Speed Workout

Like many of you, I often find myself with little time, space or gear for a real workout.  I’m stuck in a hotel room or at home.  It’s night and I don’t want to go out plus it may be cold or raining and I have no desire to go to the gym.  Still, you want to work out, you want to feel like you moved your body.  You want a good resistance workout plus something that will get your heart racing like a set of sprints.  Still, No weights?  No treadmill?  No problem!  Here’s my speed workout for those interested in maximizing their use of time and space.

The Disclaimer

Note - All of these exercises are done as fast as possible.  We’re talking pushing yourself to the max here, no rest in between and no slowing down between sets.  Also, most of these sets (unless a number is specified) are done to break point.  That means you keep doing them until you can’t do a single more rep.

If you have any kind of medical problems, this may not be the workout for you so please consult with a doctor before you try something strenuous like this.

The Workout

• Pushups - Do as many as you can as fast as you can.
• Lunges - Again, as many as you can and fast.  Be careful on this to maintain good form but keep going as fast as possible.
• Sit ups - There are a variety you can do here.  My favorites are the standard ab curls but feel free to substitute your favorite here.

30 second break

• 50 jumping jacks
• 20 dead lifts

60 second break

START OVER!

You’ve just done one “circuit”.  Guess what, now you do another!  Keep doing circuits, each time doing the push ups, lunges and sit ups to the point of failure.  Keep going and don’t let up on the speed.  Each of these circuits will likely take you around 4 to 7 minutes depending on how many reps you can do.  Try to do 5 circuits of the whole thing.  That means 20 to 35 minutes of all out exercise which will get your heart pounding and your muscles aching.  That’s it, that’s all there is to this speed workout.

Details Details

If you look at the exercises, you’ll see that they work out all the major muscle groups from legs to chest and everything in between.  Since you’re doing all these to failure, you’re going to give your muscles a good workout.  At the same time, you’re going to get a kickass cardio workout because you’re going fast.  By the end of the second circuit (or even the first), your heart will be pounding!  Again, don’t over do things and hurt yourself.  I don’t want any 60 in 3 readers getting heart attacks as they workout :)  Know your own limits and stay below them.  However, done right, this workout is a great little combo of resistance and sprints which will leave you exhausted in a good way.

Great Abs Workout

Disclaimer

• This abs workout is NOT guaranteed to get you six pack abs.
• This abs workout is NOT guaranteed to trim inches off your waistline.
• This abs workout is NOT guaranteed to take two sizes off your jeans within the next week

All of these things have more to do with weight loss than they do with an abs workout.  If you want to lose weight, lose inches and show more muscle definition, you need to lose weight, and that’s all about eating right and being more physically active.

What this workout is designed to do is to strengthen 50% of your core, by which I mean your abdominal muscles.  The other 50% is your back muscles and I’ll deal with those at a later date.

Why?

So if this workout doesn’t give you six pack abs, why do you care?  Well, first of all, that’s a bit misleading.  This workout does help tone the muscles that show up as part of your six pack.  However, they won’t show up until you lose weight, hence the disclaimer above.  More importantly, this workout does strengthen your core, which is a part of your body that you rely on for almost every movement.  Take a moment to really notice what muscles your body uses.

Are you breathing?  Well, you’re using your core muscles.  Walking?  You’re using your core muscles to stabalize your upper body.  Doing push ups?  You’re using your core muscles to keep your body rigid.  Running?  You’re using your core muscles to stay upright and balanced.  There’s almost no complex movement that your body does which does not use the core muscles, which is probably why they’re called your core.  That means that you need to strengthen these muscles or else suffer poor performance in pretty much every thing else you do.

Sounds like an exxageration?  It really isn’t.  Your abs and lower back are your foundation.  They are quite literally the core of every complex movement your body makes.  It all starts right there at the center of your body and you need to pay a bit more attention to it than just doing some crunches.

Let’s Start

Start with the basics.

This is called a V up.  It can be done with an exercise ball, with weights on either legs and / or arms or with just body weight.  Either way, you need good form.  Look at how this woman does her V ups.  She’s really controlled in her motion and takes her time.  She pauses all the way at the top to allow some strain to build and then slowly releases it as she moves back down to the resting position.  Excellent form all the way around.

Work the Sides

We’ve worked the center, now we work the sides with some trunk twists.  Again, check out the form.  This guy is doing them a bit faster than I would recommend but notice how controlled he is.  Also note the slight pause at the end of each movement.  Great way of working out the obliques and staying in that crunched position means your whole abs muscle group is being worked out.

Let’s Get Creative

Why stick with regular crunches when you can do reverse ones?

You can do this one with straight legs too if you want, but it’s slightly easier on the joints to do it this way, with legs folding as you raise them.  I like this one a lot better than regular crunches since it puts less strain on my neck and works out more of my abs.

Yoga Finish

And finally, if you have a bit of time, yoga can be a great way to finish out an abs workout with a bit of stretching.  This video is umm… slightly more artistic than your usual workout videos, but it’s a great example of a yoga abs workout.  Note that this workout can actually be quite challenging if you do it slowly.  Also, this is a great example of amazing form and muscle control.  Even if you’re not interested in the spiritual aspects of yoga, this is a great example of abs in action.

Trying Out Bikram Yoga

I’ve been wanting to try out yoga for a while now. I’ve always heard that it’s a great combination of workout and stretching with some meditation elements thrown in. So when a friend invited me to try Bikram yoga, I jumped at the opportunity. Of course, I did run away from the first class I was supposed to attend with her, but that’s another story. This morning, at 5:30am, I showed up for my lesson of Bikram Yoga.

