PUMPkin Fun - A Screeeam of a Workout!

Why a pumpkin?
If you think about it, a pumpkin is like a big weighted medicine ball. While I wouldn’t recommend you try bouncing your pumpkin ... you can certainly use it like you would a medicine ball. The thing I love about using a pumpkin is you can get them in all different shapes, sizes, and weights.

When you’re using a medicine ball it’s perfectly round, easy to grip, and has even weight distribution. A pumpkin on the other hand can provide much more of a challenge to your core and abdominal muscles because of the irregular shapes and sizes.


Pumpkin Mountain Climbers
Place both hands on the pumpkin in a push-up position and raise your hips so you have a flat back. Keep your abdominal muscles tight and try to maintain as straight as possible as you bring one leg in towards your chest at a time. Squeeze your abs as you bring the leg in. 10-15 reps per side.

Pumpkin V-sit Twist
Lay on the ground in an upright position with your feet crossed and slightly leaning back. Take the pumpkin with both hands and rotate it side to side. Raise your feet off the ground for more of a challenge on the core. Keep your abs tight throughout the movement. 10-15 reps per side.

Pumpkin Wood Chop
Start by holding your pumpkin straight out in front of your chest and go down into a squat position. As you go down into the squat bring the pumpkin with you and lower it between your legs. Come out of the squat position bringing the pumpkin with you and extending it overhead with your arms straight. Repeat. Keep a flat back and your arms straight through the movement. 10-15 reps.

Pumpkin Diagonal Chop
Start by holding your pumpkin with straight arms but off to one side. Squat down bringing the pumpkin with you, chopping with it in a diagonal arch pattern. Try to keep the pumpkin away from your body and your arms straight as this is what really works the core. Holding the pumpkin close to your body or with “alligator arms” won’t make the exercise very effective.

Pumpkin Squat Thrust
Start with the pumpkin at chest height holding it with both hands. Go down into a squat position and drive back to the starting position while pushing the pumpkin over your head. Return to chest height and repeat. 10 -15 reps

Pumpkin Burpees
With the pumpkin on the floor in front of you,
 squat down to the floor, grab the pumpkin and extend your legs out and back with a jump to assume a push-up 
position. Perform a push-up with your hands on the pumpkin and then reverse 
the movement to stand back up. Repeat for 10-15 reps.

Pumpkin Lunge with Front Raise
Start by holding the pumpkin with both hands to one side at hip level. Step forward into a lunge position and in the process raise the pumpkin overhead with straight arms. Bring the pumpkin up to a point right above your head and then as you come out of the lunge and back to the starting position, chop the pumpkin back to your side. Alternate legs. 10-15 reps per side.

Pumpkin Lateral Reaches
Start by holding the pumpkin with both hands at chest height. Take a big lateral step to one side and lower the pumpkin down over your foot. Push off the lead foot and return to the starting position with the pumpkin at chest height. 10-15 reps per side.

Pumpkin Push-Up’s
This is one of my favorite pumpkin exercises as it really challenges the core and abdominals, not to mention your chest, arms, and shoulders. Now, there are several different variations of ways you can do a pumpkin push-up.

I’ll review the three most common:

Both hands on pumpkin: start with both hands on the pumpkin and get yourself in a push-up position. Lower yourself down towards the pumpkin and then return to the starting position. If this is too difficult, you can go to your knees instead of a plank position for your push-up’s.

One hand on the pumpkin, one hand on the ground: complete your push-up’s this way for a real challenge to your core, but also your shoulder stabilization. Try rolling the pumpkin back and forth between hands for an even greater challenge.

Feet on pumpkin: place both feet on the pumpkin and complete your push-up’s.

20 Minute Cardio Challenge

Imagine you are a Child again, with Boundless Energy, and approach this Challenge with Enthusiasm!

Burpees no one likes these, for good reason, they are tough but my god will you see a difference in your bum, legs and thighs if you keep this up: from standing, crouch down, place palms on floor, jump legs back into full push-up position (add a push up if you wish), then jump legs back to crouch pose and stand up (or jump up). Repeat again.

When Marching swing your arms and lift your knees up high this is your Active-Rest between intervals.

Before Starting: Grab a stopwatch (I like my Gymboss timer) or an egg timer that will alert you when the time has passed, a bottle of water and a towel (for all the sweat that will be dripping off you!)


* March in place for 3 minutes (360 steps)
* 60 Jumping Jacks
* March 1 minute (120 steps)
* 60 Jumping Jacks
* March 1 minute
* 30 Burpees
* March 1 minute
* 30 Burpees
* March 1 minute
* 30 Burpees
* March 1 minute
* 30 Burpees
* March 1 minute
* 60 Jumping Jacks
* March 1 minute
* 60 Jumping Jacks
* March in place 2 minutes to cool down

Remember the Marching phase is your active-recovery to allow your heart rate to even out and muscles relax, thus allowing you to put all your intensity into your next round of Jumping Jacks and Burpees.

