After a lackluster workout schedule for the past month and a half which has included a bachelor party, two weddings, birthday parties, and a bout with bronchitis, I’ve decided it’s time to once again perform an intense home workout routine. Fortunately, the last month and a half has actually primed my body for this type of intense workout. Of course, I did not lose any weight over the past 1 1/2 months, but I didn’t gain any either. My goal has been to stay on a maintenance schedule to make sure I was preserving my muscles without adding any fat to my body. This way I don’t have to be worried that my body will break down when I return to a much more aggressive workout routine.
First of all, the HIIT routine and strength training routine I’ve outlined below are not something you want to do on a regular basis. These routines are what I will incorporate every 3 or 4 months when I want to really blast the body fat. I will just do this regimen for about 30 days at a time. If I went any longer I’d be at risk for over-training. Even though I will be exercising more intensely, I am not going to do each move for a lot longer. Usually, I will work out 4 days each week, 45 minutes at a time. My goal for the next month is to workout 30-45 minutes per day, 6 days per week.
Since my goal is to have lean and really tight muscles, I keep my strength training routine to low reps and heavy weight training. To make my workout regimen more effective, I use supersets. This is the routine I’ll be using on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. For each move, I will perform 3 reps for 3 sets. But with dips and pull ups, I will perform 5 reps slowly. I will end my regimen with kickboxing. The first set for each exercise will be a warm up set using approximately 75% of the weight I do for the 3 rep sets. The warm up sets are always done as slow reps, which increases the time while under tension. I will rest for 2 minutes between each set, but I will also be doing the other movement that makes up the superset. I do not train until I can no longer lift the weight.
Since I workout at home, some of these supersets were put together for practical reasons. One example is pairing a dumbbell exercise with a barbell exercise so I don’t have to waste time changing weights. I also like to end my strength training routine with a kickboxing workout to accelerate my heart rate. Since I have participated in martial arts ever since I was a boy, I particularly like this kind of workout. I put weights on my ankles to get more tension for kicks, and I perform punches while holding 10 pound hand weights. Adding weight to a aerobic exercise causes fat to drop dramatically. Overall, my strength training routine runs for about 30 to 35 minutes. The breakdown is 6-7 minutes for each super-set, and roughly 5-10 minutes for kickboxing.
High intensity interval training (HIIT) is a great way to get really lean. My days for doing the HIIT routine are Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday. My HIIT routine is very high intensity, so I avoid doing any strength training for my legs. I start out the first section of my HIIT workout by doing a short interval of HIIT. I take 2 minutes to warm up and then do eight sets with 15 seconds of sprints at full speed, and 45 seconds of jogging. Since this releases fatty acids into my bloodstream, I like to perform 10-15 minutes of steady state cardio on the exercise bike afterward to burn those fatty acids. This exercise is also great for helping my legs recover as well.
Even though I’d normally finish up my workout with 10 minutes of a long pause HIIT that usually includes a a fast 1 minute run followed by 1 minute of slow jogging, I have decided to change my usual routine slightly. My new plan is to do a plyometrics routine that will involve everything from step ups to calf raises, to broad jumps. It takes approximately 10 minutes to complete, which means it does the same thing as a HIIT long interval regimen because it lowers the amount of glycogen and raises the amount of lactic acid. This provides a prolonged fat burn following the regimen. In addition, my legs end up being strengthened a lot more with plyometrics than regular cardio. The total time for this workout is around 30-35 minutes as well.
As this intense workout regimen is performed for the month, be sure to eat properly. I perform intermittent fasting twice per week but also clean up the rest of my diet. Many people can perform strength training on fasting days but I like my lower calorie days to coincide with HIIT days and higher calorie days to coincide with strength training days. Therefore I fast on Mondays and Fridays. Wednesday is my day to pass on breakfast and create additional calorie reduction. During this month, I will also somewhat restrict calories on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Sunday will be my cheat day to let my body restore leptin levels.
I also choose to eat a lot cleaner than normal. Monday’s dinner will consist of vegetables, a high quality protein, and dessert will be fruit. I will not eat sugar or saturated fat on Wednesday either. Even though I restrict my calories on some other days (except for Sunday), I do give myself permission to indulge in a few low calorie, light snacks. However, the rule is anything goes on Sundays, which keeps me from allowing my diet to control my lifestyle (and I love BBQs in the summer!).
What I have outlined will give me an extremely intense home workout, but I will take it even farther during the last couple of weeks. That’s when 10 minutes of a circuit training workout is added to my strength training routine, which increases the fat that’s burned while still keeping my muscle tone. I will also add a Tabata workout (20 second sprint, 10 second rest for 8 sets; a total of 4 minutes) to my HIIT routine on Saturday and Wednesday (too intense to perform on Monday as well). Lastly, I will not eat breakfast on Thursday and Tuesday mornings to lesson my calorie intake even more.
My expectation is that this HIIT routine and strength training routine will blast me through a fat loss plateau during the next month. After this time, I will lower how intense my regimen is to make sure I do not overwork my body.