Archive for the ‘Ed's Workouts’ Category

Ruts, plateaus, stagnation.

We all experience that with our workouts and with our weight loss programs.  It’s inevitable whether you’ve been working for a few months, a few years or a few decades, but the inevitability isn’t the important part.

How you react to the plateaus, ruts and feelings of stagnation is the most important thing.

As I said here, you need to do something drastic both with your workouts and with your diet.

To see what I do with my diet, click here and to see my own plateau-busting workout check ‘em out below…

These plateau-busting workouts are all going to be bodyweight workouts only and they’re going to mix in high reps, very low rest periods and some tough variations of push-ups.  If you can’t do the push-up variations I suggest, that’s cool.  Just pick out the toughest push-up variations for you and do them instead.

But…

…The exercises you choose to do in place of the ones I suggest MUST be difficult.  The point of this plateau-busting fat loss workout is to shake things up and shake you out of your comfort zone to get your body to continue making progress and to re-invigorate yourself and get you back on track.

Day 1:

Bodyweight Circuit – Complete this workout in a circuit, completing as many circuits as you can in 10 minutes.

1A) Pike Push-up – 15 reps
1B) Bodyweight Squat – 40 reps
1C) Jump Squat – 8 reps
1D) Decline Spider-Man Push-up – 15 reps
1E) 1-Leg Burpee – 10 reps per leg

2) Jump Rope – 5 minutes

3) Repeat the previous circuit for 10 minutes.

Day 2:

Bodyweight Workout Circuit – Complete this workout in a circuit, completing as many circuits as you can in 10 minutes.

1A) Burpee – 20 reps
1B) Reverse Lunge – 15 reps per leg
1C) Forward Lunge – 15 reps per leg
1D) Mountain Climber – 40 reps per leg
1E) Jumping Jack – 60 reps

2) Jump Rope – 10 minutes

Day 3:

Bodyweight Workout Circuit – Complete this workout in a circuit, completing as many circuits as you can in 10 minutes.

1A) Inverted Row – AMAP
1B) 1-Leg Feet Elevated Hip Extension – 15 reps per leg
1C) 1-Leg Decline Push-up – 20 reps
1D) Burpee w/Push-up – 12 reps
1E) 1 ½ Squat – 20 reps

2) Jump Rope – 5 minutes

3) Repeat the above 10-minute circuit.

Day 4:

4-Minute Metabolic Bodyweight Tabata Workouts – We’re going to change things up a bit today and break everything up into 4-minute “Tabata” style bodyweight workouts.  To do them, you’ll do the first exercise for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, then do the second exercise for 20 seconds, rest 10 seconds and go back to the first exercise.  You should be able to get through the pair of exercises 4 times in the 4 minutes.

Rest for a minute, then go on to the next 4-minute Tabata.

Make sense?

1A) 1-Leg Burpee – 20 seconds,
10-second rest,
1B) Jumping Jacks – 20 seconds,

2A) 1 ½ Bodyweight Squat – 20 seconds,
10-second rest,
2B) Jump Squat – 20 seconds,

3A) Mountain Climber – 20 seconds,
10-second rest,
3B) Squat Thrust – 20 seconds,

4) Jump Rope – 5 minutes

Day 5:

I’m going to do something I don’t normally do and tell you to do 15 minutes of cardio today.

But it has to be high intensity cardio.  When I say high intensity, I mean HIGH INTENSITY!  I want you to work your butt off for 15 minutes doing your preferred type of cardio.

For me, that’s a stationary bike.  I’ll throw a movie in the DVD player, warm up for a few minutes, then crank up the resistance and go as hard as I can for 15 minutes.  After those 15 minutes, I’ll cool down, hop off the bike and do some light stretching.

Day 6 &7:  Take these 2 days off!

Still do something…don’t be a total lazy turd.  Play with the kids, go for a walk or leisurely bike ride – just don’t do an intense workout or sit on your butt all day.

Let me know if you have any questions about this week’s workouts!

And remember…

Be A Superhero Today!

Talk to you soon,

The Fit Dad

P.S. – If you have any workout or nutrition questions, leave a comment.  I love hearing from you and it helps me to design better workouts.

P.P.S. – If you’re ready to take your fat loss to the next level, then you NEED my Fat Loss To Go program.  It’s a fat loss program designed specifically for busy moms and dads and all the workouts can be done in 10 minutes!  Check it out by heading to www.FatLossToGo.com

Wow!  2009 is gone and now we’re on to 2010.  I don’t know what your 2009 was like, but I couldn’t be happier that it’s gone.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good year, but I’m so dad-gum excited about 2010 I can hardly stand it.  I’ve got so many things in store for you it makes my eyeballs want to pop out of my head due to excitement!

A quick personal note – to be totally honest I didn’t stick with my personal workouts very well over the past couple months.

I did the workouts, but I wasn’t that “into” them.  I thought they were boring, stale and dry and if you feel that way there’s no way you’re going to stick with them – even if you’re someone who gets paid to exercise!

