Variety is an important concept to apply to your fitness program. Aerobic and high intensity anaerobic style conditioning, muscular fitness, stretching, core exercises and balance training should all be part of a balanced workout routine. It can be hard to devise regimes that include all of the above, luckily we don’t have to do it ourselves.
The American military have put together a series of free podcasts that include plenty of high intensity, aerobic and high intensity anaerobic style conditioning, fitness, stretching, core exercises and balance training. I’ve been using them on and off over the past couple of years to help add variety to my workouts.
The work along workouts are led by certified fitness trainers from all branches of the American Military. Most of the workouts are no equipment needed workouts that you can do anywhere, if equipment is called for its either a stability ball, a pair of dumbbells, resistance bands or jump rope.
There are a total of 80 workouts in all, lots of full body workouts or if your looking to strengthen and tone specific body parts there’s a workout for that too. The term podcast can be misleading since neither podcasting nor replaying podcasts requires an iPod or any portable music player in fact no special reader is needed to view the workouts as they’ll open in most browsers or they can be downloaded for use on mp3 players and ipods.
These programs takes viewers through workouts led by service members with expertise in fitness training.
These Fit for Duty episodes focus on high-energy cardiovascular workouts.
These episodes feature the Pilates method used to build strength, flexibility and agility.
These resistance training episodes feature a variety of fitness-building techniques, such as Marine Corps Martial Arts and weight training.
Tagged as:
aerobic,
anaerobic style conditioning,
balance training,
core exercises,
dumbbells,
high intensity,
jump rope,
military fitness,
military workouts,
muscular fitness,
resistance bands,
stability ball,
stretching,
workout routine,
Workouts
There is a phenomenon called the “bilateral deficit” which allows you to recruit more muscle and lift more weight with one limb. The common example used to describe the bilateral deficit phenomenon is simple to understand. If an individual can lift 50 pounds during a maximal effort one-arm biceps curl, the same individual probably cannot lift 100 pounds during a maximal effort two-arm biceps curl. Intuitively, the total maximum performance elicited by two limbs working simultaneously should be equal to the sum of the maximum performances elicited by each limb working independently. However, this is usually not true, and the inferiority of simultaneous bilateral exercise performances is termed the bilateral deficit. I know, it goes against common sense, but it’s true. When performing single limb exercises, your body recruits more muscles to help stabilize the weight, resulting in higher force output. So, dumbbell or kettlebell training are perfect ways to take advantage of the bilateral deficit and build bigger, stronger muscles!
Unilateral training is more effective at burning fat than using two-limb versions of the same exercise. Unilateral training is when you first perform all the repetitions with one arm or leg, and then immediately perform the same amount of repetitions with the other arm or leg. Dumbbells or kettlebells are great for this type of traing and can be used in unison, unilaterally, or in an alternating fashion to exercise the entire body. Exercises using dumbbells or kettlebells closely mimic the movements you encounter in your daily life through sport, work or just life activities.
Tagged as:
Bilateral Deficit,
dumbbells,
kettlebells,
unilateral training
