Results Conditioning » burpees

Fitness challenge #18: Bodyweight 100

richb — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:19:02 +0000

This is a very short challenge that should only take a few minutes to complete so would be ideal to use as a finisher at the end of a session. The workout hits most of your major muscles from your upper body (chest, shoulders and triceps) to your legs (quadriceps hamstrings and calves) as well as giving you a great aerobic workout. The aim is simple, complete 20 reps of 5 bodyweight exercises in the quickest time. The exercises are listed below.

Burpee

Jump squat

Press up

Squat

Double leg squat thrust

At the end of the workout stop your clock and record your time before cooling down and stretching out. See if you can complete all 100 reps in less than 2 minutes. If you really want to push yourself see if you can do the 100 reps in 100 seconds! Post your scores below and let’s see how we get on!

Here is my first attempt at completing the challenge in 100 seconds. 110 seconds later and I had finished! I am determined to smash the 100 second barrier next time!

Playing cards workout

richb — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:54:41 +0000

You may be wondering what a post about playing cards is doing on a site about fitness? Well if you fancy shaking up your training and doing something completely different then grab yourself a deck of cards. The principle is simple; pick 2 exercises one for the red cards and one for the black. So for example red could be press ups and black could be pull ups. Turn a card over and do the number of reps that matches the number on the card, so for a 5 of clubs you would do 5 pull ups. For picture cards I used the following reps, Jacks 11. Queens 12, Kings 13 and for Aces it was 20 reps. Below are some sample rounds which I used recently within my circuit class and with clients. Check out the combinations I used for when a joker was turned over.

ROUND 1:

Red cards: Press ups

Black cards: Burpees

JOKER: If this card is turned over then perform 10 burpees complete with a press up and jump.

ROUND 2:

Red cards: Barbell clean and press

Black cards: Jump squats

JOKER: This time perform 1 clean and press, put the bar down and do 1 jump squat. As you land back on the floor squat down grab the bar and repeat. Perform 10 combination reps.

ROUND 3:

Red cards: Barbell high pulls

Black cards: Double leg squat thrusts

JOKER: This time for a joker card perform one high pull and put the bar down. Keep your hands on the bar and do one squat thrust before immediately standing back up and repeating. Again complete 10 reps.

ROUND 4:

Red cards: Barbell push press

Black cards: Lateral jumps over barbell (Jumping over the bar and back counts as 1 rep)

JOKER: Do one push press and then put the bar down, complete 1 lateral jump and then repeat for 10 reps.

Tips:

: For each round I turned 10 cards over but feel free to change the number depending on time and fitness levels. You could try and do the whole pack!!

: I used a mixture of resistance and aerobic exercises for each round but again you can change this to suit your own needs.

Members challenge: Big 50

richb — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:56:32 +0000

For those of you who have looked at the Big 50 workout you will have noticed the challenge option at the end of the post. Well now here it is in all its glory for you lucky members!

All you need is a barbell and some weights and lots of energy. The circuit is split into rounds and each round is made up of 3 exercises. For this workout we are using high reps so it is 50 per exercise although you don’t have to complete them all in one go. You can break the 50 reps down anyway you like so for example you could complete 5 sets of 10 reps of each exercise or 2 sets of 25, as long as you complete 150 total reps. You complete each round as quickly as possible making sure to use perfect technique all the way through. At the end of each round stop the clock and rest for 2 minutes before restarting the time and beginning the next round.

Warm up:

Make sure to spend 5-10 minutes warming up with some light cardio before starting this challenge. Check out the Big 50 workout for a bodyweight warm up you could try.

Round 1:

Push press

Press up

Double leg squat thrust

Round 2:

Deadlift

Crunch with legs up

Squat jumps

Round 3:

Barbell snatch

Alternating leg front lunge (50 per leg)

Burpee

Round 4:

High pull

Single leg squat (50 per leg)

Ice skaters

At the end of the challenge stop the clock and record your time before spending 5-10 minutes cooling down and stretching.

Aims:

First target should be complete this challenge in around 25-30 minutes. Anything under 25 is excellent. See if you can get your time down to less than 20 minutes.

