If you’ve ever walked into the gym without a game plan for your workout, here’s a 30-minute weight training routine that will take all the guesswork out of what do and how.
Trainer Doug Quinlivan at Ascent Fitness in Denver said, “If it’s one of those days and you don’t want to put a lot of brainpower behind coming up with your own workout, this is a good way to go and get it done.”
Doug says it’s safe to do this routine every other day because you’re not lifting heavy weight, therefore your muscles don’t need the longer recovery time.
The goal with this routine is to do rest as little as possible in order to keep your heartrate up. Do each move 20 times and move onto the next exercise. Repeat three times.
Start with a chest press. You can do this on a machine or with free weights, anything that engages your pectoral muscles.
Then, a lat pull down to engage your upper back and lats. “As you do this you want to focus on pinching your shoulders blades together there in the back. Imagine you’re trying to squeeze my hand right there as you pull down,” Doug said.
Next, a tricep extension. Grab the bar and keep your elbows fixed at your sides as you pull down and straighten your arms. Doug said, “We don’t want to pull this down back to the thighs, you want to push it straight down in front of you. What we’re looking for is a nice straight line because that’s when your tricep is most extended.”
Now, work the front of the arm with a bicep curl. Keep your shoulder and elbow stationary and flex and squeeze at the top of the curl.
Then move onto a shoulder press. Let the dumbbells touch at the top while you position your back flat against the back of the bench.
After one set of those, move onto a core exercise. With a bicycle crunch you can get it all done in one. “If you do this right we’re working the upper abs, lower abs and obliques,” said Doug.
Finally, work out your legs with a leg press that will target all those lower stabilizing muscles at once.
Doug said it should take about 30 minutes to complete the full circuit.