Here's a fun and effective workout with high intensity and some variants that could keep you interested for a long time without the usual 1 set of 12 on each machine, three circuits boredom, or overly complicated and too much work split body part workouts: TABATA's!
Invented by a Japanese doctor (you guessed it, Dr. Tabata) you do an exercise for 20 seconds and then rest 10 seconds. Here's where all the variety comes in. You can do a full body circuit, moving from upper body to lower body to abs to the back then the chest until you have enough, you can do sets (one easy way is 8 rounds-4 minutes, which starts feeling like eternity!), or you can just throw in one tabata after a workout. This is really effective when you have to get ready for a physical fitness test (say the Navy's) and you need to focus on a certain exercise. A number of us have used this to max the push-ups and curl-ups on the Navy PRT, and I'm confident it would work on just about any exercise. When doing multiple sets of the same exercise, the goal is to start with a number that is easy the first set but hold that number all the way to set 8! Yeah, have fun!
Tabata timers are available all over the net, or just use your watch.
And thanks to Sandra over at Sandradoeslife on wordpress for reminding me how great these are.
Awesome!!
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