Disclaimer: I am neither a medical professional nor a trainer. This post is about what has worked for me and should not be taken as a replacement for medical advice. Always make sure you are cleared by a doctor before exercising
I haven’t really talked about it much here, but I am a very active person. I got into the habit of working out regularly during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. I had participated in my school’s summer strength and conditioning program. However, the program ends a few weeks before school starts. I had gotten in decent shape, and I didn’t want to lose all that I had worked for, so I started working out on my own. At first it was highly unstructured, just whatever I wanted to do. However, over time I have become very systematic about my workouts. Now, I am at a point where it is not uncommon for me to work out two or even three times a day. In this post, I will describe what a normal week of workouts looks like for me (specifically during the summer).
There are a couple different types of workouts I do:
- Summer Strength and conditioning at the school (mostly lifting and sprints)
- Cycling, running, and/or swimming
- Core, leg, or upper body workout at home
I will mainly be focusing on the third option in this post, as option 1 is highly seasonal and option 2 is fairly self-explanatory.
I became very familiar with bodyweight exercises not because I wanted to, but because until recently I had no access to weights. The only weights I have at home are a 10lb medicine ball and two 15lb dumbbells. The only other piece of equipment I have is a pull up bar. If you are planning on starting to workout and only want one piece of equipment, I highly recommend a pull up bar. They are highly versatile and fairly cheap.
The basic structure of my home workouts are as follows:
- 10 pull ups or chin ups
- 50 push ups (broken up into 25, 15, and 10)
- 10 hanging leg raises
- Dynamic stretching
- Circuit (repeated three times) composed of six to eight exercises based on what part of the body I am targeting
Here is my standard ab circuit (it took me a long time to settle on this combination, but I believe it to be a very good one):
- Plank: 1 minute, 25 seconds
- Hanging leg raises with an L sit on the way down: 4
- Side plank: 1:15
- Clap push ups: 12
- Wall Plank: 1 minute
- Dragon flag: 5
It took me a while before I learned how to Dragon Flag (about a month of fairly consistent training, but I was already in decent shape at the time). If you are trying to gain the strength to do it, I would encourage you to do dragon flag negatives (start at the top and move down as slowly as you can). They helped my quite a bit.
Also, I don’t do any situps or crunches, because they have been shown to cause back damage in the long-term.
Unlike my ab workouts, my leg and upper body workouts change frequently, so I’ll just give sample workouts here.
Here is an example home leg workout for me:
- Squat jumps: 20
- Single leg bridges: 1 minute per leg
- Lunge jumps: 35 seconds
- Wall high knees: 30 sec
- Seated jumps: 20
- Weighted (15lb dumbbell in both hands) calf raises: 50
And a upper body workout:
- Wide (as wide as my pull up bar) pull ups: 5
- Elevated push ups: 20
- Static chin up (hold the up position as long as possible, then the middle, then the bottom)
- Clap push ups 12
- Frontal and lateral raise with 15lb dumbbells: 8
- Chair dips: 25
As stated above, I repeat a circuit three times to make a complete workout.
When I first started working out, I created a list of exercises based on what equipment I had and what muscles I wanted to target. You’ll notice it is mostly bodyweight exercises. I don’t use most of the ab exercises very often, but they are still good (especially if you can’t handle some of the more difficult exercises). Below is the list:
Ab:
- Mountain climber
- Reverse crunch
- Planks (raise a limb for extra difficulty)
- Side plank
- Toe touches
- Bicycle crunches
- Dead bug
- Russian twist
- Lying leg raises (add reverse crunch at top for more difficulty)
- Pikes (v-sits)(keep your back straight and don’t let it touch the ground)
- Superman (can raise limbs for more difficulty; also good as a core stretch)
- Dragon flag
- Captains’ chair
- Hanging leg raise
- Starfish plank (spread out your hands and legs as far as you can and hold that position)
- Alternating shoulder taps
- Windshield wiper
- Single leg v up
- L sit
Tricep:
- Chair dips
- Tricep kickback
- Push ups
Shoulder:
- Lateral raise
- Reverse fly
- Overhead shoulder press
- Snappers (clap) (hold your hands out to your side with your palms up; snap, then raise your hands above your hand and clap, lower, repeat)
- Snappers (twist; hold hands out to your side with palms up, snap twice, twist hands down, snap twice, twist hands up, repeat)
- Shrugs with dumbbells
- (Push back push ups (can elevate for extra difficulty)
Upper leg:
- Squats
- Squat jumps
- Lunges
- Lunge jump
- Single arm dumbbell snatch
- Split jumps (like lunge jump but not as deep)
Pistol squats(hurt my back back; I no longer do these)- Half-up squats
- Duck walk
Calf:
- Calf raises
- Quick jumps (bunny hops)(can hold a medicine ball above head for extra difficulty)
Bicep:
- Bicep curls
- Pull ups
- Pull ups with static holds at top, middle, and bottom
- Reverse push up
- Hammer curls
Miscellaneous/multi:
- Plank ups
- Wall high knees
- Burpees
- Single leg bridges (static or with hip lowering/raising)
- Push-ups
- Triangle push ups
- Wide push ups
- Bicep curls w/ shoulder press
- Push ups lat row
Exercises to help with vertical jump:
- Kneeling tuck jumps
- Split jumps
- 180 jumps
- Broad jumps
- Seated jumps
- Single leg butt kicks
- Lateral hurdles (use backpack)
Plyometric:
- Squat jumps
- Tuck jumps
- Squat tuck jumps
- Lunge jumps
- Plyo (aka clap) push ups
- Lateral jumps
- Depth jumps
- Box jumps
- Running stairs (alt versions: skip step, one leg, both feet per step, hop instead of run, etc.) There you have it. You now have a list of exercises to help you get started working out. I would still recommend you read up on different exercises and educate yourself (this is always a good idea when you’re going to do something to your body).
What are your workouts like? Did I miss your favorite exercise? Tell me in the comments below!
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