Fast and Furious Fitness

Ok, the last post made reference to the facts that a) I was suffering from a slight injury and b) I haven’t been training legs full bore this week. Add on point c) which is that I’ve been suffering from a combination of the flu, mild fever (gone now) and a nasty cold/sore throat, and you can say the week’s been less than ideal for me in many regards. . .some not mentioned here as well.

Be that as it may, I woke up this morning without feeling much of the “slight twinge” that I referred to in my last post. Did some hamstring stretches, touched my toes about 15 times in perfect form, stayed in the “downward dog” position a while, all good thus far. Then attempted a squat or two, and then five - and when I didn’t feel too much in the area mentioned in my last post (except some slight residual twinges), I knew it was time to get back to my leg work. And truth be told, I was damn happy about it - training without training legs just don’t “cut the mustard” for me if you get my drift.

Anyhow, so now came the question - do I go full bore, start off with the toughies, etc etc? I decided not - too much too soon, and I’d be back saddled with the same injury issue as before. I figured I’d do about 10 minutes of leg work, 10 minutes of pushups, and throw in some stretches, the back/front bridge, and pull ups for good measure.

So, a total of 40 minutes today - and I feel GREAT now! The cold/sore throat is still there, but the deep breathing which naturally accompanies leg work has cleared my sinuses up a lot it seems - and my entire body feels hammered in a good way. It’s that feeling you just can’t get without training legs - the way leg training hits the entire body is unlike any other. You can do pushups all day long, or weighted pull ups, but nothing really cuts it like training legs HARD and intense.

I did ONE set each of Hindu squats, sumo squats, jumpers, and some miscallaneous leg work, and boy was it worth it. Normally do about two sets of each, but like I said, one needs to ease back into the groove rather than push back into it.

So - moral of the post? If your coming off an injury, illness, whatever - start off with training that involves some deep breathing, and overall body work - and “ease back” into your tougher exercises/higher reps. Before you know it, you’ll be back in the swing of things in no time!

And of course - don’t skip the leg work - make it the #1 priority in your routine, if it isn’t already.

All for now - be back again soon.

Get fit - FAST!

Rahul

Today, I’ll cover those three topics.

First, the stretching part - this is a question brought up by most trainees. Should one stretch before a workout, or after a workout? There are two schools of thought here - many say it’s best to stretch AFTER a workout to avoid injury, and there are some that way it’s best to stretch BEFORE a workout, curiously enough, again, to avoid injury.

My own answer differs slightly - I would say stretch both before, and after a workout. As far as I can see, stretching the muscles has two major benefits: warming the muscle up for major work to come, and stretching the “tension” out of the muscle. So, what I do is stretch “lightly” before a workout, pretty much so I can get warmed up for my routine, and also to “get the blood flowing”. I do gentle stretches, such as the “downward dog” position in yoga (there are ways to make this hard, but I “work” into the position). Or, I might hang for a bit from the pull up bar to stretch my back out. Depends, really.

Then, there are the tougher stretches such as the bridge position, or the sumo squats. These are done either during, or after my workout (once I’m warmed up). Goal there is to stretch and strengthen, rather than just “warm up”.

So, I’d say do both. Or, do just one initially, and work the other one in. As with most training related questions, no “one size fits all” answer to this one!

Now, the “two set max” routine (I call it that but you can call it anything you wish) - this one is a “quick and dirty” workout for the legs (though, you can do this for virtually any exercise), and to a lesser degree, entire body (remember, when you work legs intensely, and breathe correct, your working the ENTIRE body).

- 50 Hindu squats
- 5-10 Sumo ssquats on each leg
- 25 Jumper squats
- 10 jumping lunges (each leg)
- Repeat

So, not a very “complicated” routine, but a great one to get done quickly (shoot for about 8-10 minutes at most), and a great one to get done for those “in-between” days as well, where you need a workout, but maybe don’t want to shatter any records.

And last, but definitely not least, I’ve set the blog up so that you can register, and log into your own account. If you haven’t registered for the blog yet - do so pronto, and you’ll have access to many of the new features I’m planning on adding. A newsletter is at the top of the list, but there are others as well. So again, if you haven’t registered - do so NOW!

All for now!

Rahul

Dear Reader,

Today I’m going to cover a very important topic, and that is when (and why) one should change one’s workout up.

Changing your routine every once in a while is very important to do, no matter what level of fitness you are currently at. There are some important reasons behind this, but, before I get into those, let me give you an example from my own training.

