Burn Archives | Pumps & Iron

Low Body Stacked Circuit Workout (Bodyweight or Dumbbells)

January 12, 2017 by Nicole 2 Comments

I mentioned a couple months ago that I took a trip to New Hampshire to teach a fitness class for the team at MegaFood to spotlight their Bone Health tablet. Strength training + the goodness in this supplement = happy bones.

When most people think of bone health, calcium is the first thing that comes to mind. And it is important, but in the right amount. Too much calcium can actually be a bad thing, as it goes to the arteries and can increase your risk of heart disease. It’s also worthwhile to note that men need less calcium than women, and in some cases shouldn’t be taking supplements containing it at all (a bone density test is the best way to know if this applies to you). Bone Health is specially formulated by Dr. Tieraona Low Dog with 500mg of calcium.

In addition to calcium, your bones need other vitamins and minerals. The tablets have 300mg of magnesium, 1000 IU of Vitamin D, Vitamin K1 and K2 and Vitamin C to help your body absorb the calcium.

If you’re taking one of MegaFood’s other multi vitamins, you’ll notice they don’t contain calcium and magnesium. These minerals are large so to keep the size of the tablets down, they’re found separately in Bone Health. Even with the separation, MegaFood can only fit so much of these minerals from food (if all 500mg of calcium came from food, the tablet would be MASSIVE) so the rest comes from rice amino acid chelate.

Ok now that you’re a pro with Bone Health, let’s talk about another big component of bone health: strength training. This is the low body portion of the class I taught the MegaFood team.

Low Body Stacked Circuit Workout

Equipment I Used

Pair of 10-lb dumbbells (can be done with just one or using bodyweight as well)

The structure of this workout is the same format as the Power class I used to teach at BURN (they just opened a beautiful second studio in the Back Bay–local readers should check out a class there!!) The circuit is stacked like a game of Simon. Each exercise is done for 30 seconds and the sets get longer as you add on exercises. So here’s a breakdown:

Exercise 1
Rest 30 sec
Exercise 1 + Exercise 2
Rest 30 sec
Exercise 1 + Exercise 2 + Exercise 3
Rest 30 sec

And so on until you’ve done all six exercises.

Weighted Squat – Squat Thrust Combo | Hold the dumbbells at shoulder height, feet about hip’s width apart and squat down, keeping your lower abdomen held in and sliding your bum and hips back and down. Once you reach your lowest squat, power up, driving your hips forward and engaging the glutes as you straighten your legs to stand. As you do so, press the dumbbells overhead into a shoulder press. Repeat, but without the thrust.

Truck Driver | Start by squatting down, weight in your heels, hips down and back, core engaged and chest open. Hold a dumbbell on the ends, palms facing in towards each other, and extend arms straight in front of you at chest height. You’re going to maintain this position the entire duration of the exercise. From here, you’re just going to rotate the weight in your hands, tipping one end up and then the other, as if your hand were on a steering wheel (hence the exercise name). Try not to bend the arms or let them drop below chest height as you rotate them back and forth.

Side Lunge to Knee Raise (alternate sides each set) | Start standing with one weight in your left hand at your shoulder. Step your right foot out wide to the side, bending that knee and sinking your hips back and down into a deep side lunge. As you do, bring the weight across your body towards the right foot. Press off that right foot to push yourself back up to standing, but instead of bringing your right foot to the floor, drive the knee up and into your chest and then lunge right back down to the side.

Jump Lunge | Start in a split-stance lunge: right foot in front, ball of left foot planted on the floor behind you. Both knees should be bent to 90 degrees, front knee aligned over ankle, back knee hovering just a couple inches off the floor. From here, push off your feet to jump up in the air, switching feet in mid-air and landing back in a lunge with left foot forward and right foot planted behind. Continue, alternating feet with each jump.

Single Leg Squat (alternate legs each set) | Keeping a flat back, chest open, and holding the weight in both hands, hover your left foot off the ground behind you and squat down on the right leg, lowering the weight towards the floor. If you need balance help, lightly touch the left foot on the ground behind you. Press back up a straight leg.

Squat Jack with Scoop | For the low body, think jumping jacks in a squat position. For the upper body, think paddling a canoe. This one can be like rubbing your stomach while patting your head, so don’t be frustrated if it feels uncoordinated at first—you can always eliminate the upper body movement and just hold the weight at your chest as you jump your feet in and out.

