Strength Basics

Getting stronger, fitter, and healthier by sticking to the basics. It's not rocket science, it's doing the simple stuff the right way. Strength-Basics updates every Monday, plus extra posts during the week.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Quick Conditioning Finishers

I've been using a few quick-and-easy conditioning "finishers" with my clients. We do them right at the end of a workout, to get in a good hard finish, burn some energy, and hopefully improve their recovery times for next time.

All of these are done either for a given time (usually 60 seconds, with 60 seconds rest) or for timed reps (say, 10-15 reps, aiming to complete the reps in as short a time as possible).

Goblet Squat/Reverse Lunge/Reverse Lunge. Keep the dumbbell in the goblet position for all three. How many triplets can you do in 60 seconds, or how fast can you do 15/15/15? Once that gets easy, up the weight of the dumbbell.

Get-Ups. These can be Turkish Get-Ups, with weight, or just getting down on the floor, touching both shoulders to the mat, and standing back up without any regard for "technique." People already know how to get off the floor, so just let them do that. Do it fast 50 times, alternating sides, and then do it again for another 1-2 more rounds. If 50 is too much, go for time.

Running in Place/Burpees. For half the round, run in place as fast as you can. Then do burpees for the rest of the round (not the pushup kind). If you're into MMA, just sprawl and get back up instead of true burpees.

Mountain Climbers/Tuck Jumps. Same as before, but half/half of mountain climbers and jumps.

That's just a few simple conditioning "finishers" you can do. I'm sure you can come up with more. I just like to keep it simple, so the challenge is finishing hard, not using proper technique while tired.

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