For those who are not aware of it, Bikram Yoga is similar to other yoga in that practicioners go through a variety of poses.  Some of these poses resemble stretching while others are pretty intense resistence bearing exercises that come very close to being a weight workout.  The only differences with Bikram style yoga is that it’s done in a room heated to 105f degrees.  That’s slightly lower than sauna temperature if you’re trying to do the math.  According to the originator of this style, the heat is conducive to both the physical and mental aspects of the exercise.  I’m not so sure about the mental part but the heat definitely had me straining physically.

The Poses

I’m not going to go through a description of all the poses but I will give a few examples.  About half the poses fell into a category I would define as intense stretching.  Things like standing straight up with your hands reaching above your head and then bending to the right at the hips.  Many of these poses were quite difficult and required much more flexibility than I have.  However, I can see how, with time, I could achieve the same level of flexibility a few of the other students had and that’s encouraging.  The second category of poses were what I would define as load bearing exercises.  For example.  Stand up straight, reach your hand forward and then slowly bend at the knees.  When you are in a position resembling a seated one only with no chair beneath you, hold that position for ten second.  Essentially this is a slow motion squat with the hardest part held for a lengthy period of time.  Doesn’t sound like much compared to my usual dumbbell squats but believe me, it’s challenging.  Especially when you have to do these things on one leg.  Post workout, my body felt like I had just gone through a moderate weights workout.

The Heat

This aspect is unique to Bikram Yoga and is not shared by other yoga styles as far as I know.  For me, it was a bit difficult to stay focused on the poses because of the heat.  I sweat a lot and the heat combined with the exercising had me dripping sweat by the 10 minute mark.  The last 30 minutes were uncomfortable for me as I stood there dripping sweat but trying to focus on my breathing.  However, the first 60 minutes did feel good, possibly due to the intensity of the heat.   I’m not sure to be honest, but it was a very different feeling to work out in this intense dry heat and, until I got to the point where I was totally soaked, I was enjoying it.

Is It Worth It?

For me, the answer is no.  The cost of a yoga class is around $10 to $20 and I can get the same benefits at the gym or on the track.  Still, I’m glad I tried this class.  It was an interesting experience and taught me some good lessons about my body and stretching.  For someone with less inhibitions about spending money or for someone looking to work on flexibility, this class would be very valuable.  Also, if money is an issue, you can find a variety of yoga instructions online or in book format.  All you need to practice them at home is a mat and some patience.

If you’re in the South Bay, this is the yoga studio that I took the class at:  Bikram Yoga San Jose

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Next up on my list of workouts to try?  Spinning!

A Good Shoulder Workout

Do me a favor, stand up, arms at your side.  Now lift your arms forward until they point straight out in front of you.  Got it?  Good, now put your arms back at your side.  Again, lift your arms but this time straight out to the sides, not to the front.  Hold for a second and put them down.  Finally, lift your arms straight up above your head, hold for a few seconds and then put them back down at your side.  So why the heck did I have you do this?  Because it’s a good illustration of what’s good and bad with many workouts.

Why Direction Matters

It’s funny, but when I say the shoulder muscle group most people hear only the first two words.  They hear shoulders and muscle and that’s all.  So they go ahead and incorporate one or two shoulder exercises into their routine and call it a day.  Unfortunately, the shoulder group is just that, a GROUP of muscles, all working together to move your arms around.  Depending on the direction of the movement, some of these muscles work more, work less or don’t work at all.  Some do a lot of the pushing and pulling and others will just do stabilization so your arms go in the direction you intend.  The important lesson is that they all need to be exercised.  That means a good shoulder workout is one which incorporates a variety of movements, each working out different muscles in the shoulders in different ways.  Let’s take a look at a workout like that.

Front Raises

Lateral Raise

This guy has amazing form by the way!  Look at how steady he is as he raises the weights.

Shoulder Press

Pushups

Pull Ups

Compound Exercises

By the way, if you look at all of these exercises, you’ll see that none of them are machine ones.  I’m not a big fan of various exercise machines because I feel that they isolate muscles too much.  That is, you only work one muscle at a time.  I’m a much bigger fan of these free and body weight exercises which workout multiple muscle groups at a time.  For example, push ups workout the shoulder, the chest and even the abs and back.  Pulls ups work the shoulders and the upper arms and so on.  Plus when you do free and body weight exercises, you recruit a lot of other muscles to stabalize you even if they’re not doing the actual lifting work.

Still, even if you’re a big fan of machine exercises, make sure to workout your muscles in a variety of different ways.  Take a look at these exercises that I listed here.  Each is different even though they all work out the shoulder.  If you only did one of them you’d be doing yourself a disservice.  Now granted, a lot of you are like me and don’t have an unlimited time in the gym to do a dozen different types of exercises, but you do have enough time to do 5 or 6 different ones for each muscle group.  If you manage your time well, you shouldn’t be spending more than 10 minutes on each muscle group.

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Think about your day to day use of your shoulder.  Are you only using your shoulders to move your arms one way?  Are you always moving your arms forward?  Of course not.  So make sure your workout accounts for all the ways in which you use your shoulder!

And remember, this doesn’t just apply to shoulders.  The only reason I picked shoulders is that, due to their flexibility of motion, shoulders are the best example for this.  The same lesson applies to all your muscle groups.