anywhere

The Best Thanksgiving 2013 Workout… (That I could come up with…)

Quick Tips

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I designed this workout to be a gut check burn out training session in honor of Thanksgiving 2013.

I’ll be honest, this workout is a beast.  

Normally, I abide by the “any fool can make another fool tired” motto, but hey, there is nothing wrong with crushing yourself every now and then.  Physically and mentally it feels good to attack a workout like you’re ascending to the peak Everest, just don’t make it an all of the time habit.  

Sustainable training habits, remember? 🙂

The workout is minimalist by design, using primarily bodyweight exercise to induce a massive training effect.  Notice that I offered an alternative to kettlebell swings if you don’t have any kettlebells.  The best part about this workout is that you should be able to execute it in a telephone booth.  In others, no matter where you’re at for this Thanksgiving 2013, this workout is a fully portable, anytime, anywhere workout.  You don’t need much space to kill it with this one.

The workout leverages a brutal ascending rep scheme.  What does that mean exactly?  It means that you’ll start the workout by executing each exercise in order (1-5 from top to bottom) completing 1 rep of each, then 2 reps, then 3 reps, then 4 reps, 5, 6, 7, 8 , 9, 10.  When you finish the last set of 10 burpees, you’re done.  Grab a drink, towel off and mop up the pool of sweat on the floor because its time for your recovery nutrition before you (and me too) gorge yourself on all of the Thanksgiving fixings.

As the volume increases by 1 rep for each round, take rest as it is needed.  Ideally, you would work through without rest as much as possible, but since exercise technique is vital, you may need to stop and breathe.  In this case, take a few seconds to gather yourself and push up.  Stay on your feet during this rest, don’t sit down.  Breathe deep and center yourself.  It’s just physical work, you can manage it, right?

If you cannot perform pistol squats or chin ups, remember the exercise regression for each.  Regress to traditional bodyweight squats or rear foot elevated split squats (aka: “Bulgarian Split Squat”).  For chin ups, loop a band around your knees for assistance or use small jumps to help initiate the pull vertically.  If you need more of a challenge, strap on a weight or add weight.  I can’t imagine would need it considering how high the volume is.  

By high volume, I am talking about 145 reps… for each exercise.  145 reps x 5 exercises = 725 reps.  That’s a lot.  That’s the kind of volume that can cause ridiculous muscular soreness in the coming days, and probably reduce you to scheduling rest days to heal your body.  You’ll bounce back.  🙂

Grab a stopwatch and time how long it takes to complete the workout.  If you’re up to it, bookmark this blog and leave your time in the comments section.

I’m sure there are a lot of workouts circulating the internet today, but give this one a shot.  If you can’t make it happen today, give it a shot tomorrow.  Lord knows we will all have plenty of calories banked from all of the feasting that awaits us.

If you’re a loyal reader of this blog, I’d like to offer a sincere thank you.  I appreciate you taking time out of your day to improve yourself physically, leveraging my workouts and other tips to give yourself a physical advantage.  It’s a great journey working to improve yourself physically.  

I’ll be releasing ebooks in 2013-2014 and also transitioning to a custom blog/website design.  Time to turn pro 🙂

 

 

Cheers to Thanksgiving and offsetting the damage with a kick ass workout!

KG

 

I’ll Train Anywhere, Man

Bodyweight Workouts, Quick Tips

There was a song a number of years ago by Johnny Cash, “I’ve Been Everywhere”.

As I sit outside on a gorgeous Fall day here in Wisconsin, I got to thinking about how fitness has evolved over the years. It wasn’t all that long ago that a workout only took place inside of a commercial gym.  Sure, there were some outlying people here and there, maybe some underground gyms that were doing some really great stuff, but for the most part, a membership style big box gym was the only place to get your hands on some equipment and train.  At least that is what most people thought.

Gone are those days.

I haven’t trained in a big box gym for 5 years running.  

At first, it was hard.  Looking back, I have to assume that it was a far more mild withdrawal than what a smoker experiences when they go cold turkey, but it really was difficult.  I felt lost trying to figure out how I was going to create a sustainable training plan without all of the equipment that I had become so accustomed to using.

I think that a lot of people go through these feelings when they think about organizing a training plan that doesn’t involve a gym.  I can assure you that the thought that you need thousands of dollar worth of equipment to get a quality workout is a myth.

Does equipment help?  Yes, absolutely.

At some point, it is nice to have access to a traditional barbell, some dumbbells and a nice cable machine.  But you can survive and progress for a really long time without it.

I had 4 kettlebells, a first generation suspension trainer, some resistance bands, a foam roller, a Tiger Tail, chin up bar, and a jump rope.  That was my gym.

After thinking things through, I realized that I really wanted to try and create a training regimen that I could use to preserve the muscle, strength/power, soft tissue health and solid quality of movement that I had built over the years.

My training really went to another level once I took my training wheels off and left the gym. I came to the conclusion that if a person clings hard to the fundamentals and principles that really great programs are built on, you can get an unreal training effect no matter what equipment you have available, or your environment.

I’ve trained everywhere.

Outside in backyards, parks, school tracks, football fields, etc.  Inside in a room that’s slightly larger than a small bathroom, a guest bedroom, a hotel, etc.  If you have a few feet of room in all directions from where you currently stand, you can make it happen.  Trust me, I have done it.

Not on purpose or as a topic to brag about in conversation, but out of necessity.  I have made the commitment to a physical lifestyle.  It makes me happy and keeps me challenged to see what I can do next.  When I travel or when we are away from the house, I feel comfortable knowing that I can engage in some quality physical activity no matter what the environment is.

Winter in Wisconsin is a bitch.

But even then, you have options to get a training session in.

So when I start ranting on and on about people’s lame excuses for not getting a sweat in on any given day and how weak that this, now you can understand where that is coming from.  You can train anywhere with anything, you just have to WANT to.

I aim to always be a resource for all of you.  Sometimes you what I write about will really hit home for you and your situation, sometimes you may be offended by my tone or sometimes you may think my article is so boring that you hardly make it through the initial few paragraphs.

Either way, I aim to create change and get you to think…

KG