Awesome Intervals

By on September 23, 2010
Awesome Conditioning

I always look forward to a conditioning session, call me  masochist but I need to be pushing my limits every training session. To get anywhere in life you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. There is no growth in comfort, so if you are not going to put in 100% effort when you train and push the envelope you are not going to get where you want to be.

Mix it up

There are an abundance of exercises that can be used with different goals in mind. I enjoy the challenge of creating new routines, with different training protocols such as Intervals, Circuits, Tabata etc. If I do stick with a routine it is because I am getting a measure of progress, say if I am measuring endurance or power, whether my work capacity is improving or if I want to achieve a certain level of conditioning.

Awesome Intervals

Check out this interval circuit I tried out today, my focus was on power and endurance. This is as tough as you make it so I suggest you dig deep, bite the bullet and get it on!

  1. Lateral Burpee Pushup
  2. Explosive Step ups
  3. Dips
  4. Box Jumps
  5. Med Ball Slams
  6. Skipping rope (Double Unders)
  7. Med Ball Squats
  8. Narrow Push ups

Inverted Rows – Finisher

Although a standard definition of an interval is performing an exercise then performing rest, I have enhanced this protocol by grouping the above exercises as one unit and so performed 30 seconds of each without rest until the circuit is complete. Then I rested for a minute. You can judge your work capacity this way by seeing how quickly you recover after completing each round of exercises. I performed six rounds of this interval circuit and man it was a killer.

I finished the session off with bodyweight inverted rows, a great way to hit your back in an explosive fashion, in this instance I set a rep range so I could push more out before reaching failure.

A little over 30 minutes and you are done. Of course if you are pushed for time or if you are just starting out you can cut the amount of rounds or reduce the amount of exercises to suit your needs. Just don’t do it to make it easy!

To get a great overview on why conditioning is so important, get over to straighttothebar.com and check out my article.

I haven’t listed exercise descriptions here, but if anyone is unsure about how to perform the exercises then drop me a comment below.

Be strong

Dean

 

 

About Dean Coulson

• International Best Selling Author of the Fit Formula • Feature writer on Nutrition for the Uk’s biggest selling Martial arts magazine – Martial Arts Illustrated • Presenter & speaker - Tour the UK with Bafta Award Winning writer Geoff Thompson. (www.geofthompsoninspired.com ) • Owner and Performance coach at Assert Fitness Ltd. Taking our clients Dreams and makes them a reality, through the realms of coaching all aspects of health and fitness to busy professionals. • www.assert-fitness.co.uk , www.deancoulson.co.uk

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  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention Awesome intervals for improving your work capacity | All Round Athlete -- Topsy.com

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