This is a challenge for those of you who have been regularly working out for a few months. 
If you are beginner or have any joint issues please consult with your doctor prior to performing these exercises!

Exercise of the day: Kettlebell Swing!

A Kettlebell Swing is highly efficient, working the abs and strengthen the core muscles as they provide a stable platform for other muscles to pull from PLUS they work the posterior chain muscles such as the hamstrings, glutes, core and back.

A kettlebell swing is a perfect choice of exercise for tabata training. This very short but intense style of training is ideal for kettlebell swings as they hit a lot of muscle at one time and get the heart rate soaring. Although Tabata training only involves work periods of 20 seconds with 10seconds of rest it is very brutal but very effective.

Swings are a fantastic conditioner and body fat burner. More and more studies are concluding that greater body fat burning occurs when training is performed at higher intensity levels rather than long slow endurance type training.

 

FORM IS CRUTIAL!

Here is a good how-to video:

 Good Luck!

Summer Beach Workout

Summer is always a great season when it comes to training; the lighter mornings and longer days make it an ideal time to get in a few extra workouts - and with the added pressure of looking good on the beach - that can only be a good thing.

However these extra workouts don’t have to be laborious jogs around the park every morning. Instead, try and spice up your workouts with some of these outdoor workout ideas.

 

 

 

Bodyweight Circuits

Go and find yourself a quiet spot in your garden/local park and test yourself with some bodyweight exercise circuits. Choose 5-8 exercises such as:

• Push Ups
• Burpees
• Ab Crunches
• Squats
• Lunges
• Squat Jumps
• Planks
• Squat Thrusts
• Step ups

Do 3-5 circuits using 15 reps on each exercise, start off with 90secs rest in between circuits and no rest in between exercises.

Each week try to increase the number of exercises or decrease the amount of resting time between circuits.

Sprints

Rather than just going for the same old jog in the morning, try doing sprint intervals. The high intensity of the sprints will allow for a better workout in much less time.

Find yourself a track or just a stretch of flat grass and sprint for 3-6 sets of 60-100m, depending on your fitness levels. Not only will the sprints be an excellent fat burning workout but also they’re great for toning the gluteus and legs.

Take the Weights Outside

Buy yourself a small barbell weight set or a couple of kettle bells and take your weight training workouts outside. Or for people on a budget, just get yourself some sandbags/old beer kegs/logs and do your usual strength training session with them.

Hill Running

Nothing gets the lungs and legs burning like a hill running session. Quite simply, find yourself a moderately steep hill and start running up it. If it's quite a short hill then use the sprint interval set up mentioned earlier and do 3-6 sets of runs with 40secs rest in between. The steepness of the hill will not only get your heart racing but also get your legs and gluteus burning too, not too mention loosening up any tightness in your hips.

Get Yourself Down to the Beach

The beach can be an excellent place to get a decent work out. By incorporating both the water and the sand you can get a varied and challenging conditioning session.

Using the interval training set up, try swimming for 50m then jogging for 200m and alternate the intensity from a hard swim – light jog, light swim – sprint, for 10-20mins depending on your fitness level.

For the group training session, playing Frisbee/ball games in the water will always get the heart racing and muscles working, plus, it will cause the body to exaggerate normal movements, increasing your mobility in commonly tight areas such as the hips and ankles.

Fat Burning Tips- An Interview with Chad Waterbury

Fat Burning Tips- An Interview with Chad Waterbury

CW: The first mistake is performing long duration cardio at a low intensity. Nothing wastes muscle tissue faster than jogging for an hour. When muscles are forced to continuously contract for 45 minutes or an hour, that energy has to come from somewhere. The body is very stubborn and doesn’t want to use fat for energy because it’s much easier to break down muscle tissue instead. This is why marathon runners are skinny and weak.

Second, when people try to lose fat they drop too many calories, too fast. Your anabolic hormones are fed by certain, key nutrients. When people go on a low-calorie diet they end up giving their muscles fewer nutrients for support and recovery. This quickly puts the body in a very catabolic state.
The third biggest mistake guys tend to make is choosing the wrong exercises and workouts to lose fat. Most people end up lifting light weights for a ton of reps. This is the exact opposite of what they should be doing because they’re not recruiting the muscle fibers they’re trying to keep: the biggest, strongest ones.

Think about it. When people try to burn fat they instinctively do the three worst things possible to maintain muscle. I’ve seen guys lose 10 pounds of muscle in a matter of weeks when they combine low-intensity cardio, high rep weight training, and a low calorie diet. This is a travesty.


JF: What are your top three fat burning tips? Actually, let’s start with three for training and then we’ll go into three for nutrition. 