For this challenge I have been using studio barbells such as the ones used within Bodypump classes. Women have used 2.5kg per side on their push press, snatch and high pulls and 5kg per side for the deadlifts. For the men it has been 10kg per side for deadlifts and 5kg per side for the other 3.

If you get your time down to less than 20 minutes then look at increasing your resistance on the barbell exercises.

While you can complete the reps how ever you wish, see if you can work up to doing all 50 in one go for each exercise.

Results workout #23: Big 50

richb — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:06:44 +0000

Here is another workout I did with my Saturday morning circuit class. All you need is a barbell and some weights and lots of energy. The circuit is split into rounds and each round is made up of 3 exercises. For this workout we are using high reps so it is 50 per exercise although you don’t have to complete them all in one go. You can break the 50 reps down anyway you like so for example you could complete 5 sets of 10 reps of each exercise or 2 sets of 25, as long as you complete 150 total reps. The way this worked with a large class was that as soon as somebody had completed all the reps then they would start jogging around the studio, I would then set my stopwatch for 1 minute. Once the minute was up the round was over regardless of whether everybody had completed all the reps or not. This helped prevent people standing around doing nothing while waiting for others to finish and meant that everyone could work at their own pace. Below is how the rounds looked as well as the warm up we used for this class.

Warm up: For the warm up you only need your bodyweight and a small weight plate or cone.

Squat: 10 reps

Jumping Jacks: 30 seconds

Alternating leg front lunge: 10 reps (5 per leg)

Scissor jumps: 30 seconds

Side to side crawl: (Start in a press up position with your hands and feet close together. Move your right hand and right leg out to the side and then repeat with your left side before bringing right hand and leg back in followed by your left side). 30 seconds.

Front hops: (Jump forwards and backwards over your weight plate aiming to stay light on your feet and keep your heels off the ground). 30 seconds

Alternating leg side lunge: 10 reps (5 per leg)

Side hops: (Same as you front hops except jumping from side to side over your weight plate). 30 seconds

Rotational reverse lunge: (Perform a reverse lunge but rotate your back leg behind your front leg like your doing a curtsey. Step back and repeat with the opposite leg) 10 reps (5 per leg)

Jogging on the spot: 30 seconds

Complete this x2-3 for your warm up.

Round 1:

Push press

Press up (Aim to complete each rep with a tempo of 2 seconds lowering and 2 seconds pushing back up)

Double leg squat thrust

Round 2:

Deadlift

Crunch with legs up (Again aim to complete these with a tempo of 2 seconds up and 2 seconds down)

Squat jumps

Round 3:

Barbell snatch

Alternating leg front lunge (50 per leg)

Burpee

Round 4:

High pull

Single leg squat (50 per leg)

Ice skaters

At the end of the workout spend 5-10 minutes cooling down and stretching.

Tips:

: Spend around 2 minutes resting between rounds. Use this time to change the weights if needed ready for the next exercise.

: Once you can complete 50 reps of the barbell exercises in one go then look at increasing the weight slightly.

Challenge:

If you fancy a challenge then see how fast you can complete all 4 rounds. Stop the clock between each round and give yourself 2 minutes rest before starting again.

Results workout #22: Medicine ball circuit

richb — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:09:30 +0000

This workout uses just a single medicine ball so is ideal for those training at home but is just as suited to the gym. The workout is great for overall conditioning, muscle tone and aerobic fitness. Perform the below exercises in a circuit spending 30-40 seconds on each one, at the end of the circuit rest for 1-2 minutes and then repeat. Aim to complete 3 circuits, once you find the workout is getting comfortable then look at increasing the weight of the ball. As always make sure you spend 5-10 minutes warming up with some light cardio before starting this workout.

Medicine ball circuit:

Swings

Squat to press

Lunge to 45 degree press

Side lunge with chest press

Walk over’s

Close hand press up

Tricep extension

Standing rotations

V-ups

Bicycle twists

Russian twists

Alternating squat thrusts narrow

Alternating squat thrusts wide

Burpee to overhead press

“Inferno” fat burning programme.

richb — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:59:41 +0000

This post looks at a 6 week fat burning programme that I am currently running with one of clients. I have been training with my Rob for around a year now and he has made tremendous progress in terms of improving his muscle definition and shape as well as reducing body fat. This has come through hard work, training with me 3 xs per week alongside 1-2 sessions at his local gym coupled with a healthy diet that includes plenty of quality protein.

