Doing pushups in a ladder workout will help increase your reps overtime. Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
Many of the workouts we highlight on Well+Being focus on strength training, cardio, or a combination of the two. But today, we want to talk basics. One of the biggest mistakes trainers see is people rushing into complex workouts or exercise moves before mastering the basics with proper form. Tom Brose, City Fitness Gym general manager and a Washingtonian Top Personal Trainer, says the pushup is a great example of a move that people too often overcomplicate.
“It’s not uncommon to see variations [of the pushup] involving medicine balls, Bosu, [the] use of a single leg, TRX, or twisting. While these can all be challenging, if the actual pushup is not rock solid, it’s a misplaced effort,” Brose says.
The options for keeping our cardio workouts fresh and engaging are numerous, but sometimes we can get into ruts where strength training is concerned. Routines beyond free weights at the gym do exist, so we asked trainer Turiya Newsome, from the newest BodySmith Studio in Logan Circle, to share her favorite 20-minute at-home workout for those days you want to mix it up. She focuses on muscle strength, endurance, and stretching to improve flexibility. All you’ll need is a chair.
How to Perform the Workout
Warmup: To loosen the muscles, warmup for five to ten minutes. Newsome suggests stairs (walking or running), jumping jacks, marching in place, and cross-toe reaches to target the specific muscles you’ll be using in her workout.
Workout: Two to three sets of eight to ten reps for each exercise.
Chair squats: Perform squats in front of your chair and tap your butt on the chair before standing up again.“Keep your weight in your heels to avoid letting your knees extend over your toes,” says Newsome.
If there’s one single word that can immediately instill fear in us, it’s “burpee.” The jump/squat/pushup combo is easily one of our most despised exercises. It’s also one of the most effective total-body and calorie-burning moves you can perform. Still, when personal trainer and founder of YaLa Fitness Laurent Amzallag told us his favorite workout was called the “Laurent Burpee,” we were understandably uncertain.
“This is my favorite workout for when I’m crunched for time and want to target my entire body,” he says.
Watch our video of proper burpee form before attempting the “Laurent Burpee” workout.
Ivan Ukhov of Russia won the men's high jump competition in the London Olympics with a leap of seven feet and 10.5 inches. Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
With the track-and-field events in full swing at the Olympics, our minds are blown by how the athletes can run faster, jump higher, and throw farther than any normal human being. While I obviously never progressed to Olympic status, as a high jumper for 12 years I’ve often been asked if I can jump over the nearest ten-foot fence or pole. Answer: No, and I wouldn’t recommend you try it, either.
The truth is, some people are just born with serious hopping skills. And while most of us aren’t the next Jesse Owens, adding certain types of exercises to your fitness regimen can increase your vertical distance and build up your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which fatigue quickly but allow our bodies to generate short bursts of strength and speed.
So if your next goal is learn how to dunk or just beat your friend in a psuedo-long jump competition, try this beginner workout on for size. We recommend heading to your nearest high school football field or track for this. Note: If it’s your first time doing plyometrics, consult a trainer to ensure you’re performing the exercises properly.
No one understands the importance of minimal yet effective workouts better than personal trainers, and Washington is chock-full of them. But do personal trainers actually practice what they preach? Arron Cowie, the director of personal training at the Kalorama Balance Gym, showed us his personal favorite total-body workout, and we were definitely impressed.
How to Perform the Workout
Cowie’s favorite quick circuit-style workout involves five exercises for 45 seconds each with 15 seconds of rest between each transition.
Squat: Using bodyweight, squat down as deep as you can without your tailbone tucking under.
15-second rest
Push: Regular pushups (Cowie says if you can’t do full pushups, it’s better to do modified pushups off a raised surface, such as a couch, rather than on your knees.)
15-second rest
Pull: Either bent-over rows with dumbbells or standing rows using a band.
15-second rest
Plunge: Alternating forward lunges
15-second rest
Plank: Standard plank
1-minute rest. Repeat circuit three times.
