Do you feel like you’ve fallen into a rut with your workouts? Sometimes the most effective and often overlooked way to get back on track is to re-introduce workouts that focus on reconstructing and restoring your body.
Below you will discover the third instalment in a 5-part series of workouts that aim to rebuild your body in such a way that allows you to break out of your workout funk and start seeing results.
Now in this workout you won’t be performing supersets, but instead trisets (3 sets of exercises with no rest in between). So, you will do 2 trisets for a total of 6 exercises.
For your first exercise you have the option between deadlifts or dumbbell squats. With the deadlift, you will squat down in front of the bar and bring the bar right up to your shins, keeping your chest and head up, and then pull the bar up as you stand in an upright position. Next, slowly lower down, keeping the bar nice and close to your body.
A common problem for many people, however, is getting down into that low position. This tends to be the result of one’s body being too tight and not mobile enough, hence the need for these rebuilding workouts. If you are unable to do this exercise, then an alternative exercise for you would be the DB squat.
With the dumbbell squat you aren’t required to go as low, but it is still a very similar movement to the deadlift. So for this exercise, as you squat down, place your hips back, chest up, and squat down and then back up.
After completing all the repetitions for this exercise, you will then move into the chest press, however, it will be with a slight variation. This time, you will do the press 1 arm at a time, making sure there isn’t a huge difference in strength between the two sides.
So, place one hand on your abdominals while the other arm does the chest presses. Be sure your movements are controlled and then switch to the other side. The amount of weight you can lift may decrease by around 20% when doing this exercise, but I recommend starting 50% lighter and then working your way up.
The third exercise is a very challenging 1-Legged Stability Ball Leg Curl. So, get on your back, place one foot on the ball, bridge your hips up, and curl in then out. Switch sides after completing all the reps for one side.
You’ve just completed the first triset. Now, rest up to 1 minute, and then go through it again for up to 2 more times.
For the next triset, we will begin with an exercise that happens to be an underused exercise that really focuses on your upper back – the chest supported dumbbell row.
To get in position for this exercise, lean against an inclined bench with your DBs at arms length facing one another in front of you, then row the DBs up. Since the chest is supporting you, you can really focus on the back of the body by getting those DBs up high.
After this exercise you will either do the military press with the barbell or 1-armed DB shoulder press. For the military press, you will want to get a nice bend in the knees, put your hips back, brace your abs, and then drive the BB up and overhead. When you extend overhead, your chest is forward, and the bar is overhead so your shoulder blades will come together, providing that extension in your upper spine. Be sure that when you drive up, the bar is not held up in front, but instead overhead.
If you do not have a barbell, then you can do the DB shoulder press. With this exercise you have two alternatives. One way is with palms facing out, while the other option is with palms facing in.
To finish off the second triset, you will do a reverse lunge. Start out in a nice proud posture and step back with one leg and then go down and pull yourself back to the starting position with your lead leg. Perform all repetitions for one leg and then switch.
Again, you can repeat this triset up to 2 more times, and then add in a short amount of interval training followed by some static stretching.
That’s it for the third phase of the rebuilding workouts. Give these workouts a try and watch as your body reconstructs itself to perform at peak efficiency!
Get more sports specific athlete workouts at: Craig Ballantyne Workouts
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines and will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment.
Discover the best fat loss workouts to burn fat, and build ripped six pack abs in less workout time than ever before.
If you’re looking for a little extra boost during your off-days, then here is a 10-exercise circuit that will help to rebuild and reconstruct your body, while doing so at an off-day intensity. This will ensure that you get that metabolism boost to burn more calories, but in a way that won’t impede your performance in the following day’s workout.
To start out you’ll do a simple bodyweight squat. Place your hands out in front and feet a bit wider than hip-width apart. Now, push your hips back and get nice and low, while keeping your back flat and your chest out. Then, drive up and repeat.
Next you will go down to the floor and do whatever rolling you feel is necessary. Whether it’s the tennis ball for your calves or the foam roller for your upper back or IT band along your legs – do whichever exercises you feel are necessary to get that soreness out.
Once you’ve finished with those exercises, grab your stability ball and go through the WYLIT exercises. With the “W” exercise, your arms are straight out in front of you and then tuck your elbows into your sides.
Right after, move into the “Y” exercise position. Keep your thumbs pointing up and use the muscles between your shoulder blades to lift your arms in this small movement exercise.