Start in a low squat position with feet wide, weight in your heels, low abs engaged, hips back and a dumbbell held at your chest with both hands. Staying low in a squat, jump your feet in close together as you scoop the dumbbell down and around to the left of your left leg. As the weight comes up and back to center, jump your feet out wide again to the starting position. Repeat, this time scooping the dumbbell down and around to the right side of your legs as you jump them close together. The goal is to stay low in a squat as you jack your feet in and out, fluidly scooping the dumbbell side to side like a figure eight or canoe oar.

WEARING | Michi NY leggings (old but this newer design is similar) // tank c/o Reebok (old but this muscle tank is similar) // Fabletics bra // Adidas neo sneakers (sold out but these are pretty darn close)

* This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

This post was sponsored by MegaFood. While I am a paid ambassador for the brand, all opinions–as always!–are my own. I truly love their products (and think you guys will, too!) and will be using them long after our partnership comes to a close. Outfit links are affiliate.

Filed Under: Burn, Hand Weights/Dumbbells, Lower Body, Video, Workouts

A Quick (But TOUGH) Rowing + Weights Circuit Workout

November 11, 2015 by Nicole 8 Comments

Want maximum ass kicking in minimum time? Incorporate sprints on the rower into your workout. Quick, killer row circuits are my go-to when planning classes using the row machine because they guarantee that I-hate-you glare from clients that turns immediately into that such-a-good-workout grin as soon as class ends.

Rowing Sprints + Weights Circuit Workout

Equipment I Used:

WaterRower GX (any row machine works!)
Set of 10-lb dumbbells
Exercise mat

Go through the following circuit four times, completing it as fast as you can without sacrificing proper form. You should be BEAT by the end. To give you some idea of timing, try to hit 2 min 30 sec or less with each of your 500m row sprints. The fastest times I’ve seen in class are 1:39 for the guys and 1:46 for the ladies. Your first sprint will most likely be your fastest (maybe your last one if you really empty the tank), but try to stay within 5-10 seconds of whatever you get on that first sprint when you get to your second, third and fourth rounds. If you’re new to rowing, this video is great for breaking down proper form:

500 meter sprints are no joke! I usually hit right around 1:50 on my first one and then that creeps up to 2mins+ by the end.

500m Row Sprint
10 Renegade Row to Push Ups | Start in a plank position holding dumbbells planted firmly on the ground beneath your shoulders (if this hurts your hands, place hands on the ground and just keep the dumbbells next to them so you can easily grab them for the rows). From this starting position, do a row on each side, first driving the right elbow up to the ceiling and then the left, lifting the dumbbell up close to the side of your body. Try to keep your hips level as you do this; don’t twist open towards the rowing side (having a wider stance with your feet will help accomplish this). After you’ve rowed each side, do a push up (lower to your knees for this if you need to modify. That’s one rep.
10 Full-Body Dumbbell Crunches | Start laying on your back with legs outstretched and hovering a couple inches off the ground. Holding a weight in your hands, arms should be outstretched overhead and hovering as well. From this starting position, crunch up, bringing your knees in towards your chest as you lift your shoulder blades off the ground and bring the weight up and over towards your shins. Extend back out, lowering to starting position. The goal is to never bring the legs and/or weight to rest on the ground when you extend back out.
10 Squat Thrust – Squat Jump Combo | Hold the dumbbells at shoulder height, feet about hip’s width apart and squat down, keeping your lower abdomen held in and sliding your bum and hips back and down. Once you reach your lowest squat, power up, driving your hips forward and engaging the glutes as you straighten your legs to stand. As you do so, press the dumbbells overhead into a shoulder press. Squat back down and this time perform a squat jump, keeping the weights at shoulder height. That’s one rep.

WEARING | She’s A Warrior Leggings by MINKPINK c/o Shopbop // Athleta tunic tank (old but similar here) // Nike sneakers

My friends at Shopbop recently sent me the She’s A Warrior Leggings by MINKPINK that I’m wearing in today’s post and I’m obsessed with them! The print is so fun. Here’s a little styling inspiration for transitioning them from the gym to everyday wear (because leggings are legitimate pants if you ask me) …

Enjoy your Wednesday! I’m heading to Reebok HQ out in Canton for a tour, boxing class and shopping spree–um what?? Not a bad way to spend a humpday at all … 🙂

What’s your best time for the 500m row sprint?

