I’ve been doing weight training and intervals on the treadmill for the last 4 weeks. This week, I wanna do something different… bodyweight exercises (to build strength) and swimming (total body workout).
Personally, I find weight training builds muscle but not strength. Again, I’m speaking from my experience and for myself only. My upper body is weak, a common problem for most females. I manage to build strength in my shoulders, chest and arms by doing chest and tricep (close grip) push ups on toes (started on knees when I wasn’t strong enough).
Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training program (deluxe edition) offers many types of bodyweight workouts. I decided to try Bodyweight Turbulence Training Phase 2: Circuit Training Conditioning from the bonus book, Bodyweight TT 6-month Manual. There are 6 phases in this manual, from beginner to various advanced workout, where each phase is performed for 4 weeks before moving on.
I didn’t get to do Phase 2… because while in a hurry to go to the gym, I wrote down Bodyweight Turbulence Training Phase 3: Advanced Bodyweight Strength Training (workout A) instead! Only noticed my mistake only when I was at the gym. Anyway, I just went ahead with the Phase 3 bodyweight workout… which was tough and challenging. There are 5 supersets in a circuit. No rest between 2 exercises in a superset. Perform 3 rounds of each superset, with 1 minute rest after a superset, before moving to the next/new superset. Number of reps shown in bracket.
A1: Prisoner squat (15)
A2: Feet on ball push up (12)
B1: Bulgarian split squat (24)
B2: Chin up (Max 1)
C1: 1-leg ball curl (20)
C2: Spiderman push up (12)
D1: Walking lunge (24)
D2: Side plank leg lift (10)
E1: Rotate lunge (16)
E2: Ball jacknife (15)
This is only workout A.
There are 3 workouts in Phase 3: workout A, B & C, to be performed with a rest day in between.