But the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting on myself and I’m going to start experimenting on some of my personal clients and when I get the results I’m after I’ll be giving you the same stuff.  I’m pretty stoked about these new workouts I’ve been writing.

So stay tuned for those!

But now on to this week’s 10-minute workouts…

Day 1:

Dumbbell/Bodyweight Circuit – Complete this workout in a circuit, completing as many circuits as you can in 10 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

We got our first measurable amount of snow yesterday.

Ya know, snow always sounds cool…until it arrives and you have to drive in it.  Scratch that – you have to be on the road when OTHER people are driving.

Although I will say this – I’m actually one of the weird ones in that I actually enjoy scooping snow.  Yes, I know that’s weird and some may say idiotic, but it’s kinda fun to get out there and throw some snow around!  Plus I like to have competitions with my neighbors to see who can get done quicker – although they don’t know they’re competing with me…but I’d still kick their butts!

But I digress, here are your 10-Minute Home Fat Loss Workouts for the week…

Day 1:

Dumbbell/Bodyweight Circuit – Complete this workout in a circuit, completing as many circuits as you can in 10 minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

This time of year is typically the most difficult for people to stick with their workout program.

For one reason or another, working out and eating right get pushed to the bottom of the to-do list only to come racing back to the top on January 1.

To help make this year different, I decided to give you a week’s worth of 10-minute workouts every week for the remainder of 2009.

Some weeks will be all bodyweight circuits, while others will mix dumbbells and bodyweight workouts, but they’ll all be 10-minutes.

I’ll also give you some ideas for good add-on workouts if you have extra time, as well as some videos.

Sound good?

I thought so.

Here are this week’s workouts… Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t been doing a very good job lately or sharing my personal workouts with you, so I thought I’d give you a little insight into what I’ve been doing this week.

It’s been a hectic week (again), so I’m sticking with my 10-minute workouts and doing add-on workouts whenever I have a chance.

The difference with some of the workouts the past few weeks is that when I do my workouts at the studio I focus a lot on my back/upper back and legs, then I do bodyweight workouts at home.

It’s been working out pretty well, plus it’s fun to test and challenge myself with all the different push-up variations that I do with my bodyweight workouts.

Anyway, enough rambling and let’s get to the good stuff.

Monday – Bodyweight Workout, approximately 20 minutes total:

10-Minute Circuit of:
1A)  “T” Push-up – 15 reps
1B)  Bodyweight Squat – 25 reps
1C)  Pike Push-up – 12 reps

I did as many circuits as I could in 10 minutes trying to rest the least amount possible.

Then I did another 10 minute circuit that was a little more metabolic in nature, but still worked my arms nicely.

1A)  Close Grip Push-up – 15 reps
1B)  Burpees – 8 reps
1C)  Jack Knife – 15 reps
1D)  Decline Close Grip Push-up – 12 reps
1E) Mountain Climber on Carpet Sliders – 30 seconds

By the way, those carpet sliders are my new favorite workout toy.  I bought them to use in my boot camps, but liked them so much I kept a pair at home.  I do different mountain climber variations, lunges, plank extensions, leg curls, etc. and they are killer.  I highly recommend you pick up a pair.

Tuesday’s 10-Minute Circuit:

1A)  Inverted Row – 10 reps
1B)  Forward Lunge – 6 reps
1C)  Reverse Lunge – 6 reps
1D)  Rear Flies – 10 reps

Did as many circuits as I could in 10 minutes without resting and my legs were feeling it…not to mention my upper back.

I had some more time, so I went on to a little arm’s workout and did the following for 5 minutes:

1A)  Hammer Curl – 15 reps
1B)  Rear Flies – 15 reps
1C)  DB Curl – 15 reps

That felt good on the arms.

Wednesday did another 10-minute bodyweight circuit from home, just like Monday.

1A)  Decline Spiderman Push-up – 10 reps
1B)  1 ½ Squat – 15 reps (makes the legs burn!)
1C)  Push-up/Jack Knife combo – 12 each

Then I did another 10-minute circuit…

1A)  Side Plank Extension – 12 per side
1B)  Spiderman Mt. Climbers on Carpet Sliders – 30 seconds
1C)  Close Grip Push-ups – 12 reps
1D)  Wide Grip Push-ups – 12 reps

I have no idea how many push-ups I did, but it was A LOT.  I can’t say this enough, but you gotta do push-ups…gotta, gotta, gotta.

How was that for proper grammar?

I don’t know what the rest of my week will look like since I’m heading to Austin tomorrow and don’t have ANY time to workout before I leave town. My only hope is that there’s a gym in the hotel and that it’s open 24 hours.

Then I’ll do a bodyweight workout in my hotel room and just might film that for you, although I’d have to put on shorts and a tank top, rather than just rolling out of bed which is what I usually do with my hotel room workouts…so maybe I’ll be too lazy to set up the camera.

Watch and see!

Talk to ya soon!

Ed