Add in the finisher!!!

As seen in many of my recent posts everyone in the fitness industry is gearing up for the summer. Refining their diet, cutting the calories and bringing their intensity up when working up. This doesn't mean however everything must be high reps, you can still lift heavy but add in these few little points and you will add in intensity without even realising it!!

Stick to compound lifts
Add the beginning of every session stick to the big lifts for the muscle groups you're training, thus engaging more muscles meaning more fuel is required for these to function and a greater number of calories burnt. Furthermore your heart rate will hit sky high due to the sheer amount of effort that is required on these exercises.

Contraction, contraction, contraction!!
When training pay extra focus to the contraction of the muscle when doing a certain exercise. Things such as tempo in which you're performing the exercise and the stretch and squeeze which I talk about so much. This will in turn make the muscle work a great deal harder not only building and conditioning the muscle but requiring more energy to perform the exercise.

Cardio Mini Blast
These are one of the favourite things I use with clients and is as simple as just adding a quick 20 second cardio blast on the end of a set. These could be running on the spot, jumping lunges, burpees or even star jumps, anything that will just increase the heart rate. This will burn those extra few calories, get a better sweat on but more importantly build a better metabolic rate.

The Finisher
This is something I've really started to include in my workouts and is basically just a simple circuit of some kind to finish off the workout. I always like to use compound exercises from the workout I'm doing to fatigue the muscle group I'm training further but also to act as a HIIT/cardio session on the back end of my workout. Here are a few examples.

Legs - 8 rounds in the quickest time of:
6 Front Squats
12 Back Squats
5 Burpees

Back - As many rounds a possible (AMRAP) 10 minutes:
10 Deadlifts
5 Pulls Ups
5 Burpees.

You get the idea, all being very simple but so effective on the end of a workout and there you have it. A few simple ideas that can get you really working hard in the gym to get that summer body ready.

Train hard, look great on the beach!!!

Jack