For the “L” exercise you will be performing an external rotation. Then into the “I” exercise where your arms are straight ahead and raise them upwards, getting that extension. Finish off the WYLIT with the “T” exercise by bringing your shoulder blades together, again in another small movement exercise.
After the WYLIT you’ll go to the ground for the stability ball hip extension and follow that up with the side plank. For the side plank, be sure to keep your body in a straight line and abs braced. Focus on getting back in tune with your body so that you can do all of these movements properly.
Follow the side plank with the regular plank exercise. This ab exercise will be a bit more difficult, having just completed the side plank.
After the plank, you’ll go right into a single leg hip-extension. So, with one leg up in the air, bridge your hips up, and then slowly lower back down. Squeeze your glutes and hamstring to come up. Be sure to really drive through the hip, and one way to do this is to push through the heel of the leg that is planted. Do all reps for one side and then switch over to the other.
Next, you’ll do some calf stretching for 30 seconds per side. By combining this calf stretch with the tennis ball rolling you will reduce the pain and stiffness in the calf area.
After calf stretches, you’ll grab a stability ball for a round of mountain climbers. To get in position, place your hands on the ball and your body in a straight line. Next, drive your knee up to your chest and then back down, alternating sides.
The last exercise is the stability ball jackknife. So, place your feet on the ball and your hands on either the ground or the bench and then tuck your knees into your chest.
So there’s another off-day workout that will restore and reconstruct your body to start performing at peak levels. You can rest a little bit after cycling through those exercises one time and then go through the circuit a couple more times. If you need to do a little extra activity to go along with this workout then go for it!
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines and will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment. Discover the best fat loss workouts to burn fat, and build ripped six pack abs in less workout time than ever before.
Do you ever feel like you want to change your workouts up and add a “challenge workout” to really see where your level of fitness is at? If so, then this is the perfect workout for you! Keep reading and you will discover a challenge workout I designed where you attempt to complete a 10-exercise bodyweight circuit as many times as you can in just 20 minutes.
The Challenge has two levels; one for beginner and one for advanced. If you are a beginner, then you will perform 10 repetitions for each exercise, whereas an advanced individual will perform double that at 20 repetitions per exercise.
So, you’ll start out by placing your hands up behind you head and complete a series of Prisoner squats. Get your elbows back, squeeze your shoulder blades together, feet slightly wider than hip width apart, and then push your hips out as you squat down and then back up. Repeat.
After the Prisoner squats you’ll go down to the ground for Close-Grip push-ups. So, for this exercise place your hands shoulder width apart and elbows tucked into the side.
Next up are Stability Ball Leg Curls. Be sure to bridge those hips up and then curl in and out.
Once you are finished doing that exercise, keep the stability ball with you as you are now going to do 1-Legged Jackknives. If you are doing 10 repetitions, that means 10 in total, so 5 for one leg and then 5 with the other.
If you are a beginner or you can’t do the 1-Legged Jackknives, then just do regular stability ball jackknives. Also, these can be done with either your hands on the bench or on the floor.
Now you’ll stand back up and do Diagonal Lunges. Proper form for this exercise is stepping out to the side, while keeping your foot pointing forward. This will give you a great stretch through the groin, and then go straight down, and drive back up. Again, if you are just doing 10, then you are only doing 5 for each side.
Starting out the final 5 exercises, you’ll do the Underhand Inverted Row. This means your palms are up and facing you, with your hands a little narrower than shoulder width apart.
If you are unable to complete 20 repetitions straight, then do as many as you can, take a rest, and then finish them off. If you are a beginner and can’t do the straight-legged inverted rows, then bridge your hips up and bend your knees to complete the reps.
After the rows, you’ll do an interesting exercise called the Grasshopper push-up. For this exercise you will start by getting into a regular push-up position and then swing one leg underneath your body, drop down, and then swing it back out. Alternate sides. If you can’t do the Grasshoppers then just do regular push-ups.
Next up is the Side Plank with a Leg Raise. Start in the regular side plank position and then perform a leg raise. This will either be 5 and 5 repetitions for the beginner or 10 and 10 for each side for the advanced.
Immediately after finishing all the repetitions for the side plank with leg raise, you are going to move into the Spiderman Climbs. Your starting position for this exercise is the push-up position. Next, you will bring your foot up outside your hand and then back down, alternating sides. Only bring your foot as far up as your body feels comfortable and then slowly work to improve your mobility.
