Getting Cut

Workouts that will floor you!

I have always been into weight lifting but not so much the other stuff like pushups and chin ups and pull ups and other forms of body weight lifts. Recently, I have been getting into these because they will rip you up and they help to keep the body with a good look, sometimes lifting only weights will give you a box type of look, which is not something I wanted. I started to include the following stuff into my workout. I am not giving you the following in any type of order, these are just things I do throughout various lifts. 

1.) Pushups- 1 minute timed set. (2 or 3 sets) 

Do as many as you can in a minute. Do not pace yourself. Go all out. By the end of the minute you should be exhausted. If you have to rest for a second, thats fine, but do not put your knees to the floor or get back on your feet, just hold yourself up and then continue with the set.  If a minute is too easy, go for more time. If it is too much, go for a little less, but challenge yourself. 

2.) Mountain Climbers- 30 second timed set

Get in a pushup position and bring your knees to your chest one at a time, do it as fast as you can. This is very difficult. You will feel it everywhere, but it really works the abs and shoulders. You will also see a nice pump in your chest after doing these. I love these, they work everything and will give you a good sweat guarantee. 

3.) PLANKS! (30 second, 45 second, 1 minute or more, whatever you can handle timed set) 

I love planks! They are amazing. If you dont know what a plank is, you might want to look it up because my descriptions on how to do things are not that good, but I will try. Get on the ground, face down. Put your arms close together and lift your body up keeping your forearms on the ground, your body and legs should be off the ground in a straight line, your feet are on the ground of course. Anyway, these are very difficult and you will feel them. They work the abs, they will really tighten the core and melt the fat. Do side planks to work obliques. Planks also work the upper body because you are holding yourself up. Planks are awesome and you will see results if you do them consistently and you will really push yourself with them. 

More General Workout Principles

5.) Do supersets. When working out, complete a biceps exercise and then immediately do a shoulder exercise. Or it can be any combination of exercises. This keeps the body guessing and really gives you more of a workout. Sometimes I even like to do biceps back to back. I will do biceps curls for 8 reps and then right after do reverse curls for 8 reps. Basically, what I am trying to say is to keep the body guessing. Your body gets used to workouts quickly and when the body gets used to a workout, it starts to not produce results as fast. Always do workouts that shock the body. 

6.) Do a lot of body weight workouts. I am not saying to neglect weights. Lifting weights is crucial to gain size. You will not get huge just off pushups and pull ups and chin ups. However, they are a good way to keep the body guessing. Just because you can rep 225 on the bench does not mean you can do a whole bunch of pushups. It is always good to develop the muscle in many areas. Try and doing pushups for a minute straight, watch how tiring it is. You will be surprised how difficult it is to go for a minute straight. Doing pushups will also help your bench go up. 

These tips may have been things you already know. All they are meant to do is let you know different ways to keep the body guessing so you see results you want to see. 

General Workout Principles

These are very general guidelines that could alter your workout. Hopefully for the better.

1.) I am a big fan of this, particularly for abs and body weight related exercises. Using time instead of reps. If you do have a set number of reps in your head, and you reach that point you will most likely stop. But what if you had more in you? This is why I like to use time because you don’t keep track of how many, you just go all out in the time allotted. Recently, I have been doing abs to time instead of a certain number of reps and the workouts have been harder and the results have been better. 

2.) Just letting the time click away can be boring, this is why I recommend to do your workouts to music. Lets say you are going to do abs for two minutes straight. (Harder than it sounds) Pick a song you like, a song that gets you pumped up and do abs for two minutes while listening to that song. After two minutes are up, take a rest. (When doing abs for two minutes for example, no matter how tired you get, do not let your feet rest on the floor, unless you are doing situps, if you want to relax take a second but dont let your feet touch the floor.) 

3.) To add on number 2: here are some good abs to do. 

Crunches, Reverse Crunches, Russian twists, V-situps, toe touches (similar to v-situps), situps, bicycles, PLANKS! These abs are great and if done one after another for a period of time will give you a great burn in your abs and will strengthen them. 

4.) When doing any type of workout, do not take long periods of rest. Being in the gym for 2-3 hours might sound cool but it is not more effective. Be in the gym for a shorter amount of time, but go hard during that time. Your rest should not be longer than the actual set itself. If you do a two minute timed set of abs, take no more than a minute break. If you are doing bicep curls x 8 reps, take no more than a 30 second break. Keep the muscle working, don’t let it rest for too long. 

More coming soon…