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I’ve got a great strength and conditioning challenge to share with you all today that includes squats, lunges, plyometric jumps, sled drags and sprints. It’s sure to satisfy the best of those who (like me) desire a heart throbbing, wind sucking, leg crumbling, mental challenge to the finish line!

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The above circuit that you just watched was something Nick, of Performance University, designed a few years back. He used to hold P.T.A sessions once a month for high level clients which stood for Pain. Torture. and Agony! I am gearing up for my show training to begin on May 10th, but until then, we are still training hard and with a purpose. That session was purely to have fun, work hard and sync with my lower body day.

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To complete this on your own, the following are the challenge parameters:

1. Super Legs Variation

• 24 Squats (body weight or light weight added)
• 24 Lunges (forward or reverse, body weight or light weight added)
• 24 Split box jumps
• 6 Plyometric jumps

2. Sled Drag 40 yards

3. Sprint 40 yards x 4

The above series is considered ONE round. Rest as needed between exercises, but complete one round in as little time as possible. Rest 3-5 minutes between full rounds. If you’ve never done any training like this before, begin with 1 to 2 rounds the first attempt. Eventually progress to three rounds. If you are more familiar with this metabolic training style, you could progress all the way up to five rounds. Due to the high intense nature of this type of training, I recommend only performing this type of workout for no more than 3-4 weeks at a time, 1 day per week.

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Lastly, the song in my video is “Excuses” by The Jon Bailey Band, a very talented group from the Baltimore area. If you, like me, are always looking for great new music to train to, you can check them out on their website here.

As promised, I wanted to share with you a version of my current training schemes. I explained in my last post that we are working hard to eliminate body fat to bring me down to a very competitive percentage while preserving my muscle mass to present the best physique I can bring to the stage.

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A good warm up is important to me. I want to be prepared to train. I want to make sure my CNS is fired, my muscles activated and ready for demand and most important to any prevent injury. Although as important as the rest of the session, if done right, they may not require a tremendous amount of time but they should be thoughtful to your training goals of that day. My upper body and lower body warm ups are VERY different. I have referenced quite a bit the band warm up I use for upper body days and below is a video clip for to help explain.

• The warm up is designed to bring up my body temperature and prep muscles and movements. It is not supposed to be fatiguing. Choose a band that is moderate for you. We like to use the JC Bands.
• Five movements, 20 reps per drill, 2 rounds.
• The movements are: band pulls (hip dominant), row (starting from a bent over lat pull position), tight rotations (both sides), band press, chest fly (letting your shoulder blades retract between each fly).

**Note, when lifting heavy, after the band warm up, we always transition into the working sets with 1-2 sets of build up weight.

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Moving on, we start out with strength work. In order to bring out my smaller muscles now, I isolate and pre fatigue my shoulders with a front raise before I hit incline press and isolate and pre fatigue my rear delts before rows.

• For the smaller muscle groups (front raises and rear delt work), I completed 8-10 reps.
• Bigger muscle movements (incline press and row), I completed 6-8 reps.
• Four rounds, a minute between each round.

Strength work complete. On to metabolic conditioning. I mentioned in the last post, we do a variation of a complex every time. These are great for fat loss, they can integrate all muscle groups, elevate your heart rate and the list goes on and on.

• a complex is a string of exercises back to back without rest inbetween.
• 6-8 reps of each exercise
• go for speed if you can (without compromising form of course)
• rest 1 minute between rounds
• complete 3-6 rounds

The following is an example of a complex using dumbbells:

Last and never least! We move on to conditioning. As you know, I focus on upper body oriented conditioning on upper body days to provide my legs with the rest they need to recover. My upper body conditioning recently has been either boxing intervals or a circuit which I have posted in my Strength Training Split, High Rep, Part IV post.

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Good Luck!