In 6 weeks Rob will be going away for his summer holiday and so the focus has turned to getting rid of the last bit of body fat from around the stomach and getting into the best shape possible before hitting the beach. For this goal I have put together my “Inferno” fat burning programme, a circuit workout that mixes compound resistance exercises with high intensity aerobic work and core focused exercises. The programme is split into 3 workouts, workout 1 will be a whole body session while workout 2 and 3 will split the body into half due to the fact Rob trains on 2 consecutive days. The workouts will be progressive over the 6 weeks so for example reps, weights and time spent on aerobic exercises will be increased during the programme while rest between circuits will be reduced.

Below I have posted our first whole body session which we did the other night and have outlined how it will progress over the course of the programme. Over the next few weeks I will be posting some of the other workouts used as well as an update on Rob’s progress.

Workout 1: Whole body.

We start off with a 5-10 minute warm up using a mixture of bodyweight and light medicine ball exercises. The exercises used for this session all involved a medicine ball and had Rob doing 12 reps of each.

Swings

Rotations

Squat to press

Wide leg squat with chest press

Front lunge with rotation

Side lunge

Main workout:

The main workout consisted of 9 exercises all done back to back with no rest in between. At the end of the circuit Rob rested for 2 minutes before repeating. We completed 3 full circuits.

TRX press up with leg swings: Place your feet in the foot stirrups and get into a press up position. Perform one press up and then swing your legs from side to side keeping them straight before repeating. If you have not got a TRX available then do a different variation such as press up with feet on Swiss ball, Spiderman press up etc. 15 Reps

Powerbag front squat: Hold a bag on your chest and perform a normal squat. 25kg bag 15 Reps

Burpee: A normal burpee with a vertical jump as you stand up. 30 seconds

Recline row: 15 Reps

Powerbag front lunge: Hold the bag across your chest. 12 Reps (6 per leg)

Lateral jumps: For this we used a kick shield stood on its end and performed side jumps over it aiming to land soft by bending the knees on impact. If there is no bag available then use a low step, Powerbag, hurdles etc. Reduce the height to cater for fitness levels. 30 seconds

Powerbag clean and press: 25kg bag 15 Reps

Good mornings: Hold a powerbag across your chest or use a barbell resting on your upper back. 25kg 15 Reps

Alternating leg squat thrust: 30 seconds

Rest for 2 minutes and then repeat.

Over the next few weeks we will be increasing the intensity. The cardio exercises will go up by 10 seconds per week up to a maximum of 60 seconds. The rest periods will be reduced down to 45 seconds by the end of the 6 weeks.

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!!

Fitness challenge #13: 3 Rounds

richb — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:07:19 +0000

This challenge combines 4 barbell exercises along with 4 plyometric exercises using a step box to give you a short but intense workout that can help with muscular endurance, stamina, cardio fitness as well as burning plenty of calories.

For the first round you will complete 20 reps of each of the 8 exercises, at the end of this stop the clock and rest for 1 minute. After the rest period restart the clock and complete round 2 completing 16 reps of each exercise. Again stop the clock and rest for a further minute. Start the clock for round 3 and complete 12 reps of each exercise, at the end of this round stop your clock and record your time.

Exercise	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3
Clean and press	20 reps	16	12
Bench hops	20	16	12
Barbell step ups	20 (10 per leg)	16 (8 per leg)	12 (6 per leg)
Step jumps	20	16	12
Deadlift	20	16	12
Burpees off step	20	16	12
Upright Row	20	16	12
Straddle jumps	20	16	12

Exercise technique:

Bench hops: Place your hands on a step box and then jump both legs over from side to side.

Step-ups: Rest the bar on your upper back.

Step jumps: Perform a 2-footed jump onto the step aiming to land soft by bending your knees on impact. Step back down and repeat.

