Today I thought I would share a typical workout that I like to do. Now what I am posting today is not something I would do on a daily basis, but it’s certainly a workout that I do once in a while – especially when I’m feeling sluggish and like I need to really do something to work my entire body and get a good sweat in at the same time.
The thing that’s different about this workout is that a lot of the exercises are ones you are probably used to doing with weights. I’m recommending that no weights are used and that the exercises are done at higher reps. This helps to keep your heart rate up between cardio bursts and forces your muscles to focus on staying contracted during high repetitions to tone, tighten, and learn that muscle memory so these exercises become ones that will really allow you to grow stronger as you go back to using weights for them and increasing them as you go. But for the purposes of today, no weights will be used.
I really like to incorporate total body training with cardio, because when I’m done I feel like I worked every angle of my body. I know that people have really differing opinions on spot training and working certain muscle groups on certain days, and that’s just not really something that works too well for me. I am more of a fan of working whatever feels like it needs to be worked on any given day. I definitely prefer strength training over cardio, but I’m trying to force myself to get more cardio into my regular routine.
So here is an example of a treadmill/body weight training workout that I put together based on some of my past workouts:
It’s designed for the treadmill portion to be part of the workout or your cool-down in between sets – whatever you need it to be. And the cool thing is that it can change up every single time you do it. However, I would recommend that the first 10 minutes is your warm-up – I put the speed and incline there to show what I would do. Certain treadmill sets can be a sprint, some can be a jog, some can be a slow walk – whatever you need. And each exercise should be done with good form, but pretty quickly. I know the treadmill part alone of this workout is 55 minutes, but I would say that the whole thing shouldn’t take longer than 75 minutes.
When I used to be a personal trainer, I would do workouts like these with my clients a lot. You can use the format over and over, but change up the exercises every time. Or you can do something like 5 minutes on the treadmill, 5 minutes off doing two alternating exercises. So many ways to mix it up. This is a fun style of workout to do with a partner, too – one partner is on the treadmill until the partner off the treadmill finishes his or her exercise. Then you switch. Chris and I do workouts like this a lot at the gym together!
If you try this out, I would love to hear how you like it and if you change it up at all!
Have a great Wednesday. 🙂 <3
Comments