Cardio Quickies Part II

I’m back to finish you off for a quickie cardio workout or two.  As a reminder, in part I I mentioned that many people say that they are too busy to get their training sessions in over the holidays.  So I provided you with a couple quick, but effective lifting sessions that will allow you to get in and out of the gym in as little time as possible.  

Now that the weight lifting portion is covered, lets get into the cardio portion.

Inverted Ladder

I got the concept of the “inverted ladder” from Strength Coach, Tony Gentilcore.  You can use almost any exercise while using the inverted ladder as your cardio “finisher” (right after your lifting session) of the day.  You can also do this on your non-lifting day.  Here is what an inverted ladder is;

-You choose 3 exercises (BIG compound movements, not like exercises like curls for the girls)

-The first exercise you perform just 1 rep.  Then you move onto the next exercise and perform 10 reps.  And finally, for the 3rd exercise you pick a constant number of reps and stick with it until you finish the ladder (as you’ll see below, my constant in the first video was 5 push-ups, and my constant in the second video was 3 chin-ups).  When you come back to the first exercise, you add one rep (so you are now doing 2 reps), when you go back to the second exercise, you are to do one less rep than you did in round one (so 9 instead of 10).  And finally you finish off round two with the 3rd exercise and stay with the constant number throughout (5, in the case of the push-up video).  So, it will look like this in video #1:

Medicine Ball Slams X 1 rep

Box (or bench) Jumps X 10

Push-ups X 5

Medicine Ball Slams X 2

Box Jumps X 9

Push-ups X 5

Medicine Ball Slam X 3

Box Jumps X 8

Push-ups X 5

Continue with this until you are up to 10 reps on the medicine ball slams, and down to 1 rep on the box jumps.  Time yourself and then try to beat it the next time you do the same exercise sequence.

 

And the next video with the 3 exercises … 1) Kettlebell Swings (use a dumbbell(s) if you don’t have a kettlebell 2) Broad Jumps, 3) Chin-ups (3 reps as the “constant” in this circuit)

Do you think I taped only a portion of the entire session because;

A) I didn’t want to show off?

B) I was too tired to do the whole thing?

C) I didn’t want to make you bored by watching the entire session?

If you answered “A” then you are wrong – I didwant to show off, I was just too tired.  So, the answer is B + C.  If that was your answer congratulations, your major award will be shipped to your house on December 23rd (and Ralphie will be delivering it).

I’ve been using the inverted ladder with my clients over the last few weeks and they’ve been loving it!  Well, maybe “love” is a little stong.  Their enjoyment of the ladder has been somewhere between the enjoyment of a relaxing 90-minute massage and a punch to the stomach… that means they kind of like it, but don’t love it.  And it also means they like it WAAAY more than running on the treadmill for 30-minutes although they also seem to like a punch to the stomach more than a 30-minute jog on the treadmill.  But I digress.

Exercise Selection

As mentioned above, pick BIG compound movements.  After all, this is the cardio portion of the workout.  So “isolation” movements like calf raises or I don’t know, blinking, just won’t cut it.  Also, thinkof this as using weights to get your heart rate up to make your cardio session harder.  Do NOT think of the inverted ladder as your lifting session.  I had one of my on-line clients tell me that he used 40 pound dumbbells for one of his exercises (push presses) and said that he could barely finish.  Well duh, his 10 RM (rep max) is about 40 pounds.  I suggested next time he tries , to go with about 25 pounds.  Again, that will be more than enough to get his heart to feel like it is going to fly out of his chest, but not too much weight that the shoulders become the limiting factor (rather than his heart ‘n lungs). 

One more thing, if you are going to use a body weight exercise as one of your 3 exercises, make sure that it is one that doesn’t get you too close to muscular failure after 3-5 reps.  I chose chin-ups in one of the circuits because if I only had to do one set of chins, I could get over 20.  Therefore chins are a good choice for me.  If you can only get 4-5 chins, I’d go with another exercise if I were you.  Something like inverted rows would be a great substitute.

So there you go.  Your lifting session (again, from the routines I gave you HERE), plus the finisher will get you in and out and on with your day… just leaner than you were before!