only lose 5 pounds a month I will never reach my goal!' You get discouraged and give up. A fat loss of 5 pounds per month is great, but it doesn't seem like enough and your goal seems further and further away.

6 months can seems pretty far off for some people. The end result is a loss of 40 pounds but what can you do everyday to help you reach your goal? Ask yourself that question right now. 'What can I do today to help me reach my goal?' Start with picking one thing. Maybe it's that today you are going to eat a healthy breakfast. Even if you do that one thing you will feel successful, I guarantee it! It is also helpful to set a weekly goal so you can include in your schedule fitness, grocery store runs for fresh produce and some time you can take out of your daily schedule to focus on stress release (a big one that can contribute to weight gain).

Since fat loss is an emotional issue, especially with woman, research also shows that changing your goal from weight loss to fitness, achieves better results. Maybe your goal could be to run a 5K in three months, and then pick a race and train for that event. It could be to anchor the swim-leg of a triathlon - why not split the race up to accommodate every one's strengths? If racing isn't your thing what about setting a goal to ride your bike for 25 miles continuously - it doesn't have to have anything at all to do with racing. Another goal maybe to participate in three dance classes per week - Zumba, hip hop, ballet, cardio striptease -whatever excites you. Maybe schedule a yoga class during your week. Whatever seems doable to you. Forget what other people say and focus on what you want to do that is fitness, not fat loss, related.

Making a goal that is NOT weight related might feel less emotional and empower you to accomplish something other then fat loss. The end result will be what you wanted all along - a feeling of success and an appreciation for your body.

Diet Tip

If fat loss is your goal, this week try eating half of everything you make or order. It is hard when you are really hungry.

All blogs/books/DVDs/Infomercials/trainers will tell you to think about how hungry you are before you eat, right? That's good advice but you have to know what real hunger is first. Until you can identify the difference between 'I want a sandwich' and 'I need to eat' it will be very difficult to figure out that true hunger cue. If you make yourself a whole sandwich, eat half and walk away. Check your e-mail, fold some laundry, walk your dog again....anything. After that, ask yourself how hungry you still are. You would be amazed at how little can make you feel full. Beside what is wrong with eating the second half and hour or two later? Eating every 2-3 hours is a great way to stay satiated all day. The food police are not going to arrest you for eating throughout the day, as a matter of fact they would probably REWARD you. It's a much better way then the three-squares thing.

It's sort of the same thing as the put-your-fork-down-between-bites or eat slowly advice except that you have a very clear goal. Stop at half. Plus if you are eating out with someone you get caught up in the conversation and may not think about putting your fork down. Everyone should enjoy going out!

I remember when I was bodybuilding I avoided going out. I never accepted dinner and party invitations and I refused date-nights with my husband. All I thought about was food. I didn't enjoy any of it! That's an extreme because I absolutely could not waver from my diet, but I was miserable without friends and family to enjoy some time with.

Socializing is part of our nature. So don't stop going out! Look at your plate, decide what's half and then have some fun.

I think it's easier at home. After I eat out I have to carry my doggy-bag with me and it's very enticing. Try putting it in the backseat and think about something else.

Try it this week and see what it does for you!!!