Results Conditioning » bodyweight

Results workout #25: P and N circuit

richb — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:49:39 +0000

Here is a workout that I designed for 2 of my clients Phil and Nick (hence the name of the session) to do while they are away on holiday. For this workout all you need are some dumbbells and a space of around 10-15 metres so it is ideal for outdoor use. The workout combines resistance exercises with shuttle runs to give you a circuit that will help to improve fitness, endurance and reduce body fat. The workout will have you doing descending reps on the resistance exercises while increasing the reps of the shuttle runs, this will really test your endurance as you will be having to run for longer with shorter breaks in between.

Warm up:

Start with 5 minutes of light cardio before starting the circuit.

Main workout:

For the main workout complete all the exercises back to back with little rest. At the end of the circuit, rest for a couple of minutes and then repeat. Aim to complete 3 circuits. The way the session works is that you will start with 12 reps on the resistance exercise followed immediately by 1 shuttle run (around 10-15 metres). After the shuttle run perform 10 reps of the resistance exercise followed by 3 shuttle runs and then finally 8 reps and 5 runs. Once this is done move on to the next resistance exercise and start again from 12 reps.

Example:

12 Press ups with 1 shuttle run

10 press ups with 3 shuttle runs

8 press ups with 5 shuttle runs

Circuit:

Squat to press (Hold a dumbbell at shoulder height. Perform a squat and as you stand up press it over your head. Complete the reps then change arms).

Press ups

Alternating front lunges

Dumbbell swings (Hold a weight in one hand. Bend your knees and swing the dumbbell through your legs. As you stand up swing the weight up to shoulder height. Complete the reps then change arms).

Plank with legs out and in (Start in a basic plank position with your feet together. Take your right leg out to the side and then do the same with your left. Bring the right leg back into the centre and then your left. This counts as 1 rep).

Dumbbell woodchops (Hold a weight in both hands and squat down. Start with the dumbbell by the side of your right knee. Rotate the weight across your body to shoulder height keeping your arms straight. Complete the reps and then repeat on the other side).

At the end of the last set of shuttle runs rest for 1-2 minutes and then repeat.

At the end of the workout spend 5 minutes cooling down and stretching.

Exercise clinic #5: Press-up “Members video”.

richb — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:14:46 +0000

The press-up is a fantastic body weight exercise that works the muscles of the chest (pectorals), shoulders (deltoids) and back of the arms (triceps) as well as requiring the core the work to help maintain optimum posture. There are many different versions of the basic press-up that you can use to make the exercise either easier or harder as well as hitting different muscle groups and having different training effects (such as the plyometric press-up to help improve explosive strength and power).

Basic press-up:

The most common version of the press up involves placing your hands slightly wider than your shoulders and whilst on your toes in a prone position lower your body towards the floor by bending the elbows. If you find this difficult to do to begin with, then start of with a kneeling press-up where you do the same thing but with your knees resting on the floor. The closer your knees are to your hands the easier the exercise becomes. Another easier variation involves placing your hands on a wall and pushing yourself away. The further the feet are from the wall the harder it becomes.

Below I have listed some variations of the basic press-up that will work you in different ways and have also included a video showing them all in action.

Staggered: By placing one hand slightly further forward than the other this will result in more work placed on your core as well as placing slightly more load onto one arm.

Spiderman: As you perform a press-up bring one knee up towards your elbow. Again this will help to place more emphasise onto your core.

Close hand: By placing your hands shoulder width or closer this will place more emphasise onto your triceps.

Walk over: Start with both hands on the step and then take one off and onto the floor and perform a press-up before returning to the other side and repeating. This exercise can be performed explosively as well which can help in improving your body’s explosive strength and power as well as having some aerobic benefits. This exercise can also be done with a medicine ball for a harder variation which will place more emphasise onto your core and stabilising muscles around the shoulders.

Drop press up: Starting with each hand on a low step placed slightly wider than shoulder width. Drop your hands off and onto the floor before rebounding back up and onto the step. Again this is an explosive exercise that can have great benefits in improving power.

Explosive: As the name suggests this is another plyometric exercise to help with explosive strength and power. Start with your hands either side of a low step and lower your chest down towards it. From here explode back up jumping your hands off the floor and landing onto the step.

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Exercise clinic #4: 1 arm dumbbell snatch

richb — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:15:23 +0000

The dumbbell snatch is a version of the Olympic lift, the snatch, performed with a dumbbell in one hand. You move the dumbbell from the floor to above your head in one explosive movement.

