We were not built to do cardio on elliptical machines. Doing the same repetitive cardio motion over and over again leads to too much wear and tear. Its better to use bodyweight exercises to build our body while burning fat and strengthening the body.
Recently, one of my private 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 1-leg squats as you can. I hit a new record of 8 on each side, even on my bad leg.
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). This included mountain climbers, stability ball jackknifes, side planks, and standing cross crawls.
Its amazing the fitness, strength, and fat loss that you can get from bodyweight exercises.
Bodyweight burns the fat, and gets you conditioned for summer sports far better than traditional bodybuilding cardio workouts
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Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Mens Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit http://www.TurbulenceTraining.com
