This weeks workout requires 1-2 sets of Dumbbells and a little bit of floor space.

This workout can be performed at the busiest of gyms or even at home if you have a couple of pairs of dumbbells.

It has two upper body and two lower body exercises. Two of the exercises cover the back side of the body and two of the exercises train the front side of the body.

All in all, it leads to a well balanced fitness and fat loss workout that will develop a lean fit injury free body.

Warm Up:

• Perform the 4 exercises for 10 repetitions each at 50% of the weight you are going to use during the session.
• If you have time, perform another 5 repetitions of each exercise @ 75% of the weight you are going to be using.

The Workout:

• You can perform this exercise using two different formats.
• Format 1: Perform the 4 exercises for 10 reps each. Rest for 1 minute and repeat for 9 more rounds.
• Format 2: Perform the 4 exercises for 20 reps each. Rest for 90 Seconds and repeat for 4 more rounds.
• Each format totals 400 reps.

Cooldown:

• Walk on the treadmill or cycle for 2-3 mins and then stretch or just stretch the major muscles used.

Enjoy and comment below if you need alternatives for the exercises.

Wow. Lengthy title.

Why Full Body Workouts?

If you are super busy and have limited time to train at the gym you may as well learn the best method of training to get maximum results in minimum time.

Enter full body workouts. I have attached a video below showing you a perfect example of a full body workout for you to use at the gym.

Full body workouts are weight training sessions that include an exercise for each of your major muscle groups (chest, back, glutes i.e bum muscles, hamstrings on the back of your legs, quads on the front of your legs).

I almost always use full body routines with my personal training clients for a few specific reasons explained below.

1. Full body workouts give you a chance to train as many muscles as possible in one session and burn the most calories.

Exercises for your chest, back and legs will burn a lot more calories than biceps curls or sit ups. These are exercises that use the smaller muscles anyway to assist the main muscles to lift. We like to call them "Bang for your buck" exercises.

Using weight training as a method for fat loss must be done with high volume, large muscle group exercises to burn as much energy as possible during the session.

2. Repetition is the key to learning.

When you train at the gym, full body workouts allow you to train each muscle group a few times per week. This allows you to practise perfect technique and improve your inter muscular coordination. 

3. They are perfect for people who have limited time.

Full body weight training workouts allow you to train each muscle group a few times per week instead of one big session for each muscle group.  You can rest on non consecutive days and protect your body from getting too much post workout soreness. 

Therefore the quality of your workouts improve.

Check out two different  examples of full body workouts that you can use at the gym.

You can perform exercises in pairs, in three's or fours' or as a circuit. It's up to you and how much equipment you can get at the gym.

The main points are:

• Use big exercises like chest presses, back exercises, step ups, lunges, squats, machine leg presses, push ups.
• Go from upper body to lower body to allow the body to rest between exercises and keep up the intensity of the workout. Many people are not conditioned enough to perform two heavy leg exercises in a row but they can do a chest exercise followed by a leg exercise and still recover in time for the second round.
• Try to train on non-consecutive days. I.e Monday weights. Tuesday rest or easy cardio. Wednesday weights. Thursday, rest or intervals. Friday weights.

Give it a go. I have lots of videos on my youtube channel and examples of different workouts here on my blog.

​Email me [email protected] if you are stuck for ideas or you have questions about the workouts.

Here is our latest home fitness workout.

It does require one resistance band. I recommend buying a set of resistance bands because they can be used for hundreds of exercises and are extremely versatile.

This workout combines 2 upper body exercises, 2 lower body exercises and 2 cardio exercises to give a well rounded fitness workout.

Try it out and see how you go. The video below shows all the exercises.

Warm Up:

• Perform each exercise for 20 seconds to warm up the entire body.

The Workout:

• Perform each exercise for 1 minute.
• Rest for 1-2 mins.
• Repeat for 4-6 more rounds.

Cooldown:

• Quick walk or stretch.

If you are struggling to get fit or need some professional guidance designing a program, give us a call and we can help with a variety of different programs to suit.