I know, it's been awhile since I blogged but, August was a busy month and had a number of projects that I was working on and it's the last full month of summer and just wanted to soak it all in.
But, it's back to the grind since Labor Day is only a few days away.
I mentioned awhile back about how I was doing 200 pushups in 5 minutes where basically I was spreading the pushups out over the course of the day and not just doing them in one session.
I continued doing this for a few weeks and I thought it worked great.
I changed things up a bit. Three days a week I would do pushups, and 3 days a week I would do pullups.
With the pullups, I didn't quite do 200 of them in a day. With pushups, you can do them anywhere, but with a pullup, you obviously need to have a pullup bar and since I'm on the go most of the day, I'm limited to when I can do pullups when I'm home and have access to my Iron Gym.
So I started off with just doing 50 pullups throughout the day. I would do 10 sets of 5.
After a couple of weeks of doing 200 pushups, 3 days a week and 50 pullups, 3 days a week, I add more to each exercise: I increased the number of repetitions per set of pushups that I was doing from 10 to 15 and the number of repetitions per set of pullups from 5 to 7. So I ended up doing 300 pushups a day, 3 days a week, and 70 pullups a day, 3 days a week.
I was really impressed by how simple this routine was, how it doesn't take long, and quite frankly, how great the results are for your upper body by just following these two simple movements.
I'm really starting to think that if you just used these two movements, added in some interval training, got your diet in line, that you wouldn't need much else.
So just remember to try and not complicate things too much. Stick with the basics, eat better (and less food if fat loss is your goal), and you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
If you haven't already, give this routine of pushups and pullups (if you have a pullup bar) a try for a couple of weeks and let me know how it goes.
I remember back in the day, I use to be able to go into a clothing store, find the waist and inseam size of a pair of pants I wanted, and just buy them without even having to try them on.
I was out shopping recently for some new shorts. For as long as I can remember, I can wear roughly a 32 or 33 waist pant size and feel comfortable in them.
But going through the racks, it was frustrating because all I could find were sizes 28, 30, 34, 36, etc. For the life of me, I couldn't find a 32 or a 33.
So I just decided to grab a couple of pairs of the size 30 and try them on and see what they felt like.
I Went into the changing room, tried them on and was shocked: They fit, and they were almost too loose.
For a split second, I was a bit excited, but, then I thought to myself "Wait a second, something's wrong here. There's no way I'm a 30." I checked the pants closely. There's no elastic anywhere to be found.
Just for testing purposes, I went back out and got a pair of size 34 to see how those fit. Put them on, buttoned them, and they fell right to the ground. And that's only one or two sizes larger than I normally wear.
I remember a few years ago when I was trying on some dress pants and noticed that there was this elastic pull on the sides. I thought that was pretty funny in that it allowed someone to wear a pair of pants smaller than what they could normally wear, say that they were wearing a size 32 but were actually stretching them to a size 34.
But in this most recent situation with the size 30, I think is taking it to a bit of an extreme. It also explains why there were no 32 or 33 sizes, because the guys that were actually wearing size 36 could fit in those instead.
Think about the ramifications of that though. If you're all of a sudden fitting into a size 33 or 34 where you are normally wearing a size 36 or 38, isn't that giving you the sense that you are in better shape from a waist measurement perspective?
Studies are showing that there's a strong correlation between waist size compared to your height and your risks of various health risks, rather than looking at the old standard of Body Mass Index (BMI).
If we are now making pant sizes bigger than what they actually are, just to make people feel better about their body shape, aren't we actually putting these people in the delusional mindset that they are at a healthy waist size, when in reality they may not be?
I guess looking back at my recent shopping endeavors, I've been seeing this for quite some time. I've always been a solid medium when it came to just your every day shirts, but looking through my closet now, I notice a lot more smalls sizes.
I even remember a couple of years ago not being able to find a bathing suit that fit that would actually stay on and having to go to the Juniors section to look for one (that didn't work out to well either but with the opposite problem).
I guess my point is that you need to be careful when buying clothes and to not get to excited when you're able to all of a sudden fit into a size that you normally haven't fit into and it isn't because you've been losing weight or body fat, because chances are, your pants are lying to you.
You're going to do 5 exercises in a row, each for the time listed next to the description below. Once you're done with the circuit, you'll rest 30 seconds, and then complete that circuit again, rest another 30 second after completing the circuit a second time, and then go on and do the circuit one more time.
Here's a video of it and the written descriptions are below:
Knee Taps - 30 seconds
1. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, and bend your arms at the elbow right in front you of with your upper arms tucked into your sides. 2. Bring your left leg up as quickly as you can, touching your left hand with the top of your left knee. 3. Lower your left leg while at the same time bringing your right leg up and touching your right hand with the top of your right knee. 4. Continue back and forth between legs as quickly as you can and remembering to bring your legs up as high as you can to touch your hands until you have completed the recommended number of repetitions or time.
Side Leg Raise with Extension - 15 seconds on each leg
1. Kneel on your knees and hands and keep your back flat and arms straight from the shoulders to your hands on the ground. 2. Starting with the right side, raise your right leg (while keeping the knee bent and your upper body stable) up towards your right side until the leg is parallel to the floor. 3. Then extend knee so that your entire leg is straight and pointing to the right, while keeping your leg lifted in the air. 4. Pause for a second, then bend your knee back into towards your body and then lower the leg back down. 5. Continue doing all the repetitions or time on one side before moving on and completing all the repetitions or time on the left leg.
Cross Crawl - 30 seconds
1. Stand with your hands behind your ears and pull your shoulder blades together. Keep your eyes looking straight ahead. 2. Move your right elbow across your body and slightly down while at the same time, bringing your left knee up as high as you can. In other words, aim your right elbow towards your left knee. 3. Return your upper body to the starting position and place your left leg on the floor. 4. Follow the same movement aiming your left elbow towards your lifted right knee. 5. Continue alternating between both sides until you have completed the recommended number of repetitions or time.
Prisoner Squat - 30 seconds
1. Stand with your feet just greater than shoulder-width apart. 2. Clasp your hands behind your head. Keep your elbows back and shoulder blades pulled together to work the upper back. 3. Start the movement at the hip. Push your hips backward and “sit back into a chair.” Make your hips go back as far as possible. 4. Squat as deep as possible, but keep your lower back tensed in a neutral position. 5. Don’t let your lower back become rounded. 6. Push with your butt muscles, hamstrings, and quadriceps to return to the starting position. Continue the movement for the recommended number of repetitions or time.
Spiderman Crawls - Knees - 30 seconds
1. Get at the top of a pushup position by resting on your hands and the tips of your toes. Your arms should be shoulder width apart. Make sure to keep your body in a straight line from your shoulders to your feet and to not sag or raise your hips. 2. Drop your knees straight down on the ground without moving them closer to your stomach. 3. Starting with your left leg, bring it forward towards your hand as far as you can and drop your foot flat down. Make sure to keep your body straight. Don’t raise your butt. Keep your arms straight/locked at the top of the position (don’t lower yourself). 4. Pause for a moment and then return your left leg to the starting position. 5. Do the next rep using the right leg and continue to alternate legs until you have completed all of the recommended repetitions or time.
I'm a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).
I've been helping people get rid of that unwanted fat by teaching group classes for the past 10 years and training clients one-on-one for the past 5 years.
Contact me at mike@leanbodyfitness.com
