Uses: Glute Strengthening

1. Swiss Ball Pike

Start facedown on the swiss ball and roll yourself out until just your feet are on the ball. Keeping the legs as straight as possible, pull the feet toward hands and return back to the starting position.

2. Prone Jack Knife

Start facedown on the swiss ball and roll yourself out until just your feet are on the ball. Pull the knees toward the chest and return back to the starting position.

3. Push-Ups from Swiss Ball

Start facedown on the swiss ball and roll yourself out until just your feet are on the ball. From this position, lower yourself toward the floor and push yourself back up to the starting position. To make the exercise easier, walk yourself back until your knees are resting on the ball.

4. Swiss Ball Push-Up

Start with your hands on the outsides of ball with the arms extended. Lower yourself down to the ball and press yourself back up to the starting position.

5. Plank Push-Up from Swiss Ball

Start facedown on the swiss ball and roll yourself out until just your feet are on the ball. Drop down to your elbows one arm at a time and press back up to your hands. Alternate on each repetition.

6. Supine Hip Extension w/Leg Curl

Lay down face up with your legs extended and feet on the ball. Lift the hips up off the floor and, keep the hips high, pull the ball in underneath the body. While keeping the hips elevated, push the ball back out until the legs are fulling extended then lower your hips back to the floor.

7. Forward Ball Roll

Start on your knees with a swiss ball in front of you. Place your wrists on the ball. Slowly push the ball forward while extending your arms and allowing the hips to drop toward the floor. Pull the ball back in to the starting position.

Uses: Core strengthening

1. Focus on compound movements

Whether you’re looking to lose weight, get stronger, or simply improve your health you need to make compound movements the foundation of your resistance training routine. Compound movements are those involving multiple joints (ie. squats, push-ups, pull-ups). They are great for building strength and balance and will burn a lot more energy than single joint movements.

2. Increase the intensity

Intensity refers to the relative percentage of your max, whether it be your maximum heart rate or maximum amount of weight you are able to lift for a given movement. If you want to see better results you need to increase the overall intensity of your routine. Far too often people are using weights that are just too light or performing cardio workouts that just aren’t intense enough to stimulate any kind of training effect.

3. Progress your workouts

To continue seeing results you must continue to progress your workouts. Progression refers to performing more repetitions with a given weight, adding more weight to a given movement, adding more mileage to your runs or increasing the intensity of your runs. While there are several other ways to progress your workouts, the basic idea is this: do more.

5. Superset your exercises

This one is especially important if you’re strapped for time. A superset is when you perform two or more exercises back-to-back without taking any rest in between. Supersetting your exercises allows you to get more done in the same amount of time, thereby increasing the density of your workout.

6. Use full range of motion

When performing dynamic movements you only strengthen the range of motion which you work. Therefore, always use a full range of motion when performing your exercises.

7. Exercise order matters

Exercise order should typically run from exercises of high technical difficult to low technical difficulty, compound movements to single joint movements. Here are some examples: Squats before leg curls, push-ups before dumbbell flys, pull-ups before dumbbell curls.

8. Vary your exercises

Add new exercises to your routine. Way too often people stay on the same routine for far too long. Adding new exercises will force your body to adapt to a new stimulus. Plus, it’s good to use a variety of exercises to strengthen different movement patterns and prevent any overuse injuries that may occur due to repetitive use.

9. Vary your repetitions

Varying the repetitions you perform is important for overall muscular development. Your muscles are comprised to different types of muscle fibers which respond differently to the number of repetitions performed. Here’s the basic breakdown of how your body responds to different rep ranges:

- Rep Range: 1-5 – Muscular strength
- Rep Range: 8-12 – Mix of strength and hypertrophy (muscle size) development
- Rep Range: 15+ – Muscular endurance

10. Align your program with your goals

I touched on this in To look like a sprinter, training like a sprinter. If you’re seeking a specific result you need to make sure your program is conducive to that result. If you’re trying to lose weight, your program should focus on high intensity exercise that produces a lot of calorie burn. If you’re looking to get stronger, you should be using compound exercises and performing repetitions in the 1-5 range. If your program isn’t aligned with what you’re trying to accomplish you can’t expect to achieve the results you’re looking for.

One of my favorite examples to use is comparing the body of a marathoner to the body of a sprinter. Both athletes are slim, but only one tends to have the lean, muscular look that is typically desired. Both athletes spend a great amount of time training. Both athletes fuel their bodies appropriately in order to perform. So where is the disconnect? How can a sprinter and marathoner look so different?

For those in the exercise field, this is a no brainer. However, it’s not quite as apparent for people who aren’t. The difference comes down to training philosophy. The bodies of these athletes are so much different because the demands of their sports are so much different. Therefore, they use different training methods.

