Skip to main content

How to Balance the Beach Body you WANT with the Movement you NEED!


How to Balance the Beach Body you WANT, with the Movement you NEED!
Now that the weather is getting sunny everyone is rushing to the gym to try and get Beach Body Ready. When you think of beach bodies, you think of the term “Mirror Muscles”. These are all the muscles that look good in the mirror. Now, i would like to say that I dont think its a bad thing to train these muscles. ALL of us at some level care how we look without clothes on. There is not a person on the planet that has not flexed in front of the bathroom mirror or did a few modeling poses before a shower, haha. The issue arises when you Overtrain these muscles and it causes muscular imbalances that lead to pain or injury. 
I for one am guilty of this form of training. In my earlier years all I did was workouts right out of muscle and fitness. I really thought that I could look like those guys by drinking protein shakes and lifting (boy was I wrong). However, it was a great learning experience. I am also guilty of Only doing movement style workouts and not looking the way i like to look. SOOOOO, what I did was come up with a program that balances my Need to move with my Want to look good with my shirt off. This format of training was made, developed, and used for ME and ME only. It works for ME. This is how I train. Therefore there is no scientific study behind it, it is not meant for everyone, it is not used on my clients, it is not used for our athletes at FLO. I must put that info in for all those “Super Trainers” out there. They send me emails quoting all the lines from the text books they train out of and debate every exercise idea that does not agree with the “Guru” they follow. 
Ok, so here is the format I use. 
Soft Tissue - 4 to 5 body parts that will be used that day. 
Dynamic Warm Up and Activation- 6 to 8 exercises that will get me moving properly
Total Body- 1 total body exercise that works on the body parts im doing that day
Beach Time - 2 Exercises that focus on developing that body part
Circuit Finish - I normally finish with a circuit that will balance out the energy of the workout, tone the arms, or sometimes just do an ab circuit. 
There are many factors that decide why each exercise was chosen and also why the rep range is the way it is. One BIG factor is time. I only have about 45 min to 1 hour to workout so I have to get in, get it done and get out. Once again, i stress that this is what I do. One size does not fit all but it may help some people balance movement and looks. 
Here is an example of what todays workout was. 
Foam Rolled

Calf
45 sec
Quad
45 sec
Glute
45 sec
Back/ Lats
1 min
Movement

 1- Leg Hip Press
1 set
12 reps
Birddogs
1 set
12 reps
Retraction w/ Bands
1 set
12 reps
1 Leg RDL
1 set
12 reps
Lateral Lunge w/ Rotation
1 set
12 reps
Pull Ups
1 set
12 reps
Total Body Exercise

Trap Bar Deadlift
5 sets
10, 8, 5, 5, 5
Beach Body 

T-Bar Rows
4 sets
8, 8, 6, 6
Slow Tempo Lat Pulldowns
3 sets
10
Circuit Finish

Bicep Curls 
4 rounds
12
Push Ups w/ T 
4 rounds
20
Bosu Crunches
4 rounds
25

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rotational Athletes and why you MUST know about the Serape Effect

The Rotational Athlete  In today’s blog we will be discussing a pattern in the overhead/rotational athlete, called the “Serape Effect”. Gene A. Logan and Wayne C. McKinney introduced the Serape Effect to us in their book, “Kinesiology” a couple centuries ago.  The Serape Effect gets its name from a Mexican garment that is draped loosely over the shoulders and is crossed in front of the body.  The muscles involved in the serape effects are the rhomboids, serratus anterior, external obliques and internal obliques. “The Serape Effect incorporates several major concepts which are vital to the understanding of movement. In ballistic actions such as throwing and kicking, the serape muscles add to the summation of internal forces. They also transfer internal force from a large body segment, the trunk, to relatively smaller body parts, the limbs. For example, the serape effect functions in throwing by summating, adding to, and transferring the internal forces generated ...
2 comments
Read more

Are you brave enough for a COLD SHOWER?

Why I Take Cold Showers And You Should Too For the past three years I’ve taken a cold shower almost every single day. You might think I’m crazy and at first; trust me, at first I thought I was too. But hold your judgment, hear me out, give it a try and then you can thank me. What are the benefits of cold showers? 1.     Improve Mood A 2007 study looked at how cold showers affected people with depression. Here is what the authors of the study hypothesized: “Exposure to cold is known to activate the sympathetic nervous system and increase the blood level of beta-endorphin and noradrenaline and to increase synaptic release of noradrenaline in the brain as well. Additionally, due to the high density of cold receptors in the skin, a cold shower is expected to send an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings to the brain, which could result in an anti-depressive effect.” The study ended up finding that cold showers of 2-3...
3 comments
Read more

A Few Tips on Public Speaking

A Few Tips on Public Speaking    Recently I took a course on public speaking by a group called "own the room".  I felt it was a very helpful course and I wanted to share some of my major takeaways with you all.     As many people may guess, public speaking is one of the greatest fears of most people. It is also the best way to get your message across to large groups of people at the same time. In the fitness business, it is necessary to constantly get your face exposed in the community you work in.  This will help you gain exposure and more exposure equals more business. The following tips may help you get more comfortable with public speaking.  Start off with a BANG! Don't stand there and talk bout yourself for 20minutes. If people are coming to see you talk they already assume you are qualified to speak. Start off with a story, quote, poem, riddle,joke,  etc. Something that will grab their attention. The audience  decides ...
2 comments
Read more