To finish of the circuit challenge you will do Running in Place for 10 strides if you are a beginner or 20 strides if you are advanced.
Once you finish the last exercise, take a quick breather and then head back to the beginning to continue working your way through the circuit as many times as you can in 20 minutes.
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines and will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment.
Discover the best fat loss workouts to burn fat, and build ripped six pack abs in less workout time than ever before.
The truth about cardio for fat loss is that it WILL work for some people.
However, most of those people are generally younger men, you know those guys who are in university or just out of and, therefore, also have lots of time to train, so that’s what generally works best for.
It probably works for fewer people than it doesn’t work for. In fact, some researchers/trainers believes cardio can make a woman’s thighs even fatter.
So if you’ve found your upper body getting skinnier but your thighs getting fatter after doing a cardio program, then I guarantee cardio is not the best fat burning workout for you!
Unfortunately, cardio simply does not work for most of the people reading this article, and in some of the recent research that I’ve studied, came across, I found one study from the UK that showed that when some people do cardio, they actually have an increase in their appetite.
Now to be fair, some people in this study lost a lot of weight. But some people in the study also gained weight. Imagine that! Doing exercise and gaining weight. How frustrating!
They did this study over about eight weeks and found that some people actually gained weight over an eight week cardio weight loss study and when they looked at what these people ate, they found that cardio made these people hungrier and increased their appetite, so if that’s you then cardio is not the way to go.
Another study that I came across recently showed that in men and women that had – these men and women did an hour of cardio six days per week for an entire year and they only lost six pounds of body weight on average, so that’s obviously not a very good investment of their time.
Again, the research really isn’t too supportive of long, slow cardio for fat loss and it’s certainly not as good as interval training.
There’s been two head-to-head studies of cardio and intervals and the one is almost 15 years old now and it’s from Canada and it showed that the people on the interval training lost more body fat and then just in late 2006, a study came out of Australia and it showed that a group of women doing a 15-week study, those that did 40 minutes of slow cardio three days per week didn’t lose any weight, but those doing 20 minutes of interval training three days per week actually lose belly fat.
That is the truth about cardio when it comes to research and fat loss studies and it just shows you it’s not as good as most people think.
Certainly, in the real world we see that because there’s a lot of people that don’t change their bodies even though they do six or seven hours of cardio per week. Interval training does work better for fat loss in a short amount of workout time.
One thing I hate to see in the gym is someone who is on a workout program that is stuck in the 80’s. The common wisdom back then was low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets and lots of cardio are necessary to lose body fat.
But it just didn’t work.
That’s why, since the late 1990’s, programs such as mine, that combine resistance training with a form of cardiovascular training and a higher protein diet are becoming more popular. It’s simply because the new rules of fat loss work so much better than the old.
Plus, research backs me up. American researchers studied three groups of overweight men and women with an average age of just over 40.
(Arciero PJ, et al. Increased dietary protein and combined high intensity aerobic and resistance exercise improves body fat distribution and cardiovascular risk factors. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2006 Aug;16(4):373-92.)
Group one performed high-intensity resistance and cardiovascular training and ate a balanced diet (RC+BD) consisting of 40% of calories from carbohydrates and 40% of calories from protein.
Group two performed moderate-intensity cardiovascular training and ate a traditional food guide pyramid diet of 50 to 55% carbohydrates, only 15 to 20% protein, and less than 30% of calories from fat. Finally, an inactive control group changed nothing in their diet or exercise.
The RC+BD group lost more body fat and abdominal fat than both other groups. It was also the only group to decrease cholesterol (13%), LDL cholesterol (-20%) and systolic blood pressure (-5.7%).
Overall, the combined approach of strength training, cardiovascular training, and balanced carbohydrate and protein diet results in more fat loss and better health when compared to cardiovascular training and the food pyramid diet.
Start moving towards a better body and improved health by adding 20 minutes of total body strength training three days per week. Focus on squats, pushups, and a rowing exercise to train the entire body in only 3 moves.
For your diet, start by eliminating processed carbohydrates and grains, and increasing your intake of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and lean protein.
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training for weight loss workouts have helped thousands of men and women with weight loss and fat burning in less than 45 minutes three times per week. Visit his weight loss forum to help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment. Craig’s bodyweight workouts for weightloss help you lose fat without any equipment at all.
You can also do these with both legs on the floor or by using a stability ball. Also, for all those that want to know, this exercise works the hamstrings and the glutes…
Don’t let your cravings destroy your weight loss program. Learn how to stop eating and stick to your diet so you burn fat on your fat loss program.
