Albert K. Park

Guess Whose Back! Livestrong baby!


My energy levels felt depleted as five pm crept up despite having the day off and sleeping a good eight and half hours the night before. Due to the chaos of my schedule and falling victim to the lazy but awfully good at convincing “self”, I haven’t trained for a whole week. The time off builds momentum at an exponential speed and begins to mess with your mind. “It’s been so long since the last time you worked out, I don’t know if I want to get back into it! “ or “I will do it the next day off or when I get time!” Or the worst of all “ I need to work out!” (but you never do anything about it, even though you know you want and need to. CRAZY!) I admit one week may not seem that long but when you can see and feel the effects of being apathetic, it should be a giant blood red flag waving in catastrophic winds signaling you to get your ass back into training.

How can I get back into it? I don’t have a program! What should I workout!

If I had a dollar for every time someone said this to me, I would make it rain in the club, t-pain style. The first thing I must address is that this is an EXCUSE! Don’t worry about what the program should be or what you lifted the last time you were in the gym, take the first step and get your ass back into it. Any movement that burns calories and works muscles is fine, COME ON People! But never fear, Albert is here, to give you a simple body weight workout you can do almost anywhere that will jump start your lifting. It will challenge large muscle groups, the cardiovascular system, fast and slow twitch muscles, and mainly it will get you sweaty.
Sweaty = Working

The Jump start workout

All the exercises are supposed to be performed back to back without rest. Only once you have finished can you rest before you start the series over for 3-5 sets.

Workout #1
3-5 sets
Jump squats – reps 15
Spider Man pushups – reps 10-12 each side
Reverse Lunges – 12-15 reps each side
V sits – 12 reps
Pull ups – 12-15 reps
REST – 1 minute – 90 sec MAX and repeat

Remember the rest time can be an essential variable to the workout. 60 seconds compared to 90 seconds may not seem like a whole lot on paper, but when your entire body is shaking for one extra breath of musty gym air you will notice the difference. By decreasing rest time, you will also train your body to effectively use oxygen assisting recovery time. Great stuff for explosive sports such as football.

Also with reference to the rep scheme, focus on performing as many reps you can with perfect form, form is always important. By performing exercises with bad form which happens quite easily with body weight exercises, you can develop muscle imbalances and train the wrong muscle groups to fire during certain exercises. An example would be neglecting the retraction of your hips during jump squats which can lead to your quadriceps firing instead of the glutes and hamstring. This will cause a muscle imbalance, loss of explosiveness, and a quad dominant lower body. So focus on FORM!

UPGRADE THE WORKOUT:

If you get through this with ease, congrats because you probably are doing it wrong or cheating! Just kidding (Not really), but once you really do get good at it or just want to push your self, try adding these fun variables! When I say fun I mean not so fun, but really effective.

After your set is complete add ten, 30 – 40 yd sprints using the time to jog back to the finish as your only rest time. Each sprint should be 85% effort and up because I am sure you will be pretty tired after the circuit work. Make sure you are effectively using the jog back time to catch your breath. Don’t be a tough guy (or girl) by jogging back fast and then only putting out 60% on your next sprint. Perform all ten back to back, then guess what, your DONE!

Another element that you can add to the end of the circuit work is a timed event. In this case we will be using Burpees. A burpee is a movement that starts in a standing position then explodes into a sprawled pushup up stance, then explodes back up to a standing position followed by a vertical jump. This exercise is demanding on your entire body forcing the core to stay contracted through nearly the entire motion.

More muscles worked in the body = More calories burned = BURNING FAT

In this upgrade you won’t be focused on hitting a target amount of reps but aiming to charge hard through the set time. In this case we will use 30 seconds. So you will do the exercise for 30 seconds then get a rest for 30 seconds. Go through this series for a total of 2-3 minutes before resting for a full 90 seconds. Try 3 -5 sets of these 2-3 minute burpees. Good Luck and I can’t wait to hear about the fat melting off your body.

For the visually advantaged:
Set 1
30 seconds – Burpees
30 seconds – rest
30 seconds – Burpees
30 seconds – rest
30 seconds – Burpees
30 Seconds – rest
Rest 90 Seconds. And Repeat for a total of 3-5 sets.

Why is this style of training Superior to just getting on the Elyptical for 20 minutes.

Long slow cardio training can be an effective method to getting back in shape, by no means can I knock that but for an individual who wants to get a high charged jump start back into training, an anaerobic workout with short rest intervals will prove to be far more superior.

All the circuit body weight training exercises challenge an individuals relative strength, balance, and coordination back to back. I am introducing you back to your strength work without overwhelming you with all kinds of crazy weight training. (EX. Bench press, Military press, Power Cleans, All these can kind of keep you from going back after being away awhile) Also we avoid the boring 20-30 minutes of stationary cardio work that can chase even the most loyal athletes out of training.

RULE OF THUMB/Food for thought: there is no reason for you to overload your body with excess weights if you can’t easily do body weight work.

By performing the exercises in the circuit back to back, we are able to train endurance without losing muscle mass/ and by gaining lean muscle mass. I probably have said this around twenty times but I will say it again to emphasize the point. The more muscles you work the more calories you burn. So compare the exercises in the circuit which demand nearly every muscle in your body to a stationary bike exercise. Doesn’t really compare does it.

Final words:
So if you’ve been away from working out and training, let me be the first to welcome you back! Whether it’s been a week, a month, or a year it’s better today then tomorrow. The workout I posted will help you charge hard and propel you back into the swing of things. Even performing the workout 2-3 times a week I am sure you will see huge gains, but for now just use it as a supplement to your training.