If you’ve got only one moderate-weight kettlebell at home, you have more than enough to get an outstanding six pack. Allow us to present some of our favorite kettlebell ab exercises, and a workout that puts them all together.

Benefits of Using Kettlebells to Work Out Your Abs

If you’ve ever trained with kettlebells, you learned one thing very quickly—EVERY exercise you do with a kettlebell is automatically a core exercise too. Due to the offset nature of the load—that is, the distance from the kettlebell’s center of gravity (the middle of the bell) to the weight’s handle, as well as your body—kettlebells are hard to control and require your whole body to stabilize every movement. Creating that stability causes your abs to brace hardcore—no pun intended—so, to a large degree, you’re getting great core training with virtually any kettlebell exercise you perform, be it an overhead press, a clean, a swing, or anything else.

A study in the Journal of Fitness Research found that subjects training with kettlebells increased their core strength by 70% following an eight-week program. (One of the exercises used was the Turkish getup, which we’ll show you below.)

With all this said, you can also target the abs with certain kettlebell exercises that put tension on the ab muscles more directly, resulting in greater muscle size gains in your six pack. That will help to make your abs visible—assuming, that is, that your nutrition is on point so that your body fat is low. Before we go any further, understand this: no matter how strong and muscular your abs are, you won’t see them if they’re covered in body fat. Aim to get yours under 10% if you want to see your abs pop to their full potential. (If you need help setting up a diet that allows you to do this, see our article, How To Set Up Your Diet for Fat Loss or Muscle Gain.)

Five Amazing Kettlebell Ab Exercises

We asked Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, and a veteran kettlebell coach, for his five favorite kettlebell moves for the core, and he suggested the following.

1. Kettlebell Windmill

(See 04:56 in the video above)

The windmill works hip flexibility, shoulder stability, and core strength at the same time, making for one seriously challenging movement.

Step 1. Hold the kettlebell in your right hand at shoulder level. Your elbow should be tight to your side and your forearm vertical (this is called the rack position). Angle your feet 45 degrees to the left. Press the kettlebell straight overhead.

Step 2. Brace your abs like you’re about to take a punch to the gut. Kick your right hip out to the side so you feel a stretch on the back of your right leg. Bend both knees slightly.

Step 3. Turn your head to look up at the kettlebell and keep your eyes on the weight as you bend your hips back to the right and lower your torso toward the floor. Allow your left arm to slide down the inside of your left thigh as you descend. Go as low as you can control, and then come back up.

2. Half-Quad Pull-Through

(See 07:35 in the video)

Many exercise scientists argue that the abs’ main function is to brace the spine while the limbs move around, and that’s exactly what this exercise has you doing. Can you keep your shoulders, back, and hips straight and braced while you drag the kettlebell back and forth across the floor beneath you? You’ll feel your back, shoulders, and legs burn on this one.

Step 1. Get on all fours and place a kettlebell to the outside of your left hand. Brace your abs and raise your knees off the floor so your weight is supported by your hands and toes. Your body should form a straight line from your head to your pelvis.

Step 2. Extend your left leg back until it’s straight. Reach your right hand behind your left to grasp the kettlebell and drag it across the floor to the outside of where your right hand was on the floor. Try to keep your shoulders and hips square to the floor as you do this. Turn the handle around so you can grasp it easily with the left hand on the next rep, and bring your left leg back up and lower both knees to all fours again.

Step 3. Extend your right leg, and pull the kettlebell through with your left hand.

3. Roll-Down To Pullover Extension

(See 08:20 in the video)

While this move may look like a classic situp at first glance, there’s so much more going on. Heins says that while conventional situps and crunches shorten the core muscles, this exercise strengthens them while it lengthens them, forcing you to contract your abs hard while you extend your spine—the opposite of how most people train them.

Step 1. Sit on the floor holding a kettlebell upside down with both hands on the horns of the handle. Have your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor as if you were in the top position of a situp.

Step 2. Tuck your pelvis under and slowly roll your back down to the floor, beginning with your tailbone. To make this easier, hold the kettlebell a little further away from your body so it serves as a counterbalance.

Step 3. Keeping your tailbone tucked under and your core braced, reach the kettlebell over and behind your head—try to go to where your arms are straight.