Cravings can kill a good fat loss program.
One day you’re sailing along losing body fat, and the next day you end up eating 1500 calories of M&M’s. You get frustrated, you skip your workout, and the next thing you know you’ve fallen off the wagon for three days or three weeks.
Don’t worry, though. I can show you how to stop this behavior, so you don’t ever let this happen again. Here’s how to control cravings and beat body fat for good!
Recently a member wrote in…
“Anybody have this experience? I really do want to lose the fat but everytime I walk by a convenience store, my brain wants to get some junk food even after I’ve worked out!
I do try to resist the temptations but sometimes I do give in and it’s wrecking my progress!
How much willpower does a person have to have in this fat loss thing? How can I get rid of these temptations once and for all?”
My answer…
Hi!
This is going to sound too simplistic, but trust me, it will work.
You need to change your self-image.
Right now, you believe you are…
1) The type of person that falls off the wagon everytime you walk by a convenience store.
You must change your self-image and see yourself as…
2) A disciplined eater who eats for fat burning, mental energy, and to fuel your workouts and lifestyle, AND who treats themselves every once in a while to pre-planned treats.
Let me give you an example of how this works…
As I’ve mentioned before on the site, I used to bite my nails.
Disgusting habit.
But I’m a fitness professional.
And fitness professionals do NOT have disgusting habits.
So I changed my self-image.
In my mind, I became the type of person who does NOT bite their nails.
And now everytime I am tempted to bite my nails, I stop and say to myself, “I do not bite my nails. That’s disgusting. I do not have disgusting habits”.
It literally worked overnight.
So, it doesn’t matter if you walk by the store, go into the store, buy the junk food, or even take the wrapper off, all that matters is that you stop yourself before you eat the junk and say to yourself…
“I am not the type of person that sabotages all their hard work by eating junk food. I have control over my cravings, and I eat only foods that contribute to my fat burning program and to a healthy lifestyle. And every once in a while I allow myself a planned treat as a reward.”
That’s ALL that matters.
Now, you must truly believe in yourself and in your new self-image.
It will only work if you believe in this mindset shift.
But I already believe in you and know you can do it.
That’s it. Good luck. Change your mindset today and start building your new body immediately.
If you are committed to a good training program, than it will be easier to get your mind to commit to a new way of thinking about your diet habits. By getting control of your cravings, you will burn fat and lose weight.
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked fat burning workout routines have helped thousands of men and women with weight loss and fat burning in less than 45 minutes three times per week. The fat loss member forums help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment. Craig’s bodyweight exercises help you lose fat without any equipment at all.
Sticking to your workout program is tough, and most people lose motivation before they start building muscle or are able to burn fat. Here are 3 tips to avoid getting off track from your exercise program.
1) Make sure your gym is within 10 minutes of home OR work.
First, identify when you are going to workout. If you have a better chance of doing it at lunch, get a gym membership near work. If you are going to workout at night after all is said and done, get a membership near home, or better yet, get a home gym set up – all you need is a bench and a set of adjustable dumbells. You might also want to get a Kettlebell or a Pullup bar.
2) Set Your Workout as an Appointment and Just Do It!
Let no excuse come between you and your workout. Schedule it, and keep your committment. One of the main reasons early morning workouts are so popular is because it is harder to let something get in your way when it’s the first thing you do all day.
3) Have more workout options & More exercise education
Another way to stick to your workouts is to have options…have more workout programs from experts, with workouts for bodyweight only, dumbells only, and even for commercial gyms (including machines).
There are dozens of excellent training experts online, if you can’t find someone in your neighborhood gym to give you workout program guidance.
Recommended muscle-building and fat burning experts include, Jason Ferruggia, Tom Venuto, and Alwyn Cosgrove. You’ve probably seen their names in magazines like Men’s Fitness or Men’s Health, or even Women’s Health.
Simply put, the more knowledge you have about exercise and nutrition, the easier it is to stick to both.
Don’t let a lack of motivation or lack of knowledge get you off track from your fat burning or muscle building workouts. Just ask for help and you’ll find a fitness expert online to show you the way.
Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked superset fat burning workouts have helped thousands of men and women with weight loss and fat burning in less than 45 minutes three times per week. Strength training and interval workouts help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment. Craig’s bodyweight exercises for weight loss help you lose fat without any equipment at all.
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