Burpee: Place your hands on the step and jump both legs back out to full extension before jumping them back in and standing up to full extension.

Straddle jumps: Stand with both feet either side of the step and perform a 2-footed jump onto it aiming to land soft by bending your knees on impact. Step down and repeat.

Tips:

: For this challenge I have been using an Olympic bar with 5Kg per side (total weight 30kg) for men and for women a Bodypump bar with 5Kg per side (total weight 15kg). If you can complete the challenge in less than 15 minutes then look at increasing the weight.

: Use a step box that is 4 raises high for this challenge.

Training for cage fight part 5

richb — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:45:11 +0000

Today Marlon was accompanied to training by one of his teammates from the Devils Pit MMA gym. Since there were two of them I decided to make today’s session circuit based and have them working for 3×5 minute rounds to help simulate an MMA bout. Round 1 would be upper-body focused where as the second round would target the lower body and finally round 3 would be more cardio based. The circuits would take on the form of metabolic resistance training which means we would be stressing the cardiovascular systems as well as overloading the muscular system. We would be using a mixture of multi-joint exercises, plyometrics and fight specific movements in this high intensity session which would help to push the guys hearts rates towards maximum levels and target the same energy systems used within MMA.

Warm up:

For this session we started off with some S.A.Q (speed, agility and quickness) using a mixture of cone drills,

1 In: Jog through the cones placing 1 foot in each gap

Lateral jogging: Jog sideways through the cones placing both feet in each gap

2 In: Jog through the cones placing 2 feet in each gap

Weaving: Weave in and out through the cones

2 Footed diagonal hops: Start on the right hand side of the first cone and jump forward 2 footed to the next cone landing on the left hand side. Continue jumping diagonally from cone to cone landing soft each time by bending the knees on impact.

Side crawls: From a press-up position crawl sideways through the cones by moving the same hand and same leg. Aim to maintain a flat back throughout.

Each exercise was completed for 30 seconds and the circuit was performed twice through for a total of 5 minutes. In between rounds there was a 1 minute rest.

Round 1 Upper body:

Recline rows

Sledgehammer strikes onto tyre

Medicine ball strikes onto bag (Standing at arms length from a punch bag. Hold a heavy med ball in both hands and rapidly tap the bag. After each strike against the bag bring the ball back and tap your stomach. This exercise will help to improve the stamina in your forearms, which can benefit a fighter when it comes to grappling and clinching. It also gives your abdominals some impact training).

Walk over press-ups on low step

Dumbbell punches

Round 2 Lower body:

Medicine ball jump squats

Knee strikes onto prone bag (place one knee onto a punch bag on the floor with the other leg extended back. Drive your free leg into the bag striking it with your knee. Then switch legs placing your striking knee onto the bag and throwing the strike with opposite side).

Box jumps

Powerbag alternating leg front lunge

Jump lunges

Round 3 cardio:

For this round we performed 3 exercises and completed 3 circuits. The first exercise we did a different version on each circuit.

Version 1: 3 punch combo with sprawl

We threw a jab; cross and lead hook onto the focus pads followed by 1 sprawl.

Version 2: 3 punch combo with shoot

Same punch combo and then the guys would shoot in for a takedown and grab me around the legs and lift me off the ground before stepping back and repeating.

Version 3: Alternate between sprawls and shoots

Throw the 3-punch combo and alternate between a sprawl and a shoot after the punches.

Resistance band ground and pound: From the mount position they threw continuous punches while holding a heavy-duty resistance band that was hung from the wall.

Lateral jumps over kick-shield: Stand next to a kick-shield that’s stood on it’s side and perform a 2 footed side jump over it aiming to land soft by bending the knees on impact.

At the end of the 3 rounds we finished with a punch out drill.

Punch out drill:

We stood an upright Powerbag against the punch bag so that it hung at a slight angle. The aim then was for each guy to perform 20 seconds of continuous jab, crosses to keep the punch bag from touching the Powerbag. Any time the 2 bags touched then rather than having the 20-second rest period they had to perform 5 burpees with a press-up at the bottom and a vertical jump as they stood up.

At the end of this we cooled down and stretched.