The dumbbell snatch is a full body movement and most of the major muscle groups come into play, particularly legs, shoulders and core. It requires a mixture of strength, agility, power, speed, balance and co-ordination to perform which is what makes it such an effective exercise.

As well as being a great exercise to improve power I also use it with clients who want to improve their muscular tone using lighter weights and higher reps.

Fitness challenge #14: Bodyweight blast

richb — Wed, 12 May 2010 13:34:13 +0000

This 10 minute challenge uses 3 bodyweight exercises that will work your back, arms, chest, shoulders, legs as well as giving you aerobic benefits. The exercises used are recline rows, press ups and burpees. The aim is to complete as many repetitions as you can within the 10 minute time limit. For each exercise you complete a maximum of 10 repetitions or until you reach fatigue if you can’t complete the full 10. After the 10 reps you move to the next exercise and keep moving between the 3 exercises for the entire 10 minutes.

Recline rows: For this exercise you will need a barbell that is supported on a squat or power rack or use a smith machine. Position the bar high enough so you can hang underneath it with your arms fully extended. Hold the bar with either palms facing you and hands shoulder width apart or palms facing away and hands wider than your shoulders (for this challenge you can alternate between grips if you wish from set to set). From the arms fully extended position, pull your chest up to the bar keeping your back straight throughout. Return to your start position and repeat.

Press up: Perform a basic press up with your hands positioned slightly wider than your shoulders.

Burpee: From a standing position squat down and place your hands on the floor. From here jump your legs out behind you. From there jump your legs back in and return to the standing position. If you want to increase the intensity of this challenge then add a vertical jump as you stand up.

Aims: Start out aiming to complete at least 150 reps within the 10 minutes and then see if you can work up to over 200 reps.

: If you can get well over 200 reps and want a more advanced workout then look at replacing the recline rows with pull ups and adding the jump to the burpees.

Exercise clinic #3: Burpee.

richb — Sat, 01 May 2010 18:51:21 +0000

The burpee is a fantastic bodyweight exercise that I use a lot within my circuit classes as well as with personal training clients. It works many of your major muscles including your legs, chest, shoulders and core as well as your heart and lungs. There are many different versions of this exercise and in this post I will look at the 3 most common ones.

Basic Burpee:

This is one of the easiest versions of the burpee but is still a tough exercise particularly on the legs and heart and lungs.

: Begin in a standing position

; Squat down and place your hands on the floor

: From here jump your legs out behind you to full extension

: Jump your legs back in and stand up back to your start position.

Burpee with press up:

This exercise will also work the muscles of the chest, shoulders and back of your arms. Perform the exercise as above but this time as you jump your legs behind you perform a press up. As you push yourself back up from the press up jump your legs back in and immediately stand back up to the start position.

Burpee with press up and vertical jump:

This version is very demanding as it adds another explosive movement at the end of the exercise. Perform it as above but this time rather than standing back up, jump into the air has high as possible.

Other variations:

Easier option: Squat down and place your hands onto a step box in front of you and perform the burpee from here without the press up or jump. The higher the box the easier it becomes.

Harder options:

Burpee to pull up. Perform a full burpee under a pull up bar. As you jump up grab the bar and do one pull up before dropping back to the floor and repeating.

TRX Burpee. Perform the exercise with one foot in both the foot straps of a TRX suspension trainer. This will test your balance and stabilisation and work your core harder than a normal version.

Single leg. Stand on one leg and perform a full burpee keeping the other leg off the ground throughout the entire movement including the press up and jump. Again this will test your core and balance more than a normal one.

Sample workout:

Here is a bodyweight circuit that uses the burpee. Complete 10 reps of each exercise and at the end of the circuit rest for 1-2 minutes and then repeat.

Burpee

Single leg squats (10 per leg)

Wide hand press up

Double leg squat thrusts

Lunge (10 per leg)

V-ups

Squat jumps

Superman’s

Burpee Hell challenge:

Once you have mastered the burpee then why not give this simple but very tough challenge ago. All you need to do is complete 100 burpees in your fastest time. If you can perform 100 full burpees complete with press ups and jumps in less than 10 minutes then you really are a fitness challenge warrior!!

