4 Ways to Level Up Your Workout

Jonathan Woods
Oct 5, 2020
3 min read

Consider the following four strategies to bring your workout routine to the next level:

1. Add Instability: When combining multiple muscle groups at a time in one exercise, you use more of your entire body, and target your core, by performing exercises that engage stabilizing muscles, therefore increasing intensity (and calorie burn). Traditional stable exercises can be performed instead using an exercise ball, standing with one foot on an elevated surface, with the legs in a staggered stance, or standing on one leg at a time. For example: -During a dumbbell bench press: substitute the bench for a stability ball or push only one arm at a time -During a plank: a client recently told me she likes to lift up one supporting limb at a time for a few seconds in a clockwise sequence, stabilizing on only one hand and two legs, or two arms and one leg at a time, etc. 2. Reduce Resistance: "what? don't you mean add resistance?", you say. I do mean reduce it FOR NOW. In other words, reduce how much weight you're using so you can get the move down in perfect form first, so you can hit the right muscles and feel it where you're supposed to feel it. Then later you can add resistance to make the now-you're-doing--it-right move more effective by adding weight.

For example: -When performing a basic squat, if you don't feel like your back, knees, hips, toes, and feet are lined up properly yet, reduce the weight or hold no weight at all until you're starting to hit that booty and leg sweet spot. Don't know how to do a proper squat? . 3. Increase Resistance: The more resistance that you incorporate with your routine translates into higher intensity and more calories burned. And guess what? that doesn't alway mean lift heavier things. So if you don't have a fully equipped gym that's ok. You can also increase resistance by changing the angle/leverage of some moves. For example, if you can get good at doing a pushup on the wall, then you're ready for a pushup on the couch, then on a low stair step, then the floor, etc.

For example: -Carrying dumbbells while doing lunges (hint: get creative in how you hold them to add even more intensity), wearing a weighted vest while walking or jogging, or holding a weight between the feet while doing reverse crunches.

4. Add Intervals: Interval training is an amazing tool for creating short yet effective workouts, therefore raising the heart rate and torching more calories without doing a long workout. This can be as simple as looking at the clock in your kitchen and doing a few reps of an exercise every time the second hand hits 12, or as complex (and fun!) as using the countdown timers on your phone to do several exercises within a predetermined amount of time. I'll explain...

For example: Tomorrow, following a warm-up, you decide you're going to cut out about 1/2 hour of time at 9:00 am to do 4-6 exercises, performing each one for 45 seconds at a time, and resting for 15 seconds in between, incorporating pushing, pulling, rotating, and pressing movements. That's one round. Then you rest for 1-2 minutes between rounds. 2-3 rounds go by and you've finished a full workout (Then take notice how much more intense it felt versus if you were to not use intervals!)

P.S. If you don't want to go it alone in taking your workouts to the next level, I encourage you to get 21 days for just $21 of online personal training by clicking here