Between nine-hour workdays and networking happy hours, sometimes squeezing in time at the gym feels downright impossible. Personal trainer Jay Morgan of Born to be Fit says workouts should be less about time spent on the treadmill and more about bringing high intensity for maximum results, even if you just have 20 minutes. He suggests combining these five moves that work several muscle groups at the same time for an efficient and effective workout.
Muscles worked: Glutes, hamstrings, hips, back, and core
Morgan says any fitness regime should start by strengthening the core, which is commonly misconceived as being all about abs—core exercises also engage your back and hip muscles.
Start off with a basic front plank, supporting your upper body with your forearms and aligning your body from head to heels. (Before progressing, you should be able to hold this position for at least 60 seconds.)
After mastering the front plank, try the knee-to-elbow variation: Bring your right knee to your right elbow, then repeat the same movement with your left knee to left elbow.
Former body builder Yaz Boyum calls her 30-minute workout "the one-minute total-body intensity giant circuit." Photograph courtesy of Shutterstock.
With the Olympics kicking off this Friday, we’ve found ourselves more motivated to exercise than ever. Admit it: Who among us hasn’t daydreamed about competing in the 100-meter sprint with thousands of fans cheering us on?
Though the chances of most of us ever making these dreams a reality is slim to none, we can at least train like an Olympian, thanks to a new workout created just for Well+Being readers by personal trainer Yaz Boyum, a former body builder. Boyum calls her creation “the one-minute total-body intensity giant circuit.” The aerobic nature of the 30-minute routine keeps the heart rate elevated throughout the full circuit.
Earlier this summer, we shared with you an intense total-body workout we found on Pinterest: the 100 workout. We loved how exhausted the 20-minute routine left us—not to mention the burn we felt for days after. This week, we were excited to try out the leg edition of the workout to see if it was equally as awesome.
We sat down with Chau Bui, a trainer for the popular workout program Crossfit, to see if the 100 workout for legs was hardcore enough for Crossfitters. Bui said she was impressed by the intense focus on every part of the legs, including quads, hamstrings, calves, abductors, adductors, and the gluteus maximus.
How to Perform the Workout
The routine is structured in a descending pyramid format: You start with 100 squats and decrease by ten reps as you finish the remaining nine moves. You’ll complete the workout with exercises such as reverse lunges, mountain climbers, calf raises, and burpees.
By Laura Wainman
So far Pinterest has given us workouts to get bikini-ready abs and killer legs, plus plenty of total-body routines. But this week it’s all about perfecting your guns with the Tank Top Workout.
Doug Murphy of DSM Fitness took the time to educate us on how to properly balance push and pull movements within an arm workout and keep proper form even when fatigue sets in.
How to Perform the Workout
This is a simple, straightforward workout that requires only your bodyweight and a pair of light dumbbells. Read through the workout and find a space with enough room to extend your arms fully back and to the side. You’ll complete nine exercises, with no one set exceeding 24 reps. Exercises include lateral raises, tricep kickbacks, and tricep pulse backs.
The full workout can be completed in less than 15 minutes, making it great for summer days when you’re crunched for time or the thought of going for a run in sweltering heat is too unbearable.
We are all about our serious, heart-pumping workouts here at Well+Being, but we also love to inject a healthy dose of fun and whimsy into our calorie-burning sessions every now and then. So when we found this Harry Potter workout on Pinterest just in time for this weekend’s ABC Family HP movie marathon, we knew we had to try it.
We checked in with Mint trainer John Morris to see if there are more benefits to this movie-themed workout than just fun, and were pleased to receive his nod of approval.
How to Perform the Workout
Choose your favorite Harry Potter movie (we chose Goblet of Fire) and then read through the instructions to familiarize yourself with the movie “cues” you should be listening for. Each time you hear one of the cues, you perform the exercise listed. For example, every time Ron says “Bloody hell,” you will do ten butt busters, a move performed on all fours with palms flat and one leg lifted behind you at a right angle, moving towards the ceiling to work your glute muscles.
“I recommend circuit training, where [you] perform each exercise with no more than 20 seconds of rest between sets—less rest for more conditioned people—and repeat for two to three sets,” says Morris.
