The Spartacus Workout

     I tried an awesome workout this morning and I have to say, I'm already sore! (I love being sore though, do you?) Remember this book? I was flipping through it last night looking for some inspiration now that I'm cleared to get my postpartum body back into some real shape and I came across The Spartacus Workout. One of the things I loved about it was that it required minimal equipment and mostly body weight. And you can make it 10 minutes or 30 minutes depending on how much time you have (and my time is very limited with a 7-week-old and a 2-year-old running around).

     The Spartacus Workout is a circuit, you need to treat it as such or else you miss out on the benefits of the workout. Circuits are awesome because they get your heart rate up and you work your muscles well so really, you're killing 2 birds with one stone (which I very much like). You get your cardio, and you get your toning.

     There are 10 stations you rotate through, you spend 60 seconds at each station and allow yourself 15 seconds to move from station to station. Perform the exercise at your station for as many reps as you can within than 60 second period. If you can't make it to 60 seconds, it's okay to take a break but then pick back up where you left off. If you need to take that break, pause only for a few seconds. You don't want your heart rate to drop too much. Repeat the circuit for a total of 3 times (if you can haha) leaving a 2 minute break in between circuits. Ready for the circuit?

Station 1

Goblet squat

Station 2

Mountain climber

Station 3

Single-arm dumbbell swing

Station 4

T-push up

Station 5

Split jump

Station 6

Dumbbell row

Station 7

Dumbbell side lunge and touch

Station 8

Push up position row

Station 9

Dumbbell lunge and rotation

Station 10

Dumbbell push press

Pyramid Training Method

     You may have seen some pyramid workouts floating around the internet or places like Pinterest that look something like this:

20 calf raises

30 squats

40 toe touches

50 second wall sit

100 jumping jacks

50 second wall sit

40 toe touches

30 squats

20 calf raises

     (I tried this one and yes, I was sore!) While these workouts do resemble a pyramid in terms of going up in the number of reps and peaking before coming back down, traditionally the pyramid method of training is much different. There's nothing wrong with these other pyramid workouts, in fact, I really like them, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to explain what the traditional pyramid training method is.

     I could get all technical and talk about 1 rep max and all that but I'm going to keep this really simple. You're going to decrease your reps as you increase your weight. For example, if I'm using the pyramid training method while doing bicep curls I would do something like this:

12 reps at 8 lbs

10 reps at 10 lbs

8 reps at 15 lbs

It could even look like this...

12 reps at 8 lbs

10 reps at 10 lbs

8 reps at 15 lbs

10 reps at 10 lbs

12 reps at 8 lbs

It's totally up to you.

     It's totally up to you how many sets you would like to do, what weights you do, how many reps you start at, and how many reps you decrease by. Obviously the less reps you do, the heavier the weight. If you get all the way down to 1 rep, it needs to be so hard that you can only lift that weight the 1 time. If you get down to just a few reps but you feel like you could lift that weight 10 times, you need to change your weights.

     One of the benefits to a pyramid workout is that by starting with lighter weight and more reps, you give your muscles a chance to warm up before hitting the heavier weights. Also, being able to hit heavier weights towards the end will help you overload the muscle and as you may remember, we want to overload the muscle so that it becomes stronger.

     So, have fun with pyramids, leave comments sharing ones you like with everyone else and, as always, leave me an email with any more questions you may have! sarabsorensen@gmail.com

     Since your weight-lifting pyramid workout is going to be unique to you, here's another of the different pyramid workouts like I showed at the beginning of this post to try. Enjoy!

          The PT Pyramid

I'm Back!

     I'm ready to get Turbo Fit going again (not gonna lie, this blog is an excellent motivator for me!) but I don't always have time to sit down and write a post and come up with workouts. If any of you are blog writers you know, blogging can take a lot of time! So, to keep giving you all something new (and to help myself get back into the swing of things) I'll be posting links to some awesome workouts I find. This way, you don't have to go looking for them, and I can keep posting regularly in less time. Sound good? I thought so. ;)

     Here's a 15 minute equipment-free cardio workout from FITNESS Magazine! Perfect, right? If you have invested in equipment that's awesome, however most people don't invest in their own equipment so it's awesome to find some cardio workouts that also help tone you up with nothing but your body weight and gravity. Enjoy and let me know how you did!