Archive for cardio
300 Movie Workout For Men & Women
Posted by: | CommentsBy: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Turbulence Training for Fat Loss
The 300 movie workout is the talk of the fitness world. It’s helped actors chisel Greek Statue bodies while causing weight loss and calorie burning for the rest of us.
The 300 workout is legendary, having been featured in Men’s Health and on ESPN. Everyone’s looking for the 300 workout on the ‘Net. So I made mini-version of the workout for the average guy and gal, see those below.
But first, here’s how the original 300 Workout goes…but don’t try this at home…
a) Pullups – 25 reps
b) Deadlifts with 135lbs – 50 reps
c) Pushups – 50 reps
d) 24-inch Box jumps – 50 reps
e) Floor wipers – 50 reps
f) 1-arm Clean & Press with 36lbs Kettlebell – 50 reps
g) Pullups – 25 reps
And remember, there is NO scheduled rest between exercises.
Although eventually, you’ll slow down.
I tried this workout last week and managed to get ‘er done in only 19 minutes and 7 seconds. But what about a 300 workout for you?
Fortunately, this workout can easily be changed. Appropriate
exercises can be subbed in, and we can drop the number of reps down to 100, 150, or 200 – still making for a total body challenge.
For example, you might do this 200-repetition workout – this is
great for a man with moderate fitness:
5 Chinups
20 prisoner squats
20 pushups
100 Jumping Jacks
30 Bicycle Crunches
10 decline pushups
15 bodyweight inverted rows
Optionally, you could do 100 reps of rope jumping to finish off 300 total reps.
An intermediate woman could do a 150 rep workout:
The Best Cardio Intervals for Fat Loss: Part 2
Posted by: | CommentsBy: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
www.turbulencetraining.com
If you don’t have variety in your program, you are more than likely to end up at a fat loss plateau soon rather than later. Variety is one of the keys to keeping that fat loss coming.
So not only should you have variety within your training week (i.e. alternate between two different interval training workouts, rather than just doing the same interval workout each time), but you should also change these workouts every 4 weeks.
So you need to change your training program every 4 weeks. To modify your interval training workouts, you can…
- switch exercise methods (and even use bodyweight exercises for intervals)
- increase or decrease the length of the interval (while decreasing or increasing the intensity, respectively)
- increase or decrease the number of intervals per workout
- increase or decrease the rest time between intervals
First, let’s take a look at the interval methods. Here is my list of preferred ways to do your intervals, ranked in order from best to worst, based on my experiences…
- Sprinting outdoors (and hills might be the absolute best)
- Strongman movements (Farmer’s walks, tire flips, car pushing)
- Bodyweight interval circuits
- Treadmill running
- Stationary cycle (upright preferred)
- Stairclimber
- Rower
- Swimming (only works for competent swimmers)
- Elliptical & Crosstrainer machines
Okay, so how long should you do intervals and how the heck do you do bodyweight exercises as interval training?
First, I stand by what I said in Part 1. There does not seem to be a “best” interval training program. But that is good because it allows us to use variety in our approach. (So perhaps the best interval training method is simply the one that changes every 4 weeks.)
Interval recommendations have ranged from 15 seconds (from Muscle Media waaaay back in the late 90’s), to 5 minutes (these are known as aerobic intervals). So let’s take a look at each interval recommendation and all those in between.
15 seconds
The great thing about 15 second intervals is that you’ll be able to work at a very high rate (almost near your maximum power output), as long as you get adequate recovery between work intervals. The downside is that it is very difficult to do 15 second intervals on machines, because it takes a long time to “build up” and “bring down” the machine settings to the correct speed.
If you decide to use these short, high-intensity intervals, you should do so only if you already have an above average level of fitness. Your rest interval should be at least 15 seconds long, and can be as long as 60 seconds. The longer you rest, the harder you will be able to exercise in each interval.