I follow this schedule the best I can, but obviously it differs a bit from time to time, depending on the weeks events. One thing I never do is miss a leg day.. If I am going to miss a day then i miss a cardio or chest day. Legs are very important for getting your testosterone up and creating mass... (for women this should be your focus, your go to workout, nothing better than fit legs and a round toned butt) The more muscle you have the easier it is to burn fat. It will just melt off. So the week is laid out some thing like this:
Monday: Chest and Tris
Always make one of your lifts a free weight dumbbell workout; either bench or incline bench. (decline bench is useless, only used as a ego booster) and so are machines. They dont let you use your stabalizing muscles and you can't heal correctly if you only use machines. Medicine ball push-ups are bomb at the end of a workout. You can super-set them with dips to really finish your chest and tris off. My favorite for tris are skull crushers, over head pull-overs, narrow grip bench and cable kickbacks.
Tuesday: Abs and Cardio
For abs anything that has you suspended in the air is best. Leg lifts, medicine ball throws, knee to bars, and hanging scissors are a few. Just sit-ups and crunches are a waste of time and are to specific on isolation. If you do the correct workouts and go nonstop it will only take 15 minutes to completely destroy your abs, so dont waste time on them. Just fast and hard! For cardio I do a crossfit circuit (I use a sweet ap on my phone called icross WoD and its free) I get different workouts from there. At least once a week I run to the local high school and back which is two miles. While i'm at the school I go in the stadium and do 20 hill sprints and a couple 100 meter sprints. Go all out and time your sprints for fun. Try to get a personal best! This is a sort of hell, but I know it is good for me and its a great way to mix it up and burn the fat. Not to mention, have you seen those 100 yard sprinters in the olympics?? Not a single one of them is a weakling. Working those fast twitch muscle fibers from sprints are priceless and irreplaceable.
Wednesday: Back and Bi
The Hellraiser crossfit workout is awesome for this day. Look it up online. It is really good to throw in once in a while. We do this once or twice a month. I like to go heavier and not quite as many reps as the hellraiser from time to time, so switch it up. Hellraiser is awesome for endurance and cardio! It will get you shredded quick! Wednesdays I always hit one of the big three really hard; dead lifts, hang cleans, or power cleans. I do one really heavy then one of the other ones a bit lighter with more reps. Pull-ups and rows are the best way to hit your biceps. Curls are more showy than anything. they dont really do to much. Cable rows are great too. Throw in lat pulldowns and you are set! Never skip pull-ups, if they are too easy for you do weighted pull-ups.
Thursday: Shoulders and Abs
Because you have so much blood flow to your core your abs heal quickly. So you can train them pretty well every other day. If they dont heal quick at first they will eventually. Depending on how much you killed your shoulders with incline on monday then you may want to focus more on your core today. I am usually recovered, and ready to hit em again! You should be good to go as well because incline only works one of the three heads of the shoulder muscle, so you should be able to do a more complete shoulder workout. I prefer military press, clean press, arnold press and the tri shoulder complex. you can look them up online if your not sure what they are.
Friday: LEG DAY!!!
Your legs should be good to go by now from the hell you put them through on Tuesday. Squats are the focus of leg day. The best workouts I have found to go with a killer squat are elevated lunges. Elevate your back leg up on a bench and then go up and down keeping your core tight and upright. doing these after squats are a beast, but they work! I will usually do hack-squats with really light weight and high reps also. To kill off leg day kettle bell swing squats and extensions are great. Do like 30 reps with the kettle bell squats. Also the stair machine is a good finisher! My wife will usually do leg day with me, and she is killin it- she has shown all kinds of improvements and is hooked on the progress!! There are a ton of killer WODs for legs also that include squats. This is great to throw in once or twice a month!
Saturday: If i feel like it i'll do core again and go for a run on saturdays. Maybe break it up and go for a hike or bike ride!
Sundays are rest days! Devine instruction:) Genesis 2:1-3, Mosiah 18:3
*****The only way this layout works is if you attack each workout, if you can talk during your workout your wasting your time. You shouldn't be able to carry on a normal conversation without it being super awkward. Its all high intensity! This is one of the reasons I love the crossfit workouts. If you can still BS then kick it up a notch. A good set of headphones can nip this problem in the butt. Plug in and get to work!!
