Anytime, Anywhere. A Basic No-Kit Workout.

Hammy the Hamster may need a barbell for a good workout, but you don't! Get fit and strong with your bodyweight.

So, you have just finished bootcamp and you are looking and feeling awesome, and you are off on your holidays or back to work and don't want to lose all the hard earned gains that you have made. As well as keeping the diet clean you will need to keep on training in order to keep on feeling and looking good. Here is a basic workout that you can do anytime, anywhere to keep yourself fit, lean and strong.

This is a circuit workout where you will complete all the exercises back to back without rest to raise the intensity of the session. If you have a stopwatch then use that and do each exercise for 30 to 50 seconds. If you don't have a stopwatch then do 10-15 repetitions of each exercise. For each exercise I will list a basic and advanced version depending on your ability.

Warm Up: Methodically move all of your major joints in all directions starting with ankles, knees, hips etc. Run or jog to raise your pulse and body temperature. Perform a few of each exercise with good form to prepare the body.

Circuit:

Squat/Squat Jump

Press Up/Narrow Hand Press Up

20 Metre Sprint (If indoors sprint on spot)

Lunge/Rear Lunge With Toe Touch

Jumping Jack/Jumping Jack with Ankle Touch

Mountain Climbers

It really is that simple! Complete the whole circuit and then rest for 2 minutes and repeat again. You can do it as many times as you want depending on time available and your fitness level. The key is intensity - do a good warm up and then SMASH the circuit - NO MESSING AROUND!!

Stay Strong

Ben

My First Go At EDT

Escalating Density Training is a training system designed to make maximum gains in muscular strength and endurance, whilst burning fat and all in minimal time. It was developed by Charles Staley, a renowned strength coach who was fed up with the normal sets and reps approach to weight training and wanted to get the maximum amount of hard work into a session. Sounds too good to be true, so I did some research and tried it out for the first time today.

In more conventional hypertrophy training approaches you would try and fatigue the muscle or muscle group over a number of sets, training to failure and typically doing 3 sets of 8-12 reps. With EDT the idea is to "manage" muscle fatigue by using the same weight that you may otherwise use and doing sets of only 5 reps. The real difference is that your workout is divided into a number of zones, each comprising opposing exercises for instance a bench press and bent over row. A zone is usually 15 minutes and within that time you carry out as many sets of 5 reps of each exercise as possible and record that number. 5 reps bench followed by 5 reps rows non-stop for 15 minutes!!! Then rest for about 5 minutes and complete your second zone or two opposing exercises. Over a series of workouts you record your results and once you have improved your score by 20% you increase the weight.

This evening I used an adapted approach using hardly any kit in my front room:
1st Zone
10 Press Ups (hands in low position as if doing planche press up)
5 Pull Ups (mostly overhand grip but some sets underhand as could not do any more!)
2nd Zone
5 Sumo Squats with Kettlebell
5 Pull Overs with Resistance Bands

My results:
I managed 22 sets of zone 1 and 23 sets of zone 2.
It felt good and I got a full sweat on and a really intense pump too.
Next time I will need to adjust the exercises a bit as the squats were too easy and I lost intensity on zone 2.

I will modify the workout and let you know how I get on. Have you ever done EDT? If so let me know how you train and why!

Stay strong

Ben