Jamie’s 30-minute total body workout

This workout can be done at home with little or no equipment.  It is designed for all fitness levels.  Do each exercise 12 – 15 times, 3 sets.  Have fun with it and let me know what you think!!

Front Lunges: Stand with feet hip distance apart. Start on right side.

INHALE: step forward into lunge

EXHALE: return to standing with feet hip distance apart

Repeat 15 times on this side, switch sides

Front Side Raises: sit on stability ball if you have one, otherwise do this standing.

Bring feet hip distance apart, arms are at the sides.  Use dumbbells if you have them, 3-5 pounds are fine.

INHALE: prepare to lift arms to your sides

EXHALE: raise arms to shoulder height

INHALE: return to starting position

EXHALE: raise arms out in front of your chest, shoulder height

Repeat 15 times in each direction.

Reverse Lunges: Stand with feet hip distance apart. Start on right side.

INHALE: step back about 2 feet with right foot into rear lunge

EXHALE: return to standing with feet hip distance apart

Repeat 15 times on right side, switch sides

Push-ups: these can be done against the wall, on the floor on toes or knees.  Keep elbows at the sides.

INHALE: move toward the floor or the wall

EXHALE: return to starting position

Repeat 15 times.

Bicep Curls: sit on stability ball or stand, bring feet hip distance, arms at the sides, use dumbbells, 3-5 pounds is fine.  Full soup or bean cans work for dumbbells at home!

INHALE: prepare to lift lower arm

EXHALE: lift lower arm to contract bicep

INHALE: return to starting position

EXHALE: repeat

Repeat 15 times.

Power of Six Workout 2: Chest and Quads

The next promised installment on the Power of Six workouts.

What is the Power of Six?  Here’s a recap on the theory:  the first couple sets of an exercise are bringing blood to the muscles that you want to train.  So for an intermediate to advanced lifter, you want to think in terms of getting your body’s energy focused on the area you want to train.  Once you have the attention of those muscles, then you are actually TRAINING those muscles.  For a beginner, it’s more important to spread out the training to the entire body and this level of detail is not so important, unless you are entirely into the Joy of Muscular Recovery (i.e. soreness).

CHEST & QUADS:

Set 1: do these 2 exercises back to back 6 times, with 60 sec between each superset

PUSHUPS – 15 reps or to failure.  You can do these off the side of a bench if you can only do a couple on the floor…

FRONT SQUATS - 20 reps.  Feet and knees together, arms crossed with hands on opposite shoulders.  Sit back into the squat like you’re going to sit in a chair, rather than coming forward onto your toes.  Stay back on all four corners of your feet.

Set 2: do these back to back 6 times, up to 1.5 minutes between each superset

INCLINE FLYES – 15 reps, medium dumbbells.  Keep your bench about 30 degrees (or less) incline.  Any higher and you’re working your shoulders, not your pecs!

ONE-LEGGED STEP UPS – 15 each leg.  Use a tall bench (challenge yourself).  At the bottom, one foot is on the bench and the other on the floor.  Be CLOSE to the bench so that you can isolate the quad.  Put as much work into the foot on the bench to lift you as possible (rather than pushing off with the foot on the floor!)  Rise up on the elevated leg, lifting the knee of the non-working leg at the top and slowly lowering back to start.  Use perfect posture and go slow.

Power of Six Workout 1: BACK AND BUTT

When weight lifting, the first 2-3 sets are really just about blood distribution.  When you’re a beginner (in your first couple years of lifting) then this is good – you’ll build muscle at this level, you’ll regenerate tissue, and you’ll recover fast enough to keep you enjoying what you’re doing.  Increased blood circulation is really at the ‘heart’ of all things healthy when it comes to the body.  In this stage, it’s good to do a lot of different types of exercises because you are, really, waking things up and teaching your body to move as a cohesive unit.  This works great for fat loss as well – you’re giving your body a strong message that you need every single little muscle you’ve dredged up from the depths of wherever you have been with yourself.  You strengthen your core and restore some balance and generally wake things up.

Now, when you’re more experienced and you understand what a premium health item that muscle IS, as well as the value of muscle when it comes to lookin’ GOOD – then you want to move on from there.  There are many ways to do that.  This is one of my favorites, and as far as I know, I made it up.  I could be wrong.  It appeared in my head, and when Samantha and Jamie incredulously asked me what the hell we were doing one morning, I said ‘The Power of Six’, and we sat down and had a chat about what all that’s about.

The Science:  because the first couple-few sets are just about getting blood to the muscle, it’s the sets that come AFTER that that will really challenge your body and promote growth.  How I do this is to pick four excercies – 2 primary sets for the body part I’m working, and I super-set with 2 easier sets for another body part (the ‘rest’ stage of the workout).  It looks like this one:

POWER OF SIX:  BACK AND BUTT (the BACK muscles are the primary work, here)

Set 1: (do six times with short 60 sec rests between supersets if needed)

WIDE GRIPS CHIN-UPS (to failure, every set)

SHORT LUNGES (have medium dumbells in each hand, look at the pics of Samantha doing this move) 15 each leg

Set 2: (do six times with short 60 sec rests between supersets and yes, you’ll need it now)

KNEELING ONE ARM BENT ROWS 15 reps each set and don’t think you’ll do your usual weights!

ONE LEGGED SQUATS oh mama.  remember, keep it fairly ‘easy’ and you could do one-legged leg presses instead if you want to whine out of this one.  In any case, just do 10 on each leg.

I’ll set you up with some more of these workouts later.  Stay tuned.  Let me know how you like it!  He he he he

DEMOS OF SAMANTHA DOING SHORT LUNGES:

start position. note perfect posture. shift weight to right leg.

left toe is even with right heel for the lunge. note perfect spinal alignment! all weight is on right leg.

coming up, notice weight still on right leg, and perfect alignment.

