Our Favorite Routines
Here at Shorty’s we have a few favorite routines we gravitate towards when we are looking for a good workout, and since we love our clients we decided to share a few with your here.
A Good Run
While we love the gym we love the outdoors even more, especially now that Spring has come and it’s getting warmer, it’s great for our mental state to be outside, breathing fresh air, seeing the trees blooming. Our favorite runs are ones that see more nature than city. We all like intervals so you will often see us sprinting to the next tree or light post, with smaller recovery jog. Intervals are a great way to mix up a run and provide for an amazing workout, one that tends to burn more calories during the workout and well after the workout is complete.
Yoga
While again we have a gym we also enjoy the meditative qualities of Yoga, as well as the elongation of our muscles with all of the stretching. We can only do so much intense workouts, and lift so many weights before our body’s crave a good Yoga routine. In fact some of our trainers swear by ditching the morning coffee to have a 15 minute morning yoga routine. It sounds crazy but they always have the most energy in the morning.
HIIT
Home full body workout routines like P90X3 are all the rage these days and for good reason. These home workouts can be done anywhere and doesn’t require a ton of equipment, plus it hits the entire body both from a strength perspective and a cardio perspective. We like these routines as it’s quick to get up and get one in, and the long term benefits have been studied and found to offer tons of benefits.
We often read BodyBuilding.com for news and ideas on new routines, some of these are ones we’ve been doing with our clients for some time, specificaly the 5X5 workout which is all the rage these days. Todd Bumgardner on BodyBuilding reviewed the 5X5 workout here.
With StrongLifts, the trainee performs just five multijoint barbell lifts per week: the deadlift, squat, bench press, overhead press, and bent-over row. It’s a three-day-per-week program that employs an A/B split, which means there are two different workouts (Day A and Day B) alternated throughout the training week, with a rest day between each training day.
What we like about the 5X5 workout is the simplicity of the workout, it doesn’t require machines, it’s just you and a bar. Each set you increase the weight by 5 pounds unless you are doing the deadlift which then you would increase by 10 pounds. If you aren’t able to do the 5 sets of 5, then the next week you start with the same weight. If you can’t do it for 3 weeks in a row, then you deload the next time before hitting the same numbers again. It’s also just 5 exercises, granted these are the best full body bar exercises so you will grow, it’s just the overall simplicity. This workout has been around for 30+ years so it’s a proven routine used by the greats like Arnold. And since it’s so simple to remember you won’t walk into the gym not knowing what to do the next time. Just be sure you do record your weights and results so you can constantly increase as you build muscle.