The idea of an hour-long "normal gym" workout just seems so boring to me; I get sleepy just thinking about it. I like 'em short and intense - really pushing myselft hard. Therefore, most of my workouts tend to be about 15-30 min long, give or take a few (not including warm-up and cool-down). And they usually involve a handful of exercises.
With kettlebells and bodyweight (the only equipment I really have), there are a lot of different exercises that you can fold into one brief workout. Once you start mixing and matching, the possiblities seem endless. And with so many different routines available to choose from each day, I never get in that kinda stale-workout funk. I'm able to switch things up enough that it keeps me intersted and motivated.
That said, I do steal quite a few workouts as well...because it's easy. The good folks over at Crossfit, for example, post a Workout Of the Day (WOD) on their site. I almost never do their WOD for any particular day, but I do steal some of their routines. Some of my favorites, which you will most likely come across on this blog, are the girls. I don't have all of the equipment to do them exactly as "rx'd", but I substitute where I can....and they still kick my ass.
Another source from which I like to pilfer is the Jersey Kettlebell Blog. This is probably one of the best kettlebell blogs out there, if you dig Crossfit style kind of workouts that is. Lots of good theiving to be had there!
Other than those two sites, I just troll the web hoping to come across some kettlebell gems. Sometimes I find some good articles/advices/workouts, like on Mike Mahler's Site. And sometimes I will find a random youtube video of a killer routine.
Oh, and since I'm on the topic of routines, let me just quickly explain what a Tabata Sequence is...or you could just follow that link. A tabata sequence is interval training cycle consisting of 20 seconds of work, followed by 10 seconds of rest. That cycle is repeated 8 times (4 minutes all together). I usually put 4 or 5 of these together (not all of the same exercise) and call it a workout.
Another kind of routine I do often (or routinely, if you will) is the "as many rounds as possible in x minutes" workout. This is another Crossfit type workout. Take 2-4 exercises, assign them appropriate reps, and then see how many rounds you can get before the time runs out. If you really push yourself with these kind of workouts, they will whoop your ass!
I will also whip together a nice little "Deck of Cards" workout from time to time. What is that you ask? Take four exercises and assign each to a suit in the deck (H,D,S,C), shuffle the deck and start flipping the cards over. Do the exercise assigned to that suit, and for as many reps as the number on the card (I usually set face cards to 10 and aces to 11). And if you have jokers in the deck, choose an exercise and reps to assign to a joker, e.g. 10 pushups. Keep flipping cards over until you've made it through the entire deck.
I think that's just about it. I'm sure I have other types of workouts I do, but I can't think of them right now....or don't feel like writing about them...either way, you won't be reading about them in this post.
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