Training for cage fight part 4: Video

richb — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:28:18 +0000

For tonight’s session we started to introduce more explosive type movements to help improve speed and power, alongside our strength exercises. The power movements were performed at maximum intensity for around 20-30 seconds while we completed 6-10 reps for each of the strength exercises.

Warm up: Tonight’s warm up involved body weight movements such as squats with rotation, lunges and side crawls as well as active stretches for the lower back and hip flexors.

Main workout:

For this workout we used supersets, performing one strength exercise followed immediately with one power movement. We had a short rest between sets and completed 3 supersets of each.

Hang cleans

Jump squat with press

TRX rows

Hammer strikes onto tyre

Incline bench press

Explosive press ups

Powerbag lunges

Jump lunge

Core superset:

This session we used a more sport specific exercise alongside an explosive one.

Guard get ups: This exercise helps to simulate being on the ground and having to scramble back up onto your feet. Lie on your back holding a medicine ball across your chest. Sit up and extend one leg out while pulling the other one into your body and then scramble up onto your feet without using your hands. Return to the floor and then repeat off the other leg.

Explosive sit up with medicine ball throw: For this exercise Marlon got into a basic sit up position holding a medicine ball above his head. As he sat up he threw the ball to me a couple of metres away. He stayed up until the ball was thrown back to him. When I threw the ball back it was slightly above his head meaning Marlon had to catch it before slowly lowering himself back down using his abdominals to resist.

Below is a short video showing the power movements.

Dumbbell complex “Members video”

richb — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:33:55 +0000

A few posts ago we looked at a complex exercise using the Powerbag. The Powerbag is a very effective and versatile piece of kit but for many people it may not be readily available to them. This post looks at a complex exercise using dumbbells, which are found in most health clubs and are very popular home training tools. This complex exercise will work the legs, arms, shoulders, chest, back, and core and will also have some cardiovascular benefits. Below I will break the complex exercise down to each of the individual components and then there is a video showing it in action. Finally there is a sample workout involving this exercise that’s uses dumbbells and body-weight.

Functional flexibility “Members”

richb — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:14:12 +0000

When it comes to warming up most people will spend a few minutes doing some type of cardio exercise followed by a few static stretches. This post will look at dynamic stretching often referred to as functional flexibility as a way of warming up the body before exercise.

Dynamic stretching uses the force production of a muscle and the body’s momentum to take a joint through its full range of motion for example leg swings and walking lunges. I use this type of flexibility work with many of may clients as a pre-activity warm up as not only do these type of exercises help to raise the heart rate it also prepares the muscles specifically for the type of movements I will have them doing during a session, such as squats, lunges, rotations and presses etc.

Below are 5 dynamic stretches that you could try as part of your warm up.

5 Of the best: “Members”

richb — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:24:39 +0000

In this post I will look at 5 very effective exercises that I use within my personal training sessions that work multiple muscle groups in one go. Using exercises that target a large number of muscle groups will cause your body to work harder compared to exercises that work muscles in isolation. These exercises will cause your heart rate to rise and for your body to expand more calories.

Create your own fitness challenge

richb — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:43:36 +0000

After the “Design your own workout” post proved popular I have decided to put together a “Create your own challenge” post. At Results I use fitness challenges as a great way of monitoring clients progress. Once they have completed a challenge they will then do it 6-8 weeks later to see how much they have improved. These fitness challenges range from short 5-10 minutes ones, which are done either at the beginning or end of a session or ones that last the entire hour. If you fancy putting together a challenge simply pick what equipment you wish to use, whether you want to do it with just one piece of kit or use a mixture. Then pick your current fitness level and finally the length of time you want it to last for. Post the information in the box below or e-mail me directly at resultspt@hotmail.com and you will receive it the same day. Then if you wish to see how your score compares against other people then post your challenge and your score on the site.

Cardio: Pick from equipment such as treadmills, rowers, cycles etc.

Bodyweight: Ideal for home use.

Kettlebells: Try the kettlebell 660 challenge or create or own.

Powerbag: The 10 minute Powerbag challenge is one of the most popular at the Resuls studio and now you can create your own to rival it.

TRX: Create a challenge using the effective suspension trainer.

Free weights: Try the 300 barbell challenge or create your own.

MMA Conditioning: I use challenges at the end of my MMA conditioning circuits. Create one here using a mixture of punch bags, plyometrics and sport specific movements.

Current fitness level: Beginner, intermediate, advanced.

Challenge length: 5 – 60 minutes.