Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Weight Loss Wars: Bodyweight vs. the Treadmill

One of my private weight loss clients emailed me this week, "Help! My treadmill broke. What can I do for intervals?"

My answer? Bodyweight to the rescue.

As luck would have it, I just finished up a tough lower-body circuit workout on Friday that will help keep my client's (and your) fat loss going at record pace.

Here's the circuit:

  • Y-squat (20 reps)
  • Jumping Jacks (60 reps)
  • T-Squat (20 reps)
  • Siff Squat (20 reps)
  • Diagonal Lunge (12 reps per leg)

Do each exercise one after the other. After one round you may choose to test yourself and do as many Pistols as you can. I hit a new record of 8 on each side, even on my bum right leg.

What's a Pistol? Click HERE & Scroll down to the last exercise

Then take 1-minute rest and repeat the circuit. Rest one minute after each round, and do up to 5 circuits.You're looking at about 4 minutes per circuit...so your heart rate should be pumping high after 1 or 2 rounds, and your legs should be fatigued after only the 3rd round. 4-5 circuits are only for advanced bodyweight masters.

After 3 rounds of the circuit I followed it up with a killer bodyweight ab routine (in which none of the exercises was done flat on my back), but I'll save that workout for another message.

Bodyweight burns the fat, and gets you conditioned for summer sports far better than traditional bodybuilding workouts,

CB

P.S. Bodyweight + Nutrition = A Beach Body

"Had my first bodyweight work out from your program last night, which I started at phase two, and I was totally caught off guard at the high level of energy and strength that is needed to complete these circuits. Im used to regular "bodybuilding" exercises and I assumed my strength there would compliment me in these circuits, but it turns out I was wrong, for the most part. By the second circuit I was already lowering my reps, as I wasn't strong enough nor did I have the necessary endurance to complete the circuit at the recommended reps. My body felt like it went through a 2 hour workout, when in fact I was done with in about 30 minutes. I particularly enjoy the fact that these can mostly all be done at home."

Brad Wittig

Learn About the 6 phases of bodyweight training here

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Looks like that link is broken; can you describe what a pistol is?

Craig Ballantyne, CTT, Certified Turbulence Trainer said...

The link works now.