Written by You don’t necessarily have to have kettlebells to get in a beat workout. Of course they are nice to have but there is always something else you can do to get the same affect.
Here’s to the budget gyms all over the world!
Posts tagged endurance training
Kettlebell training with no kettlebells
Top 6 Uncommon and Non-Traditional Exercises to add to your program
I have a laundry list of my favorite exercises to use in my program as well as my clients. For now I am going to give 6 of my number uncommon and non-traditional to see maximum results. No matter what your style of training is start adding these exercises in or replace old similar movements with these.
Non-traditional exercises can give your program the kick it needs!
Sandbag Clean: This is one of my favorite non-traditional exercises to include in my program. If you know anything about lifting than power/hang cleans should have already been cycled into your program at some time. Barbell cleans are great but try mixing it up with a sandbag. You can use whatever weight you want and increase as you progress. Form is key. Treat this movement like anything else. Keep your back and core tight, lift with your legs and keep your eyes looking up, take a deep breath and EXPLODE!
Over Head Squats: (fast forward to 2:00) This is more of an advanced movement so do your homework and start with just the bar or a broom stick. I love the way this exercises feels when done properly. It requires a perfect balance over your center of gravity and gives your entire upper body the beating of a life time. Do a set of these and your arms, shoulders, entire back and core will be on fire. This is more uncommon to the average joe so be sure do a little research before trying to attempt this with any kind of weight.
Stability Sandbag Press: Love it! This is a great overall shoulder exercise for killer strength gains. The way I do these forces me to have my core engaged the entire time while I work on balance and stability. For an added extra start on your back (as seen in the video) and sit up with the bag in your hands then go into the presses. Check out the video! If you hate crunches this is an excellent way to train your core from the inside out instead of only focusing on the anterior portion (six pack).
Weighted Kbell Swing: Beast mode!! Simple yet very effective exercise. Perfect for functional core strength and overall strength and conditioning. The alternating swing is just one variation. Be sure to practice good form before going to a heavier weight.
Towers: (skip to 55sec) Try these out if your looking to do something new to build a powerful core. Be sure to keep your legs straight as you can and fight the desire to just plop down. It happens, just fight through it as best as you can.
Dead Man Drags: Lat pull downs and pull ups are not the only way to achieve a stronger, well developed back. Try these bad boys out! There a few different variations you can do but add a few sets of these to the end of a workout. This is great lat work along with functional pulling strength. Increase the bag weight as you get stronger.
These are pretty simple to explain. Grab a sandbag and get down to the bear crawl position. You can either go head first or butt first. Each step you take you are going to reach back/up and grab the bag and pull it as hard and fast as you can to your current position. You repeat this while switching back and forth between arms until the desired distance is achieved.
Boom 6 of my best uncommon and non-traditional exercises! There is nothing like having a solid workout plan that throws in a few curve balls. Make sure you adding in these non-traditional exercises to build that athletic body you want!
Get after it,
William
The Most Misunderstood Sources of Pain: Part I
I hate hearing people talk about how they can’t do certain exercises any more due to a pain or past injury. I am guilty for this myself. I have had lower back issues for well over a year and have caught myself saying the things I hate to hear other people say. It sucks because exercise is supposed to keep our bodies in shape and able to handle some of the curve balls life tends to throw. So why are so many people hurt!? If your doing everything right then you shouldn’t be hurt at all right!?
What if it’s not the exercise that’s hurting or a specific injury that has messed you up. Stop blaming it on age and lets look at a few things that you CAN CHANGE to make your life better.
This is going to be a multi part blog post. I could write on this stuff for days but wanted to break it up and give little chunks of goodness one day at a time. Here are the first two misunderstood and over looked factors when it comes to pain and “injuries”.
What I want to give you is not a solution to your pain or to instruct you on form but instead an insight into an evaluation technique that you see a lot of chiropractors and physical therapist use to evaluate their patient.
I mean this is PH.D information for free! That’s pretty cool…well maybe not PH.D but it’s pretty legit stuff!!
Check for muscle imbalances: This is a common theme you see in a lot of the big gyms around town. The guys who look like their upper body is being folded in half down the center of their body….kinda like a taco. These dudes have overdeveloped chests and weak backs. That’s pretty basic elementary info though.
What about someones gait or shoulder height when comparing the left and right. Things like uneven hips, poor gait, and slouched shoulders can cause pain that isn’t even localized to that area. Your body is one big kinetic chain which means if your gait (how you walk) is jacked up it could be throwing your hips out of whack, which could be throwing off your back causing shoulder pain which could be the reason why the right side of your neck is tight and why you keep getting headaches. I know that’s a lot of information all at once but take a sec and read back over it…it’s the truth.
Start thinking outside of the box when it comes to things that hurt. So your neck hurts huh? Look in the mirror and see how your shoulders lay. Are they even? Take your fingers and find your “hip bone” do they look like they are two different hights? All these red flags are key players in any evaluation.
Posture is the problem: This is a play off of the first one but I wanted to break it up. Your daily decisions affect your posture. Sure you can gain muscle imbalances which lead to poor posture but the posture issues I am talking about are self inflicted.