Filed Under: Activewear & Workout Style, Btone, Burn, Cardio, Fashion, Full Body, Group Fitness, Hand Weights/Dumbbells, Rowing, Workouts

30-Minute Tabata Workout

October 27, 2015 by Nicole 5 Comments

Hope everyone is having a great day so far! I was feeling ambitious and doubled up on classes this morning—a 6AM Btone followed by a 7:30 spin at B/Spoke. I was given a free month of FitReserve (similar to ClassPass but you can go to studios 4x a month and there are different membership/payment options), and was so excited to see B/Spoke on there. I went to my girl Steph’s class this morning and it kicked my butt per usual. I’ll go into more detail about FitReserve after I give it a full month’s test, but in the meantime you can get $50 off your first month if you sign up with THIS LINK.

Speaking of group fitness classes, I wanted to share a workout that is a truncated version of a tabata class I taught at BURN last month. I don’t regularly teach tabata, but I sub the class from time to time and always LOVE it! If you’re local and like to plan ridiculously far in advance, I’m also subbing it Thursday November 19^th & December 3^rd at 7:15pm. 🙂

Tabata Superset Workout

Equipment I Used:

10-lb dumbbells
Gliders (or a dish towel)
Exercise mat
Gymboss Interval Timer

A tabata is four minutes long: 8 rounds of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. For this workout, each tabata will consist of two exercises that you’ll alternate between: Exercise 1 for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, Exercise 2 for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, Exercise 1 for 20 seconds, etc. So even though there are eight rounds, you’ll only do each exercise four times.

Once you finish the first tabata, rest for 30 seconds (ish) and then move right onto the second tabata. In total, it will take you just over 30 minutes to complete the seven tabatas (taking rest into account).

Tabata 1

Lunge Sliders (alternate) | My fellow megaformer addicts will recognize these as “carriage pulls.” I love finding ways to recreate mega moves off the machine! Start in a low lunge with your right foot forward, knee bent to 90 degrees and stacked over the ankle. The ball of your back left foot should be planted on a dishtowel or slider. To make these harder, hold dumbbells at your shoulders, otherwise just use your bodyweight. Hinge forward at the hips so that the weight of your torso is slightly forward, over the target right leg. This will allow you to keep your back foot light.From this starting position, slide your back left foot forward, bending the knee in and staying low on your right side. Slide it back out behind you into the starting position and continue crunching that back knee in and extending it out. The goal is to keep your weight in the right heel the entire time, staying low (think isometric hold for the right leg)—as you slide the left foot in, try not to shift your bodyweight into that foot (it’s tempting!). Another small note about form—try not to grip the ground with your right toes. If you keep the toes light and the weight back in the right heel, you’ll feel your glute kick in and really start working. It’ll also help protect your knee.
Jump Lunges | Start in a split-stance lunge: right foot in front, ball of left foot planted on the floor behind you. Both knees should be bent to 90 degrees, front knee aligned over ankle, back knee hovering just a couple inches off the floor. From here, push off your feet to jump up in the air, switching feet in mid-air and landing back in a lunge with left foot forward and right foot planted behind. Continue, alternating feet with each jump.

Tabata 2

Squat Thrusters | Hold the dumbbells at shoulder height, feet about hip’s width apart and squat down, keeping your lower abdomen held in and sliding your bum and hips back and down. Once you reach your lowest squat, power up, driving your hips forward and engaging the glutes as you straighten your legs to stand. As you do so, press the dumbbells overhead into a shoulder press.
Shoulder Shaper – Press Up Combo | Start with arms in goal post position: elbows bent at 90 degrees at shoulder height. From here, maintaining those 90-degree bends, bring your forearms together in front of your face. Holding your forearms close together (make the number 11 with them and picture your elbows are magnets), press your fists up towards the ceiling in front of your face. This might only be a few inches up—that’s fine (it’s tough!). Reverse the combination, lowering your elbows back down to shoulder height and then opening your bent arms back open to goal-post position, squeezing your shoulder blades together as you do. Elbows should stay at shoulder height or higher (during the press up) the entire time—let that burn build!

Tabata 3

Sliding Bear Crunch to Pike | Start in a plank position with your feet on a towel. Keeping your hips level with your shoulders, back flat, slide your feet forward, bending your knees in towards your elbows. Slide feet back out, straightening your legs into plank position. Now, keeping your legs straight, pike your hips up into the air, bringing your body into an upside down “v” shape. Try to keep your heels lifted as you do this, sliding on the balls of your feet. Once you hit your peak (if you have tight hamstrings, you may not be able to get your hips up very high—that’s ok!), slowly lower back down into plank position.
Hand Release Push Ups | Start in a plank position and begin to bend your elbows as if you were doing a push up, but instead lower your body all the way to the ground. From here, lift your chest and hands off the ground, squeezing your upper back. Lower your hands back down to the ground by your rib cage and press your body back up into a high plank position.

