Written by : David Kingsbury
Lower body work is very important and shouldn’t be taken lightly. You can’t fire a canon from a canoe. Nor should you try. If you build a strong foundation with your lower body movements you will see your whole body transform. Here we cover a few reasons for incorporating weight training into your plan. These points are particularly relevant to the BIG gym lifts, like the dead-lift and squat:
Improve Body Composition
Improving body composition is beneficial for two reasons. It ensures your body is optimally poised for performance with quality lean muscle and limited fat mass that will in turn increase your strength/power to weight ratio. It will also have you looking good, which is never a bad thing! Heavy weight training will help to produce an anabolic hormone response and therefore create a better environment for your body to recover from exercise.I also suggest consuming a high protein diet with BCAA supplementation to maximise recovery and body composition improvements.
Help Prevent Injury
One of the biggest misconceptions I face with my job is that weight training will cause injury, when the truth is that, when performed correctly, strength training can actually help prevent it. Not only will weight training help to iron out muscle imbalances, heavy strength training triggers protein synthesis in the connective tissue which in turn increases bone strength. This is important because if muscles are not prepared to handle the load, stress gets absorbed by the joints, bones and connective tissue. Also, I suggest adding these fat loss finishers onto the end of your gym sessions to help keep the body fat down and fitness levels up!
10-15 Min Circuits
I like to set these circuits at the end of the session that has just been completed. I suggest choosing 3-5 movements, and doing them back-to-back with as little rest as possible for the 10-15min duration. My suggestion would be to start with a 10min round then work your way up to the 15min round.
Here is an example:
- 12 x Dumbbell clean and press
- 12 x Dumbbell renegade row (each arm)
- 12 x Dumbbell front squat
- 12 x Press up
- 12 x Sit up
Cardio and Resistance Intervals
This system utilises both high intensity cardio and either resistance or body weight movements back to back.
The intensity is very high and these are particularly tough drills.
Here is a look at 2 such cardio and resistance systems. I suggest 3-5 rounds with around 2min rest before repeating.
- Spin bike 1min flat out
- 10 clean and press
- 12 sit ups
Or another example round….
- 1min on the rower flat out
- 10 burpees
- 10 v-ups
For more information about David, or to sign up to his training programme, visit www.davidkingsbury.co.uk / @DavidKingsbury
12 weeks of personalised training and nutritional plans costs just £149. Bargain!