The Marathoner

The goal of the marathoner’s training program is to allow him/her to perform work over a long period of time. The focus of their training is on increasing cardiovascular endurance and is typically achieved by racking up the miles on a weekly basis. After all, the best way to become a better runner is to run. The marathoner may include strength training in their routine 1-2 days per week.

The Sprinter

The goal of the sprinter, on the other hand, is to perform a great amount of work in the shortest amount of time. The focus of their training program is on increasing speed and power output. Their workouts typically consist of multiple, short duration sprint intervals and will typically include strength training (including olympic lifts) in their routine 3-4 days per week.

The end result of these two different training philosophies is two very different looking bodies. The body of a marathoner is slim and “soft” while the physique of a sprinter is lean and “hard”. This should give you a bit of insight into achieving the type of body you want.

Marathoner = low intensity/long duration

Sprinter = high intensity/short duration

If you’re thinking “well, certainly genetics has something to do with it”, you would be correct. However, the training effect will still be the same.

Basic Routine

This represents the routine your are currently performing. There’s nothing fancy about it. It’s mainly a strength training routine with a couple of conditioning exercises included. For the sake of simplicity, I’m limiting the number of exercises to six.

1. Squat – 3 sets of 10 reps
2. Push-Up – 3 sets of 10 reps
3. Pull-Up – 3 sets of 10 reps
4. V-Ups – 3 sets of 15 reps
5. Squat Thrust – 3 sets of 10 reps
6. Mountain Climbers – 3 sets of 20 reps

A typical day with this routine would be as follows: Warm-up, perform three sets of the first exercise and move to exercise two. Perform three sets of exercise two and move to exercise three and so on.

Option A – Supersets

The most basic change we can make here is to superset your exercises. With a superset, you perform a set of one exercise and immediately go to the next exercise and perform one set prior to taking your rest break. Repeat for the prescribed number of sets then move to the next pair of exercises. Here’s how the program would look using supersets. (A1, A2 represent exercises performed back-to-back). As you progress, you can add more exercises to the superset to make a full blown circuit.

A1) Squat
A2) Push-Ups
Rest

B1) Pull-Ups
B2) V-Ups
Rest

C1) Squat Thrust
C2) Mountain Climbers
Rest

Option B – Perform multiple rounds for time

With this method you perform groups of exercises for a prescribed number of sets (rounds) and repetitions. For example, let’s break our original routine up into two circuits and perform each for time. With this method, you continue rotating through the exercises without rest until all rounds are complete.

Circuit A

Perform 10 reps of each exercise for three rounds. Time how long it takes you to complete all three rounds.

A1) Squat
A2) Push-Ups
A3) Pull-Ups

Circuit B

Perform 10 reps of each exercise for three rounds. Time how long it takes you to complete all three rounds.

B1) V-Ups
B2) Push-Ups
B3) Pull-Ups

The goal here is to complete each circuit as quickly as possible. With each subsequent workout, you aim to beat your previous time.

Option C – Repetition Ladders

With ladders, you pair two or more exercises and begin by performing one repetition for each exercise. Without resting, you cycle back through the exercises. On each subsequent cycle you add a repetition to the previous number of reps. In other words, the first cycle through you perform one repetition for each, the next cycle you perform two repetitions each exercise, and so on. Work up to a set number of repetitions (5-10) and if you’re game, work back down to one repetition. The workout would look like this:

Repetition Ladder A

A1) Squats
A2) Push-Ups
A3) Pull-Ups

Cycles of 1 rep, 2 reps, 3 reps, 4 reps, 5 reps each exercise. Total of 5 cycles.

Repetition Ladder B

B1) V-Ups
B2) Squat Thrust
B3) Mountain Climbers

Cycles of 1 rep, 2 reps, 3 reps, 4 reps, 5 reps, 4 reps, 3 reps, 2 reps, 1 rep each exercise. Total of 9 cycles.

Wrapping it up

No one likes to be bored with their exercise routine. However, it doesn’t take much to turn a boring routine into a workout you look forward to completing, even without changing any of the exercises. Incorporate these ideas into your program and start enjoying your workouts, and results, again!

First, what is a repetition?  A repetition is the act of performing a given exercise.  Take push-ups for example.  When you lower yourself to the ground and push yourself back up, that is a repetition.  Repetitions influence the adaptations you get from an exercise session.  Generally speaking, the training effect for a given repetition bracket is as follows:

• Rep Bracket: 1 – 5
• Training Effect: Increase in muscular strength

• Rep Bracket: 8-12
• Training Effect: Increase in muscular size

• Rep Bracket: 15+
• Training Effect: Increase in muscular endurance

While this is a very basic understanding of repetition brackets, it is a good place to start….especially if this idea is new to you.  Armed with this information you should be in a better position to train for your goals and achieve better results in the gym.