Tabata 4

Bent Row – Reverse Fly Combo | Start standing with feet about hip’s width apart, a dumbbell in each hand. Have a slight bend in the knees and hinge forward with your torso, keeping the abs engaged and sending your hips back behind you. Start by rowing your elbows back up behind you. Extend the arms back down and then perform a reverse fly: keep a soft bend in the elbows as you pull the weights out wide to the side, squeezing your shoulder blades together and engaging the back. Return back to starting position and do a row, alternating back and forth between the two.
Dumbbell Burpees with Thruster | Start standing, feet about shoulder-width apart, elbows bent and dumbbells held at shoulders. Squat down, bringing the weights to the ground by your feet and jump both feet back into a plank position, still gripping the dumbbells. Quickly jump your feet back up by your hands and shift the weight into your feet, bringing your torso upright into a low squat position with weights back at shoulders. From here, stand up, pressing weights overhead. Squeeze your glutes and thrust your hips forward as you do this. Lower the weights and go immediately into your next rep.

Tabata 5

Seated Leg Circles (alternate directions) | Start in a seated position with your fingertips lightly on the ground behind you for support. Extend your legs straight out. From here, keeping your legs straight, you’re going to circle them over to the side, up, down to the other side and back down to a hover. Think of your feet as the hands on a clock. At 6 o’clock, your torso will be reclined back at a hover; at 12 o’clock, you’ll lift and crunch your torso up and in, bringing your body into a “v” shape. Fair warning: these can be uncomfortable if you have tight hips (bend your knees slightly to make it more manageable). Alternate the direction in which you circle your legs each interval you do this exercise (clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise).
Full-Body Crunch with Dumbbell | Start laying on your back with legs outstretched and hovering a couple inches off the ground. Holding a weight in your hands, arms should be outstretched overhead and hovering as well. From this starting position, crunch up, bringing your knees in towards your chest as you lift your shoulder blades off the ground and bring the weight up and over towards your shins. Extend back out, lowering to starting position. The goal is to never bring the legs and/or weight to rest on the ground when you extend back out.

Tabata 6

Squat Jacks with Oblique Scoop | For the low body, think jumping jacks in a squat position. For the upper body, think paddling a canoe. This one can be like rubbing your stomach while patting your head, so don’t be frustrated if it feels uncoordinated at first—you can always eliminate the upper body movement and just hold the weight at your chest as you jump your feet in and out.Start in a low squat position with feet wide, weight in your heels, low abs engaged, hips back and a dumbbell held at your chest with both hands. Staying low in a squat, jump your feet in close together as you scoop the dumbbell down and around to the left of your left leg. As the weight comes up and back to center, jump your feet out wide again to the starting position. Repeat, this time scooping the dumbbell down and around to the right side of your legs as you jump them close together. The goal is to stay low in a squat as you jack your feet in and out, fluidly scooping the dumbbell side to side like a figure eight or canoe oar.
Lunge Stomps (alternate) | Shout out to Barry’s Bootcamp for introducing me to these! Start in a low lunge position with your right foot forward, knee bent at 90 degrees and stacked directly over your ankle. Ball of the left foot is planted on the floor behind you, leg is long but knee is soft. To make these harder, hold dumbbells at your shoulders; otherwise, just use your bodyweight (it’ll still be challenging—I promise!). From here, you’re going to press off the right heel as you shift your weight into the back left foot enough to lift your right foot off the ground, slightly kicking it forward in the air before landing back down in that starting low lunge position. The slight outward kick will help you land in a knee-safe position with the right heel stacked under the knee (you don’t want the knee to ever be farther forward than the toes).

Tabata 7

Mountain Climbers | These are like doing high knees in a plank position. Start in a plank, hands stacked underneath shoulders, core squeezing in tight (don’t let your low back sag or your butt stick up in the air). From this position, drive one knee at a time up towards your chest, like running horizontally. The pace on these should be quick.
Army Crawls | Put your feet on a towel and get into a plank with your forearms at the end of an exercise mat. Army crawl your way up the length of the mat, one forearm in front of the other, maintaining the plank position as you slide forward. When you can no longer go any farther forward, reverse the motion, crawling your forearms backward towards the starting edge of the mat. As you move, try to keep your hips level in a plank. They’ll want to dip side to side with each step of the forearms; use your core strength to stabilize them. Beginners: you can do these from your knees, just make sure to add an extra towel for padding.