With kids in the house and priorities everywhere I decided that this year the only way that I would be able to get weight workouts in would be to keep them short and increase the intensity. Here were my thoughts on the perfect workout for me.

I am not 20 anymore so I knew that I had to be realistic about my goals

I need a quick workout

I wanted to do my whole body in one day

I wanted to be able to recover from weight workouts but still be able to do cardio on a lot of the exercise days of the week

I ended up coming up with a quick 25 minute workout that would be as hard as I could and feel a little wiped for an hour or so but still have my evenings free to spend with my wife and kids. So here is what I came up with: Circuit training with weights in about 20 minutes.

Warmup, 5 minutes of cardio, eighter a bike with some light weights or the elliptical machine

1. Warmup set of really light bench press, shoulder press, and one armed bent over rows across my bench.

2. A long set of the following

10 reps Bench press
10 reps each of alternating front laterals (front of shoulders), side laterals (side of shoulders) and bent over rear laterals (back of shoulders)
10 reps one armed bent over row across bench for each arm
10 bicep curls
10 tricep extensions
10 squats
25 each of crunches and leg lifts

This is one long set that takes about 7 or 8 minutes and each exercise is done to exhaustion. I am really winded at the end and it took a bit to figure out how much weight each exercise should use so that I was done at 10 reps or so

3. repeat step two

4. stretch a bit, and I am done

This workout has worked really well for me, it is quick and hits every muscle group, actually each muscle group is really hit hard and I a, pretty shaky by the end of the workout. I do this workout three times a week on alternating days and it does not really cut into my schedule much. Of course this is only one kind of workout, you would want to change things up exercise and rep-wise and probably change to a longer workout at times during the year to really shock the muscles on a regular basis.

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When doing any kind of exercise and even at times when you are not doing any exercise you will notice your core of your body. Your core is the muscles right around your torso, that is the muscles of your abdominals right around your lower back and everything in between.The muscles of the core of your body give you the ability to stand upright, to bend over, to pick things up, to lean and also for you to turn around. Think of all the times during the day that you use these core muscles and you will realize that this is indeed a very important part of your muscle to keep strong.

Low back pain is very common. It affects 4 of 5 people at some time during their lives. It is the leading cause of disability for those aged 19 to 45 and is the second most common cause of missed work days (after the common cold) for adults younger than 45. Low back pain becomes more common as people age.

On the flip side of a strong core is a weak set of core muscles. If you have any back problems you may be dealing with weak core muscles (I am a little sensitive to this as my wife has a bad back and a stronger core has not helped) and strengthening these core muscles will give you less pain and a lot more agility. Read the rest of this entry »