Monday, April 2, 2012

My Cardio Circuit Training Weightlifting Workouts to Lose Weight


People who knew me at my Sumo weight are awed by my body's transformation when they see me now!  And things really accelerated for my with my cardio/circuit training/weightlifting workouts that I designed for myself.

My workouts consist of 3 phases:

1:  Warm-up on the treadmill – initially for 15 minutes when I 1st started Phase 2.  Now it’s for 1 mile – which is about 8 minutes.

2:  Stretching

3:  Weightlifting/cardio.

For #3, I did exercises in a circuit – I would do 10 reps of one exercise, then move immediately to the next exercise without a break. 

My exercises included either weightlifting or body weight exercises that targets all the major muscles from shoulders to legs.  Therefore I did exercises for the following:

  • Shoulders
  • Chest
  • Stomach
  • Biceps
  • Triceps
  • Lats
  • Thighs
  • Hamstrings
  • Calves (sometimes)



I worked out 3x per week at my neighborhood Rec center.  I would do a youtube search for exercises for each body part, and in my case, I used dumbbells.  For example, to find a shoulder exercise, I would type in “shoulder workout with dumbbells”.  I would pick 1 exercise, and do it for a month, then switched it up to another exercise.

My #1 Tip regarding Cardio:
Any exercise that involves running or jumping is guaranteed to get your heart rate up!
I did Burpees with push-ups (which covered the chest portion of the workout) for at least 6 months as part of my circuit training.  After that, I incorporated various exercises that involved some sort of jumping.


Circuits
One circuit would be to do 10 reps of all 8-9 muscle groups without stopping.  Then I would take about a 30 sec – 1 min water break, then start the next circuit.

One workout would be 3 circuits.  The workout would typically last about 1 hour and 15 minutes.  I was able to cut the time down as I found some combination exercises (multiple muscle groups at once) on youtube.

I did circuit training/weightlifting/cardio throughout the entire Phase #2 of my weight loss!  You can only imagine the body transformation & the weight falling off coupled with the eating habits I developed in Phase #1 of my weight loss!

You'll notice from my Weight Management Timeline, I lost about 15 pounds in one month doing this workout!

2 comments:

  1. Burpees seem to be the best total body workout. I love that you can do them anywhere. Looks like a great exercise plan!

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