Since I am ramping up my training I wanted to share a few things that I have been doing to get my B-hind in the best shape it has ever been.
I'm sure you have all heard of HIIT (High intensity interval training) by now and if u haven't tried it I’m sure you are curious. Well I have started adding interval training three times a week and dropped my long extended cardio days. Interval training is great because it takes up less time and you get the “after burn” affect. This means your body is tricked into thinking it is still exercising, even though you are done, and it continues to burn the calories. Plus I don't have time for long cardio sessions anyways unless it is for group fitness. Here are a few things that I have started:
Sprints on incline- I do theses on a treadmill, up a hill or on stairs. Each week I change the sets and incline and length of sprint so that it is different. For example:
30 sec sprint on 15 incline
30 seconds rest
Repeat 10 times.
The next time I'll do a lower incline one min on one min off.
I like to challenge myself with stairs. I use regular stairs or the stair climber machine and do intervals and sprints. Today I did stair sprints after my leg lift at the stadium.
**Again always doing something different so that my body is always guessing.
I have always had a passion for lifting so I have kept that pretty constant with the except of my rest periods in between exercises. Now I have added intervals in between my sets. Say I do squats, I do box jumps in between my transition to lunges. Or ill do say 10 squats, 10 box jumps. Repeating this 3-4 times.
If you want to add intervals to your workout try jump squats, Scissor lunges, up downs ( try this on one leg, it's killer), box jumps, frog leaps, jumping rope, jumping jacks, duck walk and many more. Look up an interval routine online if you aren’t sure how to incorporate this into you normal routine. There are tons of different intervals you can incorporate into your workout routines.
I use intervals a lot in my kickboxing and Bootcamp classes. It gets the heart rate up in between combos and strength to maximize you burn.
Lastly I do a 100 rep push every 4 weeks. I did this the other week and man oh man I was struggling. I do a normal leg lift, say 3 sets of squats with weight increasing, decreasing rep, but the 4th set I add a 100 rep finisher to completely shock my muscles just using body weight.
How does this work? When you exercise you use slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers. This last 100 rep finisher adds more tension to your muscles so they recruit more muscle fibers to finish the job. So you end up having a higher ratio of muscle fibers used.
Want to try? Here's how:
First set- 12-15 reps
Second set- 8-12 reps
Third set- 6-12 reps
* using weight to make it challenging to achieve the amount of reps in a set
Forth set- 100 reps just body weight
* maintaining your form is key here.
If you are too exhausted and your form is diminishing then stop the exercise. Try again in 4 weeks and make it your goal to complete 100. This is an advanced exercise so if you are just starting to weight train then modify this to make it more appropriate for your exercise level. Form is the most important thing so when that is compromised then you could injure yourself.
I did this with regular squats, lunges, glute raises and calve raises.
**** Always make sure that you properly warm up, cool down and stretch during and after exercise to prevent injury.
I will be posting more about my training and dieting experiences leading up to my fitness competition so stay posted!
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