Legs Day!!

Used to be a time when I really dreaded Legs Day in the gym.  My favorite body part to train was my back, and my legs workout loomed ahead, weekly, like an insurmountable challenge.   After a year or so, I got tired of the mental drama, allowed that I had a very strong back, and resolved to turn my cheerful attention to my legs and make Legs Day my favorite.  Since then, Legs Day is just as fun as all the other days in the gym, and I am glad to be free of the dread!

This particular workout floated to my head several days after a long steep hike.  It was Legs Day, and I was already sore.  Still, it’s Legs Day, so let’s get at it:

This session starts with a tri-set and ends with a super-set.  No rest between exercises.  Do take a 2 minute break between sets to guzzle some water, stretch, and look important.

TRI SET: (15 reps first set, 12 the second, 10 the third, 8-10 the fourth)

Dumbell squat,  heavy

Alternating front lunge, dumbells on shoulders, heavy (left + right = 1 rep)

Burpees (from a nuetral stand, come down to a tuck with hands on the floor, jump back into a pushup position, back to the tuck, and explode up powerfully into a jump with arms overhead, land in a 1/2 squat, and return to nuetral) DO 8 each set

SUPERSET: (12 reps first set, 10 the second, 8-10 the third)  

Romanian Deadlifts, barbell, heavy

Bench Ham Squeeze, lie on back on floor, one foot on side of bench with bent knee, the other leg straight up from your hips with a flexed foot.   Lift glutes as high as you can (forming a bridge with your torso), squeezing hamstring, and lower slowly. DO 15 each leg, each set.

And the most important part of Legs Day?  EAT!!

Torso Training

I like to throw a full torso routine in the mix every once in a while to train my entire core with weights and really get in touch with how I’m using my torso.  I do this several ways, and the routine below is one of them.  This time, I’m using a quad set – with bodyweight exercises that utilize my core as well as dumbell training.  The soreness after this set is really interesting – it gives me a feel for how all those 26 some odd muscles in my torso are working together!

SET ONE (four times, first set use 15 reps to warm up then drop down to 12 reps)

Incline Bench Press with dumbells

Bent Dumbell Rows on bench (instead of steadying your hand on the bench, try putting that supporting hand on your THIGH and really focus on using your core to keep you stable)

Front Lunges  no weight, 15 reps ea leg ea set – I use my arms overhead at the bottom to more fully engage my core)

Quick Bodyweight Squats (no weight, feet under hips, nice and low; 10 ea set)

SET TWO (four times;  no warm up set)

Lat Pulldowns (to front of chest, focus on lats)

Flat Bench Flyes (barrel arms; be sure you’re over your chest and not shoulders)

Reverse Lunges (use core to pull working leg through and into knee-up, not touching ground except in rear; 15 ea set ea leg)

Incline Pushups (do these on the END of a bench – elbows tucked next to rib cage, legs spread; to failure)

…that’s usually enough for me.  If it’s not enough for you – UP THE WEIGHTS!

Glute & Shoulder Training

I just returned from the gym, and today was a great training day.  Diamond’s Gym caters more to amateur boxers, policemen, and swarthy men rather than the matching-gym-outfit types – I mean, this is no social club.  The equipment is old, the same posters have been on the wall for a decade, the floor is duct-taped around the squat racks and ancient leg press, and there aren’t any fitballs or mats.  Bobby will change the music to suit his favorite people, no one bugs me, and iron is iron.  I pick it up and put it down in all sorts of ways.  The benches are clean.

Bobby tells terrible jokes.  About 8 years ago he was kidnapped and held hostage by the Mexican mafia; it made the national news.  The mafia killed everyone but him.  Bobby says he wasn’t entirely innocent, and he lives life gratefully.  I appreciate where he is coming from.  Not everyone does.  That keeps the gym membership in a comfortable range.

Today, there were a few men training diligently.  It’s Saturday so Bobby wasn’t there.  I had just come in from an hour hike with my dogs, so I was already warmed up and ready to go.   I don’t like to waste time in the gym, so I superset, tri-set, and quad-set depending on how I’m feeling that day.  Today I was into tri-setting (no rest between exercises and sets), and here’s what my workout consisted of:

GLUTES AND SHOULDERS

SET ONE: (I do this set 4 times.  The first set is for warming up my muscles, so I do 15 of everything with a lower weight, then move up the weight and drop the reps on each set)

Overhead Military Presses with dumbells

High bench step-ups (coming low, chest to knee at the bottom, and lifting the knee at the top for a full range of motion)

Ab curls on a steep incline

SET TWO: (4 times on this set, but no warm up set)                               

Shoulder Front Raise (alternate, steady form, tight core)

Deep Squats with a Low Pulley (knees stay over ankles, focus on glutes, use heavy weight)

Ab crunches with high pulley (kneeling)

SET THREE: (3 times)

Isolated Side Shoulder Raise (I hold onto a shoulder height bar with one hand, feet close to the bar and body angled away, raising the dumbell above my shoulder in an arc with the free hand, palm down)

Romanian Deadlift with barbell (heavy; only to the knees; glute emphasis)

Bicycle Crunches on bench

SET FOUR: (3 times unless you’re cooked)

Reverse Flyes (I hit my rear delts one at a time, so I can really focus on using them – kneeling on a bench with a supporting hand)

Short Lunges with heavy dumbells (back foot only inches from the front foot)

Basic Ab crunches

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Seb hangs out in a corner of the gym and keeps an eye on things.  He’s used to hanging out around iron and doesn’t get worried when I breathe hard or grunt.  When he gets up and strolls over to me, I know I’m done.  I don’t know how he knows it first, but he always does.

Happy Training!

Sheri Lynn