Most of you would have noticed by now that I’m a strong believer in high repetition squats when it comes to my leg workouts. A 100 Hindu squats, 25-50 Hindu jumper squats, perhaps holding the “chair” position against the wall for X amount of time, etc etc - it goes on. Those are great, but as of late, I’ve begun to notice that the high rep movements are getting “tougher” to complete in a way. Now, the strange thing is my lungs/legs don’t “give up” before the movement. However, I am noticing myself doing them in improper form when I get above a 50 or so - and, I’m starting to get a bit bored while doing these in higher reps.

Initially, I figured this was just a bad phase, so I stuck through it (there’s another lesson: keep at it, even through your bad phases); but, things didn’t improve. So what I did was change my routine up such that I did more exercises, but lower repetitions of the same exercise. In my case, one variation I used was breaking up the 100 squats into 150 (I know, not exactly breaking them up), but doing it thus: 50 Hindus, 25 jumpers, 20 Hindus, 20 jumpers, 20 Hindus, and 25 jumpers. Took me about 5 minutes in total, and then I went on with the rest of my stuff. And, my legs were hammered at the end of it, as were my buttocks!

Now, on to the reasons: -

- Your body gets “tired” of doing the same thing over and over again, be it a set number of pushups daily, or a set number of squats daily, or, for those of you who do other things, swimming X number of laps daily, etc etc. Now, I am NOT saying don’t exercise daily - far from it! But, sometimes, just sometimes, you need to “break out of the rut” by doing something different. In my case, it was doing more reps, but on different exercises. In your case, it could be replacing an intense bodyweight only leg workout with hill sprints, or perhaps swimming. Anything - just change things up, and your body will thank you for it!

- Changing things up forces your body to “adapt”. For instance, I used to concentrate on the thighs and back mostly while doing my neck bridge, but, as of late, I have started to focus more on the buttocks and back. The result? Solid growth in the glutes, and my thighs are better of for it as well, and the workout is far more intense than before.

- Last, but not least, it gives your mind a new challenge to focus upon. Makes things less “boring” (that term is relative, of course), and thats always a good thing.

So, keep these tips in mind the next time you are “stuck in a rut”. Try implementing them into your routine -and let me know how it works!

All for now - work out hard, and remember to change it up every once in a while!

Rahul

PS: Want to simaltaneously blast your back, legs, and core with ONE exercise? Well, you don’t have to look far - the humble pushup will do it! Or more specifically, the “extended arms” pushup will. I’ll cover benefits for these soon in another post - stay tuned!

Hi,

I’ve often said that the legs are the most important body part to train. If one trains the legs in an intense manner with the proper breathing, one trains the entire body from the “inside out”. Done correctly, all leg work requires a lot of breathing, and this deep breathing stimulates the lungs, and respiratory system in a way that cannot be done by training the upper body alone.

The legs/hips also constitute the largest muscle group in the body, so training these correctly produces a release of growth hormones all throughout your body. The legs get stronger, but so does the back, chest, arms, even the forearms to a degree. Therefore, if you want a massive upper body - train those LEGS!

There are many ways to train the legs exclusively with bodyweight movements, but I have found the Hindu Squat and it’s variations to be one of the most effective. This is a training method used by the old time Indian wrestlers, who used to do these in high repetitions daily. Done correctly, this one exercise can give you an intense workout in less than 5 minutes.

I have often found that intense leg training is a way to break through “plateaus” in training; i.e. if I’m stuck at a max number of say 100 pushups/workout, or say 10 pull ups, then trainign my legs intensely gives me the “juice” required to jolt out of that rut.

I worked my legs today with a combination of squats, and other exercises which are mentioned here.  My total leg training time lasted for about 10 minutes, and I felt great at the end of it. You can go longer than that, but 10 minutes is all you really need to get your legs in great condition. 

To learn more about Hindu squats and their execution, go to this page.

As we go along, I’ll mention details of my workout. For today though, my leg workout consisted of three exercises: Hindu squats, jumper squats, and jumping lunges. These three alone got the trick done -I was breathing like I had attempted to climb Everest within about 10 minutes. It’s cold where I’m at currently, but I worked up pretty a good sweat - again, all in 10 minutes. That leg workout then gave me the “boost” I needed to get through my entire (and full body) workout, which we’ll get into later.
 
In the meantime,  if your looking for a full body workout  - then click here for a program that will allow you to get great results from a 5 minute workout. 

Get fit - fast!

Rahul