You sit at a desk all day; ten bucks says your hips are super tight, your shoulders are a little rounded and if you use a computer either your right or left shoulder aches which occasionally makes it’s way into your neck. These are issues caused by A) your job B) the decisions you make at your job. In order to start correcting these issues you need to start paying attention to what your doing. Don’t rest your arm on your desk while using the mouse. It’s not the use of the mouse that’s messing you up it’s the over use and constantly keeping that shoulder in that position for hours on end.
When we are put in a position where we are sitting or standing for long periods of time your body wants to do it in the most efficient way possible. This is not necessarily a good thing. You get lazy you start to drop your shoulders, hunch your back, release your core muscle, favor one leg over the other etc. (to name a few). These are the things that are making you hurt. The leg that you favor is more than likely going to be more impacted and tighter than the other causing imbalances and pain.
Computer chairs suck unless you spend at least $450 on it.
Stop using the back rest of your chair.
Start sitting straight up and relying on your core muscles to keep you upright. It will suck at first and could potentially make your sore. That’s because your back rest acts as your core muscles for the 6-8 hours that your at work.
So why are you telling us about this stuff!?
Because this is the stuff that could potentially allow you to press, pull and squat comfortably with out any pain.
to your strength and mobility,
William
Warrior Dash Workout #4
Hey guys sorry I couldn’t get this workout on video. I have gotten crazy busy over the past 2 weeks and finding time to post content has been hard! I am blessed to be busy so I am not complaining!!
So this is it. I did this workout yesterday and had a blast doing it. I love incorporating power movements into my workout while challenging myself with the muscle endurance aspect that Crossfit offers. So rock it out and feel free to let me know how it went!
Your 4 exercises are as follows. The rules of the workout are;
The WOD will be for 5 rounds. Each exercise is done for a minute straight with no break between exercises. The goal is to do as many reps within that minute as you can. Record your rep count for each minute
5 Rounds:Record Reps
- Push Press (95lb) 1 min
- Bench Press (135lb) 1 min
- Dead Lift (135lb) 1 min
- Pull Ups 1 min
Have fun!
-William-
Today’s Workout Video Demo: “Dime”
This is one of the ways I train my clients who are preparing for an endurance race or the military. Power, strength and endurance is key when it comes to overall body function and athletic ability. There is more to being a beast then your bench press! Challenge yourself to do more and to go harder and I can promise you the results that you want!
Today’s Workout: Minute Madness
Check out this workout!! Work hard and get as many reps as you can!
Making It Last: Endurance Training
Picking your poison. No, I am not talking about your choice in alcohol. I’m talking Anaerobic vs Aerobic endurance. Two of the same things? No. These are actually two different ways your body uses energy. Aerobic involves oxygen as the main source of energy while anaerobic consists of short bursts at a high intensity. This kind of work pulls more from stored energy rather then oxygen. Both components are very important and are used by both athletes and average joe/jane.
These guys live for endurance
Let’s just talk about one for now….
Improving Aerobically
Well I want to get better! Let’s start with improving your aerobic endurance. This one is simple. Building aerobic endurance simply consists of running or performing the desired movement for a long period of time.
Running: Just run. You want to start out slow if you have never ran any kind of distance before but basically you need to start building your endurance for distance runs. These don’t require sprints or interval training. You’re just running at a pace that you can maintain for a desired distance or time. Pick a goal distance (let’s say 3 miles). You set out on those 3 miles and you run them as fast as you can (without hurting yourself). Let’s say you’re just starting out and you do it in 30 minutes. To grade improvement you need to set out to beat your last time of 30 minutes. Listen to your body, if you’re still reaching the finish line in 30 minutes but you’re not as winded as you once were then its time to step the speed up. Don’t get comfortable!
Muscle Endurance:
This one can get tricky. This style of training is both aerobic and anaerobic. The first few seconds of a movement is 100% anaerobic power from stored energy. As the exercise or movement lasts for minutes the body then makes the switch from stored energy in the active muscles to recruiting oxygen. Which then turns the movement into an aerobic exercise….make sense?
For Example: I give you 20 dead lifts with your body weight in weight. The first 30 seconds will be using all anaerobic endurance (using no oxygen just stored energy to complete the movement) Once the exercise moves into 1 minute or more in duration the body starts demanding oxygen to refuel the body in order to continue what it’s doing.
This is one of my favorite ways of training clients. I love hearing the testimonials of how they are able to do what they love longer and not run out of gas. I’m talking about every day stuff like cutting the grass, building sheds, spreading mulch, wrestling with your kids, push up and pull up contests…you know the manly stuff!
This training is set up similar to the way someone would be training for a distance run except you are working with body weight and/or free weights. Depending on the movement I am trying to build their endurance with, we will start out with body weight exercises with a high amount of reps or for a certain time. You may not be able to last the whole 90 seconds at first but with consistency and hard work they are crushing 90 seconds and moving on to the next exercise without even breaking a sweat. Beast mode!
The weights are used the same way as body weight you’re just making it a little harder. I like to do a lot of max rep exercises with their body weight as the weight on the bar.
For example: (if they are able to) I will have them bench their body weight as many times as they can or squat their body weight as many times as they can. Of course these techniques are all scaled down for each client but you get the idea. I usually only use this technique with the larger muscle groups.
Ask questions. Comment.
-William-
