Workout – Perform Well and Even Beat That PR
If you’ve got your sights on a race or an obstacle event in 2019, logging miles and hours on the treadmill might help you train for repetition and the sheer grueling aspect of time passing. But that’s not all there is to endurance. Your body’s efficiency is crucial to expending energy with minimal waste, not to mention wear and tear—so that you can keep pace and power for a long, long time.
This workout incorporates resistance and body-weight movements that help your body learn to operate efficiently—so that your muscles, tendons and ligaments function together to an advantage. With efficiency of movement, the speed of your movement begins to change. In fact, the energy you save goes to a better performance.
With the goal of performance also comes a mental benefit: enjoyment and even pride. Disruptors such as physical or mental stress, too little sleep or poor nutrition have a direct, adverse effect on performance outcomes. Therefore, downgrading the stressors (rather than the workout) is what will help you adapt this workout and pursue this goal. One significant way to accomplish this “downgrade” and reduce disruptors is to reframe your idea of success in terms of small increments of steady improvement over your own performance, not someone else’s.
Warm-Up
Workout
- Perform 15 to 20 reps of each movement before moving on to the next.
- Do the movements in sequence to complete one circuit; perform two to three circuits.
- Choose weight that’s heavy enough to create fatigue but not total exhaustion.
Squat Hold
- Begin standing with your feet wider than your hips, hands at your sides.
- Sit your hips back and down, bending your knees and placing your weight in your heels. Let your hands come forward to meet in front of your chest for balance.
- Stop your hips at knee height, and hold the squat for five to 10 seconds.
- Push through your heels to return to stand. Repeat.
Ice Skater
- Stand with your feet a bit wider than shoulder-width apart and your knees slightly bent.
- Bend deep at the knees and lower your hips, keeping your torso upright, spine aligned and head up.
- Shift your weight onto your left foot, and then leap explosively as far as you can to your right. Land softly with your right knee bent and your left leg extended behind you to the outside of your right leg.
- Let your arms swing through the motion and across your body.
- Quickly leap as far left as you can, and continue to alternate sides. Both sides count as one rep.
- Modify it: If your disruptors are high, slow it down. You’ll reduce neural demand but sustain calorie burn.
Dumbbell Deadshift
- Begin standing with your feet wide, toes slightly pointed out and dumbbells next to your right foot.
- Shift your weight into your right hip and sit back into your hip, bending your right knee and reaching down for the dumbbells.
- Hold the dumbbells, then press out of your right heel to lift them up to stand. Turn and shift your weight into your left hip, bending your left knee to place them next to your left foot.
- Release the dumbbells, then hold them again.
- Press out of your left foot to lift the dumbbells to stand. Repeat, alternating sides. Both sides count as one rep.
Split-Stance Band Row
- Begin standing with your feet under your hips, a band under your right foot and holding the band in both hands.
- Step your left leg back and hinge forward over your right leg, keeping your right knee soft. Row your hands up toward your ribs, sending your elbows straight up and squeezing your shoulder blades together.
- Row the band back down. Repeat.
Cool-Down
Photo credit: Studio Firma, Stocksy
GIFs: Mark Kuroda, kurodastudios.com
Model credit: Kevin Teng, 24 Hour Fitness