Athlon Elite will be closed Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. However, the health club, Athlon Health & Fitness, will be open from 7 AM to 7 PM and below you’ll all have a workout to go in and do to make up for that "holiday glutony!"
Athlon Elite will re-open Saturday for our normal schedule. Be sure and log-on and sign up for your session on Saturday. George doesn’t like surprise visitors!!
Have an amazing, festive holiday with your friends, family and loved-ones.
Day After Thanksgiving Workout
1. Start with 1 min. of front, side & reverse plane holds (planks)
2. Then do 3 rounds as fast as possible of:
• 10 walking lunges
• 10 push-ups
• 10 jumping pull-ups (or 60 lb. lat pulldown)
• 10 sit-ups 3. Rest 3 minutes, then finish with 30 minutes of Cardio
1. 10 min Bike
2. 10 min Stair Climber
3. 10 min Run/Jog
**Bonus**
**10 EXTRA minutes of Cardio for every extra serving
**25 EXTRA sit-ups for every alcoholic beverage
Posted by Travis Harwood, CSCS, Lead Personal Trainer at Athlon Elite
Many of you have performed kettlebell or dumbbell swings here at Athlon Elite…
Well the "Kettlebell snatch" is the swing’s very ugly, painful, amazing, cousin!
The kettlebell snatch is similar to the barbell, or Olympic lifting snatch in hip movement but is very different in action. While Olyimpic weightlifters intend to lift the highest amount of weight by maximizing efficiency, kettlebellers use a concept called “Hard Style.” Hard Style training will make the exercise as physically demanding as possible (sounds fun huh! As you know, the more challenging your "practice" is the better prepared you will be for game time.)
If you remember from your high school physics class Work= Force x Distance, and in physical activity the more work you perform, the more you have to use your big muscles as well as your small stabilizer muscles to control the "Work." This leads to a huge training stimulus that will prepare your body for battle. (Plus, for you athletes needing to trim a little body fat this leads to more calorie consumption to fuel the activity.)
Now where the kettlebell exaggerates "Work" is with torque (torque = force multiplied by the distance of the weight away from the body’s center of mass). So to make a long story short, not only are you moving the weight through a large area of space, but it is getting heavier as you do it; in other words say hello to your new VERY strong core musculature as well as large "mover" muscles… and goodbye to those calories!!!
So, now you’ve heard the calorie burning potential of the kettlebell snatch, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg…
Exercise Scientists have written entire books explaining the benefits of performing explosive, total body activities for the musculoskeletal system and kettlebell training programs.
To hear more about all the benefits of Kettlebell Training and to learn the Swing, Clean, Snatch, Front Squat, Getup, Sit-up, Windmill, Press, Pistol, Pull-up, Single Leg Deadlift, and Single Leg RDL (the movements that almost all professional athletes are starting to use in their training programs) contact Athlon Elite at (805) 440-0215 or CLICK HERE and schedule a
FREE private consultation with Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County’s ONLY professionally certified Kettlebell Instructor
Just because you can’t come into Athlon today, (Labor Day), doesn’t mean you can miss your workout. You have to stay dedicated to truly create body transformation… or keep the transformation you’ve already created.
Set aside 30 minutes and slam through the workouts below:
"THE BACKYARD"
4 rounds for best time of:
10 Cross-over mountain climber push-ups
(in push-up position touch your right knee to your left elbow and do a push-up, then your left knee to your right elbow, then do another push-up, repeat)
Tuck Jumps
Jump for maximum height and tuck your knees to your chest while in flight, then land it and repeat without pause
10 T-up Push-ups
(do a push-up then come up onto one arm in a T position, drop down and do a push-up then go up onto other arm in a T position, repeat)
10 Burpees
(you know this one… if you don’t just Google it and you’ll find millions of examples!)
20 Prone back extensions
(lie face down with your hands laced behind your head, extend your spine and lift your chest as far off the ground as possible without lifting your feet, then return, repeat)
20 Walking lunges
(lunge forward on one leg "kissing" your back knee to the ground, then step forward back to a full standing position, then lunge forward on the opposite leg and repeat)
20 Russian twists
(sitting on the ground with your feet 6 inches off the ground, clasp your hands together and twist your shoulders as far as you can to one side and touch the ground with your hands, then twist to the opposite side, repeat)
10 Full Sit-ups
Just like you did in high school gym class (arms across chest, knees bent)
Work hard and get it done early. Then relax and enjoy your Holiday.
Here’s some pics from us doing the workout yesterday.We did it in 19 minutes! (and trust me… I hate burpees just as much as you!)
There are debates amongst the sports performance training community as to whether resisted running, e.g., pulling a sled like the above & below pictures, actually helps improve an athletes sprint performance where it counts, in a game.
Run Dave Run…
Well the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (a well respected scientific journal) has published a few studies on this topic as of late…
Their findings…
Well, pulling a resistance while trying to sprint changes your mechanics (namely your stride length, which is the distance you travel per step; and your stride frequency, which is how many times you stride in a given period). No big surprise there, eh?
