Are you looking to tone up this semester? Perhaps change your attitude towards fitness and even start enjoying working out in the gym? Let the team at Places Gym help you.
Day 1 – Strength
The key to shaping your body, losing fat and increasing your metabolism lies with strength training.
- Bodyweight squats: keep your back straight!
- Dumbbell bench press: sit with your back and head resting on the bench and push your arms up into the air
- Bent-over row: use the barbell and bend forwards keeping your back straight
- Box steps: jump to the height you feel comfortable with
- Ball slam: find a weighted ball and throw from above your head onto the floor, in a slight squat position (check which balls you can slam in your gym!)
Complete 10x reps of each. 30 seconds rest between each exercise, repeat 3 times.
Day 2 – Intervals
High intensity interval training increases your heart rate on the sprint or high intensity round. Your heart rate lowers on the low intensity round, so your body to burn more calories.
- Treadmill: walk on a low speed 1 minute and sprint for one minute on a higher speed. Keep this going for 16 minutes
- Rower: set the clock to 6 minutes – have 1 minute hard-out rowing and 1 minute slow
- Prowler sled (weighted sled): try to push the prowler at a sprint for the length of the room and back, with 1-minute rest in between – repeat 5 times.
Day 3 – Rest
Your body has just completed two days of solid training – your muscles need time to rest and repair.
Day 4 – Foam-rolling
Foam-rolling improves your mobility and the quality of your exercises.
- Roll-out: lie with the foam-roll in the middle of your back. Push with your feet to drive backwards and let the roller work its way up to your shoulder blades, then pull yourself back down
- Calf roll: sit upright with the foam under your calf and bend the other leg for support. Lift slightly off the floor and roll back and forth so the foam moves along the length of your calf
- Quad roll: Lie in a plank position with the roller underneath one thigh. Holding yourself on your arms, push backwards and pull forwards so the foam moves along the length of your thigh
Repeat each exercise twice, for 30 seconds. Also, check-out additional foam rolling exercises from PT Martin at Places Gym Preston.
Day 5 – Core
You can make toning your core as easy or as difficult as you choose – we prefer the easy, but effective methods.
- Abdominal machine: ask a member of the team to point it out and show you how it works
- Russian twists: sit on the floor, leaning backwards and twist from left to right. Lift your feet off the floor and lean further back to increase the intensity
- Stand and lower: stand with your hands above your head, crouch into a squat, put your hands on the floor and walk out to a plank position – then reverse
Complete 10x reps of each exercise above. 30 seconds rest between each exercise and repeat 3 times.
Day 6 – Full-body
Take one or two exercises from each workout for a full body session. You’ll see how far you’ve come this week.
Day 7 – Rest
Rest!
Stick with this workout for 4-weeks before mixing it up. Increase your weights and reps as you progress. You don’t want to keep doing the same workout for a long time, your body will become used to it and won’t respond – not to mention you’ll get bored.