CW: The first step is to make your cardio training short and intense. Tabata’s research taught us that high intensity cardio is the way to go because you’ll boost your anaerobic and aerobic power at the same time, and you’ll stimulate your metabolism to burn calories long after you leave the gym. Low-intensity cardio only burns calories while you’re doing it. High intensity cardio stimulates your metabolism to keep burning calories long after you stop.

Next, for every other workout it’s important to lift weights that are heavy enough to recruit your biggest, strongest muscle fibers. A 6-10 rep maximum is enough to get the job done when you accelerate the lift. There are two reasons why this is important. First, you’ll keep the muscle you have because you’re recruiting all of your muscle fibers. As I’ve mentioned in my books and articles, when you recruit the largest muscle fibers you’re also recruiting all of the other muscle fibers because of the size principle. As the saying goes: if you don’t use it, you lose it. Second, when heavy weights are performed in a full-body circuit with short rest periods, it drastically increases the metabolic cost of a workout. That’s essential for burning fat. But you can’t do much heavy training while cutting fat, so that’s why the next step is so important.

Third, you must perform cardio and cardio strength exercises at top speed. There are no typical cardio exercises in my world. Instead of jogging on a treadmill I have my clients perform a circuit of, say, split jacks, jumping jacks, and burpees for multiple rounds as fast as possible. Then I have them do exercise pairings that don’t require a lot of weight, but still recruit all your muscle fibers when performed at top speed. I call this “cardio strength” training. A good example is the kettlebell swing and push-up pairing. Start with 13 swings, then immediately drop to the floor and do 13 push-ups. Jump back to your feet and do 12 swings followed by 12 push-ups. Then do 11 swings and 11 push-ups. Continue with this sequence until you reach one rep of each exercise.

To read more, click here

What is a Fitness Plateau? How can break through it?

Plateaus of Weight Loss- Adaptive Thermogenesis  

Research done by Mike Roussell PhD 

Plateaus can be frustrating and detrimental to your fat loss if not dealt with swiftly and properly. Another way to look at weight loss plateaus is that they are actually your body settling in at a new body weight set point.

The set point theory is basically the idea that your body likes to be at a certain body weight and it will work to keep you there. Chances are you have experienced this in your own life. I’m talking about situations where you will gain or lose weight but inevitably after a couple weeks or months of trying to change you end up around the same body weight.

In order to break these body weight set points, it is important to understand the forces that you are working against (know thy enemy, right?). I’m talking about adaptive thermogenesis.

Adaptive thermogenesis is the seemingly automatic reduction in energy expenditure that occurs when you diet. Many think that this is the driving force behind people’s body weight set point.
This is important so I want to make sure I’m explaining it clear enough so here’s an oversimplified example.

You are currently eating 2000 kcal per day. Your body is currently burning 2000 kcal per day. You decided that you need to lose weight so you cut 500 kcal from your diet. So in theory your body should now have to dig up another 500 kcal from body fat to fuel the calorie difference???

EXCEPT ->>
It doesn’t work that way. Studies show that your body adjusts its energy output so that it can now function on only 1500 kcal per day. This is adaptive thermogenesis. It has been demonstrated that adaptive thermogenesis occurs with both severe and modest calorie cutting.

What is the driving force behind this? Here are some candidates:

• Changes in body weight
• Changes in Leptin
• Changes in Insulin
• Changes in Thyroid Hormones
• Depletion of Fat Stores

 Fortunately you can beat all of these, prevent adaptive thermogenesis, and keep the weight loss coming.

The answer?

Metabolic Training combined with diet.

We know from research and anecdotal evidence that not all exercise prescriptions work. What does work is intense metabolic resistance training...think HIIT and Tabata!

If you are currently stuck at a weight loss plateau, you need to break your body’s set point. To do this it is necessary to undergo a rigorous change in diet and training so that you can in essence shock your system.

Here’s what to do next. Once you break though your sticking weight, maintenance is very important. Get 5-15lbs below your old body weight set point and maintain that weight. Many people lose their fire and drive after they have lost the weight but you need to stay focused so that you can reset your body’s set point.

Maintain your new weight for 4 weeks (this is ideal) before you start losing weight again. This step wise approach will help reset your system to your new body weight and help fight its urge to return to the old set point. The key is keeping your body weight long enough so that your body ‘thinks’ that is the new normal.

Stay Focused and Invest in the Long Term - you'll get there!

Todays Workout - Tabata

Push Ups
Squat Press
Jumping Jacks
In & Outs
Tricep Dip
Step Ups (alternate legs)
Bent over Row
Mountain Climbers

Perform each exercise for 8 rounds (sets) for 20 seconds (duration) of work and 10 seconds of rest. Repeat. Each exercise should take 4 minutes to complete all 8 rounds

In between each exercise do touchdown sprints.