Some consider this a bad thing.
Rhett pulling a sled too slow!
But, they also found that you definitely experience an "overload" while doing it.
This means the resistance is greater than what it is normally there, thus, you’re body will adapt by improving its ability to tolerate that overload, i.e., get stronger and/or more powerful, build more muscle, etc.
So to the purists that say, "I don’t train with sleds because it changes my mechanics and its training me to move slower," I say… basketball players do heavy squats to jump higher, right?… yet that’s going to make them move slowly through the jumping motion when they’re doing it, right? But, after doing them and then "tapering-off" the volume of squats towards their season, they jump through the roof!
Well, the same goes for runners (which is all athletes)
Resisted sledding is going to make an athlete move slower and shorten their strides while pulling it, but it will also force an overload in a position as close to real running as you can get. That will no doubt have lasting gains in strength and power in that position, leading to a faster athlete when they get to their actual season or event.
You have to realize there’s a time and place to train slower and build a better tolerance to resistance; then there’s a time to train fast and lower the resistance. It’s called periodization, and we at Athlon Elite are experts in this…
…a real "think-tank" when it comes to this stuff.
There’s no better place in SLO County to get this kind of training.
Check out our Summer Elite Performance Camp at, www.SLOSportsPerformance.com, where you’ll be seeing quite a little bit of sled training.
First off, just ignore all these ads you see of super-fit, lean individuals saying they got like this doing eight or ten minute workouts (“and you can too for just three payments of $79.99″). They’re all ridiculous idiots (as evidenced by the picture above). The fact is it takes hard work to get a super-fit, lean body.
But, you do have a life, I know… and, you can’t always build that life around coming into Athlon Elite… though we really think you should!
So, when you’re busy and don’t have time for a full 45-60 minute workout here is a quicky that will keep your metabolism going strong and you in shape…
8 Sets as fast as you can go of:
20 Kettlebell swings (or a 50 lb dumbell)(use a lighter one if needed but it should be heavy)
20 Push-ups
Technique:
Kettlebell (or dumbell swings)
Push-ups
And that’s it. Slam through it as fast as you can and you’re done!
Here’s a sample “6-minute abs” program you might do at Athlon Elite…
-Intermediate Level-
- Do these exercises in supersets (A series, then B series) with no rest between exercises.
- Rest 30 seconds before repeating the superset one more time.
- Then move immediately to the next superset without rest.
1A) Side Plank – 20 second hold per side
- No rest
1B) Stability Ball Rollout – 5 reps (2-0-1)
- Rest 30 seconds before repeating one more time.
2A) Bird Dog (some may call it the quadruped) – 6 reps per side with a 3 second hold at the top (1-3-1)
- No rest.
2B) X-Body Mountain Climber (slower than regular) – 5 reps per side (1-0-1)
- Rest 30 seconds before repeating one more time.
You’ll be shocked at the results you can get in just 6 minutes.
(they’re pretty ugly if you ask me but what do I know… they’re definitely not the best way to lift your buttocks that’s for sure)
Many people out there might say, "you don’t need to train the butt… Victoria’s Secret now has ‘butt-lifting jeans.’ " However, the weakness that I was referring to yesterday needs to be addressed for functional reasons… it’s an athletic issue (though addressing weak buttocks will have an aesthetic effect too… I’ll bet all the money in my pocket that after going through the "butt-training" routine below you won’t need to blow a dime at Victoria’s Secret… at least not on their jeans )
Yesterday we saw that a lack of strength in the butt/hip, more specifically the gluteus medius, can greatly affect your running mechanics, hence increasing your risk of injury. Many physical therapists will tell you that they often see weaknesses in the gluteus medius (butt region). Personally, I have found this to be true as well in people with chronic low back pain, but that’s another blog post.
So, to really stengthen your buttocks and improve your running mechanics (and appearance in jeans) you need to do a functional butt strengthening routine (and not those "leg kick-back things" they do in aerobics classes). Below are two exercises out of our unique "Pre-hab" routine here at Athlon Elite that will strengthen your butt muscles like never before and get you moving very athletically, pain free:
The Single-Leg Posterolateral Reach
We like to do 2-3 sets of 6 reps each leg. Form is key here. Make sure your knee cap stays over your big toe and your belly button stays pointing directly forward.
And,
The Single-Arm, Single-leg Cable Row
Hannibal does a decent job here though he should be completely extending the hip at the top by standing really tall. Do the same sets and reps as the exercise above.
There are other exercises in this routine and many modifications depending on the person’s needs but these two will make a big difference in your hip strength and will definitely "lift your jeans rather than your jeans needing to lift your butt!"
Sign-up today for a FREE consultation on how we can incorporate these effective butt exercises into your routine to have better running mechanics (and more firm buttocks). Call 805-440-0215 or click the Get Started button at the top of this page and submit the form.
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