Step 4. Bring the kettlebell back in front of your chest and slowly roll your body back up to the starting position.

4. Turkish Getup with Twist

(See 10:15 in the video)

Every kettlebell course in the world teaches this one. The getup is a full-body movement that builds strength, mobility, and conditioning all at once, but it’s your core muscles that tie it all together. This move may not have your abs burning like a set of crunches does, but you can rest assured it will target your six pack and obliques, and the addition of a twisting motion at the end will emphasize the latter even more.

Step 1. Lie back on the floor with the kettlebell in your right hand and your right leg bent with your foot on the floor. Extend your left arm at 45 degrees and plant your hand on the floor for stability. Press the weight overhead and curl your body off the floor, using your hand for assistance, until your weight is supported on your left forearm.

Step 2. Extend your left arm so your palm is your base. Press through your right foot so your hips rise and slide your left leg back underneath you so you can rest on your left knee. Now straighten your torso so you’re in a tall kneeling position with the kettlebell held overhead.

Step 3. Lower the kettlebell to the rack position and twist your torso to the right, extending your left arm as if you were throwing a punch with your left hand. Your fist should end up outside your right leg.

Step 4. Reverse the twist and bend at the hips to lower your torso. At the same time, press the weight up again. Plant your left hand on the floor, kick your left leg through so it’s straight and flat on the floor again, and lie back on the floor to return to the starting position.

All of the above is one rep.

5. Half-Quad Renegade Row

(See 11:40 in the video)

The renegade row is another move familiar to kettlebellers everywhere, but this modification makes it even more challenging. As with the half-quad pull-through, the half-quad renegade row makes you stabilize on a small base of support while one arm lifts weight. It’s meant to be done with two kettlebells, but you can use one if that’s all you have, and rest your other hand on a block or step that’s about the same height as a kettlebell.

Step 1. Kneel on the floor and grasp two kettlebells. Turn their handles so they’re angled in about 45 degrees and press them into the floor. Raise your knees off the floor so your weight is supported by the kettlebells and your toes.

Step 2. Extend your left leg back, and shift your weight into the left-hand kettlebell. Row the right-hand kettlebell, retracting your shoulder blade as you lift it.

Step 3. Lower the kettlebell, switch legs, and repeat the row on the other side.

How To Stretch Your Core Before Working Out

You know that you should warm up and stretch out a bit before any workout, but how do you do that for abs? They’re not muscles that stretch like the hamstrings or pecs. Still, they can be trained for greater flexibility with movements that also warm up your whole body and prepare it for challenging training. Heins put together a prep routine that helps to activate your core while lengthening its muscles. If you spend most of the day slumped over a computer or a smartphone, your ab muscles get used to being in a shorter position and will tighten up accordingly. These exercises help to restore length while integrating the core’s many functions.

Follow the exercises listed below (and demonstrated in the video above, starting at 1:56), performing them as a circuit. Do reps of each exercise in sequence for 30 seconds each, and then repeat for 2 total circuits.

1. Lying Spine Twist (02:30 in the video above)

2. Kneeling Arm Thread (02:44)

3. Child To Up Dog (02:51)

4. Up Dog Twist (02:59)

5. Kettlebell Around the World (03:10)

Get Shredded With This Balanced Kettlebell Ab Workout

After you’ve warmed up, perform the five kettlebell exercises we introduced above together as a circuit. Do 10 reps of each move (5 reps per side for unilateral exercises) in sequence, and then rest 60 seconds. Repeat for 3–5 total rounds. If you’re a lady, an 8 to 12-kilo kettlebell is probably appropriate (18–26 pounds). If you’re a dude, start with a 12 to 16-kilo bell (26–35 pounds).

(See 03:41 in the video above)

1. Kettlebell Windmill

Reps: 5 each side (10 reps total)

2. Half-Quad Pull-Through

Reps: 5 reps each side (10 reps total)

3. Roll-Down To Pullover Extension

Reps: 10

4. Turkish Getup with Twist

Reps: 5 each side (10 reps total)

5. Half-Quad Renegade Row

Reps: 5 each side (10 total)

How Often Should You Train Your Abdominals?

