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
For this evenings workout I ran to the football pitch and did bodyweight Tabata Intervals. Tabata Intervals are made up of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest. This cycle is repeated 8 times (for a total of 4-minutes).
* Jump Rope
* Push-ups
* Squats
* Crunchies
I did this workout 4 times, each lasting 4 minutes, the total workout lasting 16 minutes.
On paper, Tabata intervals offer a quick way to get fit in just four minutes of high intensity work. But don’t be misled, Tabata intervals are hard.
This protocol was originally developed for Olympic caliber athletes. Tabata Intervals originated from a study by Dr Izumi Tabata into the effects of moderate-intensity endurance and high-intensity intermittent training on anaerobic capacity and VO2max. This groundbreaking 1996 study, published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise, provided documented evidence concerning the dramatic physiological benefits of high-intensity intermittent training. After just 6 weeks of testing, Dr. Tabata noted a 28% increase in anaerobic capacity in his subjects, along with a 14% increase in their ability to consume oxygen (V02Max). These results were witnessed in already physically fit athletes. The conclusion was that just four minutes of Tabata interval training could do more to boost aerobic and anaerobic capacity than an hour of endurance exercise.
Dr. Tabata reported that the subjects were wiped out by the routine when testing the protocol and remember they were Olympic caliber athletes, the protocol was described as 6-7 sets, most of the subjects were exhausted after the sixth set of sprints and couldn’t complete the seventh. This style of training isn’t for a beginner and should only be considered if you have a solid fitness base.
Tagged as:
crunchies,
intervals,
jump rope,
push-ups,
squats,
tabata
