Saturday, September 21, 2013

Fast Full Body Workout

For a fast and effective full body workout challenge, I look no further than my old time favorite, Change of a Dollar.

A lifetime ago I was at Great Lakes Naval Recruit Training Center. We often got mashed (had extra physical fitness stunts that HAD to be done) for a variety of reasons. Sadly, none of them included pull-ups or rowing.
That every muscle group but the back was worked bothered me. Not too long after leaving Great Lakes I modified one of my favored exercises to include pull-ups. Before I get ahead of myself, let me describe the exercises for all readers.

The exercise was called Change of a Dollar. It was four exercises done for 25 repetitions each. 25 push-ups, 25 sir-ups, 25, jumping jacks, and 25 body builders. To do the body builder you start standing up. Squat down and place your hands on the ground. Kick your feet back so that you are in a plank position and hold that for a moment. Snap your feet back to where they were and jump. As mentioned earlier, this does not hit the entire body. It ignores the pulling muscles of the upper body, the largest of that group being the muscles of your upper back.

To remedy this, add a pull up after the jump. This one little modification is a real game changer.

Do this with the High Intensity Interval Training methodology. Complete one cycle through, or one dollar. Take one minute to recover then do another. Stay with this until you have finished eight cycles. Set "prices" for certain treats, say you pay yourself one dollar for a snickers bar.

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