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Ramp up Your Resistance Training
By Christina | August 17, 2009
If you are ready to take your resistance training to a new level of intensity, add travel to your exercises. Incorporating movement into exercises you ordinarily do in one place is an excellent way to elevate your heart rate and fatigue your muscles faster.
For example, push-ups are one of my all-time favorite exercises to work the core, back, chest, and shoulders. Simply by executing traveling push-ups, you will make the exercise more challenging. You can travel your push-ups over a step or a BOSU. If you are outside, something fun to do is do travel across the entire length of a curb or sidewalk with your push-ups without resting in between. I also like to do traveling push-ups in an empty part of a parking lot. On each line of the parking spaces, do 5 or 10 push-ups and stand up and go immediately to the next line and repeat. If you travel a decent distance, you will have completed almost 100 push-ups in no time.
Mountain climbers are another terrific exercise. This is when you are in a plank position and you bring you alternate bringing each knee into your chest quickly. For a killer heart rate and an added challenge to your core and quads, place gliders under your feet and travel the mountain climbers a few steps in front of you and then travel back to where you started. Do this series for 30-45 seconds and you will be sure to feel it. If you do not have gliders, you can place paper towels, paper plates, or towels under your feet for the same effect.
Lunges are another exercise that even when done stationary are highly effective in working your glutes, quads, and hamstrings. However, as good as stationary lunges are for shaping your derriere, walking lunges are even better. Place a body bar behind your head, resting gently on your shoulders or place a dumbbell in each hand and do walking lunges without stopping around the room for 3 minutes. You will guaranteed feel this in your legs and butt the next day.
A plyometric exercise that lends itself well to travel are deep squat forward jumps. With your feet facing forward, squat deeply and propel forward into a jump. Land with your knees bent and repeat the jump all the way across the room. Your quads will be screaming in no time.
Don’t be afraid to take the exercises you currently do to a new level of difficulty by adding movement to them. You will work your muscles harder and your heart rate will stay elevated throughout your whole workout.
Topics: Boot Camp, Personal Training |