Make sure you do a long warm up and stretch at the end.

ENJOY :-D

HIIT vs Interval Training

What’s the difference? Is there a difference?

That’s the basis of a conversation I had with a friend the other day…She said she had been doing 45 minute HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workouts…well, that was my first clue that she was a bit off in her definition of HIIT. You see she, like many I suspect, was thinking interval training and HIIT training were one in the same. They’re not. Yes, HIIT is interval training but not all interval training qualifies as HIIT. That is an important distinction, especially when it comes to attaining all the benefits of HIIT that you have no doubt read about (reduced training time, increased metabolism, faster fat loss, increased muscle mass, etc.)

Interval training is any type of workout where you vary the intensity for short periods of time. One of my favorite (running) interval workouts is 1 minute easy (a 3 on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being standing still and 10 being “running for your life”) followed by 2 minutes harder (a 7 on a scale of 1-10) and repeating that for 10 rounds for a 30 minute workout. Is that a hard workout? Absolutely. Is it a great workout? Definitely. But is it an HIIT workout? No.

True HIIT interval training is similar in the “rest” department…your rest is anywhere from a 1-3 on the 1-10 scale, but your interval is an all-out, run for your life 10 on that scale. That would the “high intensity” in the name. The reality is that the term really should stand for “highest intensity” interval training because that is what you need to realize the benefits of HIIT. And since HIIT is a “give it all you’ve got, cannot possibly go any harder” effort, there is no way you could sustain it for 45 minutes! Seriously, if you are giving it everything you have, you will flame out after 10-15 minutes… maybe 20 but that is arguable.

So often people get stuck in the “45-60 minute workout” mindset that came to us courtesy of the aerobically enhanced ’80s and ’90s, and to this day there are tons of people who, when they don’t have that 60 minute block of time, will just skip working out altogether because they “don’t have time for a good one.” Then there are those that sort of get the whole “HIIT takes less time” theory, but then they still try to go the 45 minutes or so…that’s great in that they may be doing a fantastic interval workout, but they’re not doing HIIT, so the benefits, while good, are not what they could be with a 10-15 minute true HIIT workout. But do keep in mind, that you can overdo it on the HIIT workouts…for most, 1-2 HIIT workouts a week is beneficial without risking injury.

One of the most well-known, and most popular HIIT workouts is the Tabata Protocol. Tabatas are 20 seconds all out followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated for 8 rounds (4 total minutes). Done correctly, you can barely stand after those 4 minutes! There are many other versions of HIIT, like the partner 30/30s: you go all out for 30 seconds while I rest, then I go all out for 30 while you rest, etc. Many minutes in a row of that and you’re toast, and that’s the point. It’s the “toasting” during the workout that requires all the extra energy for repair and replenishment after the workout (for 24-48 hours).

Easter Workout - Burn off those mini eggs!

If you DO have better things to do over the long weekend, try combining exercises into combination sets to get more work done in less time. It'll
skyrocket your results!

Choose exercises that allow you to work one movement pattern or
muscle group while allowing relative recovery of another. Then
alternate back and forth from one to the other.

Run threw the following paired up movements 3 times
Jump Squat with a Push up
Rear Lunge together with a Hip Bridge
Mountain Climbers with T-Plank
180 rotational squat jump with V-sit

This is an excellent opportunity to use the Tabata Protocal - all-out-intensity!

Round 1: 20 seconds work for each exercise, with 10 seconds rest in between
Round 2: 30 seconds work for each exercise, with 30 seconds rest in between
Round 3: 45 seconds work for each exercise, with 15 seconds rest in between

FYI: 12 mini eggs are 190 calories

Tabata Workout

Here is a quick workout guaranteed to burn more calories in 20 minutes than a 1 hour (moderate pace) on the treadmill.

Do these seven station, 30 seconds each (high intensity) 3-4 times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3yQTVMX

PUMPkin workout

Beginners will do:
2 rounds of eight exercises - 30 seconds work, 30 seconds rest in between moves

Intermediate will do:
3 rounds of 8 - 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest

Advanced:
4+ rounds of 8 - 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest

1. Plank (hold for 20 seconds)
2. Squat Swings
3. Squat to Shoulder Press
4. Reverse woodchopper (pumpkin starts down left foot cross up to right shoulder)
5. Reverse Woodchopper (pumpkin start down by right foot cross up to left shoulder)
6. Lunge (hold down in place) left foot forward right knee bent towards ground pumpkin out in front at chest height twist left
7. Lunge (hold down in place) right foot forward left knee bent towards ground pumpkin out in front at chest height twist right
8. Bent over Row

BONUS AB work:

V-sit with twist
Side plank (pumpkin resting on hip) BOTH sides
Reverse crunch (pumpkin b/w feet roll knees towards chest)
Sit up while pressing pumpkin above head

Have a great time!