No Excuses – How to always find the Time!

Tennis SprintingJust a very quick post today, in and out, job done!

Many people will find reasons and make excuses for not having the time to work out. I understand that, life is very busy. However what YOU need to understand is that work outs and activity can come in many forms. It doesn’t need to be a full on Gym session. ALL activity counts. Today is an example.

In a previous article i talked about Sprints remember (here it is) Well It’s bank holiday Monday. I’m at home with my two sons this morning. So what are we going to do. Well luckily they are sports fanatics so they are well into my plan. We are heading to the park for 45 mins on the free tennis courts. Hitting a ball around (and constantly chasing the mis-hit ones) counts as good activity, for me and them. Then on the field next to the courts is a whitewashed 400m running track on the grass. Perfect excuse for 10/15 minutes of sprints and runs to finish. They both love the idea and it is a great fat burner for me.

So 45 minutes of Tennis. Maybe 1 x 400m at my best pace followed by 6 x 50m interval sprints. That’s it. Metabolism fired into overdrive. Fat burning capability increased massively for today, children entertained. Perfect.

There are no excuses. You can always do something and those little extra activities are what will make ALL the difference.

Keep Working.

Take Care,

John

Todays Training- Resistance Super Sets, HiiT stylie!

CircuitsSummer is coming, I have a holiday booked and I freely admit I’m vain. I like to look as good as i can in my beach shorts so need to start adjusting my training accordingly. Therefore I’ll still be hitting the weights but will be making some changes to how i train a couple of time a week. Generally speaking I’ll be throwing in some weights based resistance circuits, a bit more HiiT and just aiming to burn some fat and get a bit leaner. Also trying to be good when it comes to food and diet so bye bye to the Wine, Beer and Crisps that I love (well at least to some extent, I’m not an angel after all).

So here is todays training workout. Basically i picked sets of two exercises at a time and did them as Supersets with very little rest.

I started with Hanging Leg raises supersetted with Chest/Tricep dips on parallel bars. 8 hanging leg raises, straight into 12 dips. Then rest for around 45 seconds and repeat. 3 sets in total.

Next was standing alternate arm shoulder press with 15kg dumbbells supersetted with Kettlebell swings (2 hands between legs). Concentrate on bracing the core when doing the shoulder press and pushing with the shoulders not the triceps and then thrusting forward with the hips and glutes when doing the swing. 10 reps each side for the dumbbell press and then 12 reps for the Kettlebell swings.3 sets in total.

Next bent over Dumbbell rows supersetted with Goblet squats. Again using the same 15kg Dumbells in each hand concentrate on squeezing the weight up, back and into the side and pulling with the back rather than the Bicep, then standard Goblet squats with a fairly wide Sumo stance and going down as deep as possible to stretch the Glutes and Hamstrings. 3 sets in total.

Next I used an exercise ball as a bench and did Dumbell Chest press. The ball wobbles slightly which means you engage your core to maintain stability and you also get a really deep stretch in your chest as you lower the weight down. 15kg for 10 reps.This was immediately followed by standard exercise ball crunches x 15 reps. 3 sets in total.

The final exercises of the circuit were on the cable machine. I set up a single handle at mid chest level with 20kg on it. Then did Cable twists or woodchoppers as they are sometimes called. 10 reps on the right and then 10 on the left. I supersetted this with Tricep pushdowns on another machine. 12 reps at 50kg.

That was it for the weights. These exercises used pretty much every part of my body – Shoulders, Chest, Back, Legs, Abs etc and gave me a pretty good full body workout but would also have burnt calories due to the superset effect and low rest periods.

Finally i headed over to the running machine. Incline up to 4.5. Speed up to almost sprint level. I jumped on and did 20 seconds running at speed, then stepped off and rested for 30 seconds. Repeated this 6 time. Then did 2 more reps with 30 seconds sprinting and 30 seconds rest so 8 in total.

That’s it, done. Back to doing some mass building stuff tomorrow in training and then something similar to this on Friday maybe. As always, if you have any questions please ask. It’s probably cheeky of me to ask but if you are enjoying these posts, or any of the stuff i put out, then please share or Like them from the website or Facebook, Linked In or wherever you are reading them. I really appreciate it.

Have a good evening.

Take Care,

John