The abs are a somewhat unique group of muscles in that they work to stabilize the spine in virtually any exercise you do, so you don’t need to hit them directly any more frequently than you would chest, legs, or any other muscle group to see gains. They’re also limited in their ability to grow like those other muscles are, so there’s no benefit in training them every day (like old-school bodybuilders used to) in order to make them “pop”.

You can work your abs directly with the routine we gave here up to twice per week, avoiding any other direct ab training for at least three days in between sessions. You can also incorporate one or two of each of the kettlebell ab exercises listed into your existing workouts for other muscle groups, doing some ab training in the beginning of the session (if you really want to prioritize the core), or at the end.

For more core training, see our article, Strengthen and Tone Your Core and Abs With These Workouts.

The post The Best Kettlebell Ab Exercises & Workout To Get Lean appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The steel club—the ultimate evolution of the age-old club tool—may be the best training implement you haven’t tried. Here’s what you need to know to start implementing it in your workouts.

What Is A Steel Club?

The club is an offset-loaded weight-training tool, often called a leverage-challenge tool, that works similarly to a kettlebell or steel mace. The bulk of the club’s weight is set at a distance from its handle, making it difficult to stabilize and control. Because of this design, the club lends itself to rotational movements better than perhaps any other piece of equipment (which we’ll discuss in depth further down). Clubs range in length from about one foot to a little more than two feet, and generally come in weight increments ranging between five and 45 pounds.

“The club was our first tool and our first weapon, going back to pre-historic times—think, caveman,” says Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, and a steel club coach. “It helped us hunt and fight. People figured out that swinging a club increased the torque on it, and that increased the force it could strike with and the damage it could inflict. So armies learned to swing clubs in battle.”

Over time, warriors realized that swinging clubs—and maces, which developed the same way—strengthened their bodies, and they began formalizing club and mace use for sports training and fitness purposes. Every continent had its own version of the club. To this day, some still call the tool an Indian club, or Persian club (sometimes referred to as a “meel”), as the Indians and Iranians (not least of all the Iron Sheik) did so much to popularize it. In modern times, martial arts fitness expert Scott Sonnon has perhaps been the club’s most vocal champion, helping to spread awareness of club training in the Western world with the popularity of his Clubbell® line over the past 20 years.

Traditionally, clubs were made of wood, but that made progressing to heavier weights problematic. To get a heavier club, you had to upgrade to a bigger piece of wood, making the club cumbersome and difficult to travel with. Due to their greater density, modern-day steel clubs offer heavier weight in a more compact size.

What are the Benefits of Steel Club Training?

As with the kettlebell, steel mace, or any other tool where the weight is offset from the handle, the club presents a number of challenges that you can’t get to the same degree with more conventional equipment. It also has a few features that make it unlike any other implement you can use.

Training with the steel club helps you…

1. Build Core Strength

Kettlebells are praised for promoting core strength due to their offset load. The weight is positioned at a distance from the handle, so it’s harder to stabilize, and your body must call on numerous muscles to keep you in alignment. The club takes this to the next level, as the weight is displaced even further at the end of a long lever.

Imagine holding a heavy weight right in front of your chest. It’s close to your center of mass, so you have about as much control over it as you possibly can. Extend the weight away from you, however, and you’ve reduced your leverage advantage. Now it’s harder to lift the load, especially in different planes (say, in a circular fashion as opposed to straight up and down). All club exercises put you at a significant leverage disadvantage, which is bad for making workouts feel easy, but great for activating muscle—especially in your abs and throughout your back.

2. Build Rotational Strength

The leverage disadvantage and shape of the club really feed into its greatest feature—allowing you to train rotational movements.

“Our body works in rotation all the time,” says Heins. For example, swinging a bat, throwing a ball, lifting heavy groceries out of your car, or wrestling with your kids. Some of the best steel club exercises are swinging and spiral patterns that force you to stabilize your body over a long range of motion, and develop power in the rotary plane.

“We also need to be able to resist rotation when it isn’t wanted,” says Heins. “When you’re walking, and you pick one foot up, forces act on it to try to twist it in one direction or the other. When you’re squatting with a barbell, you think you’re going up and down, but there’s rotational force acting on your shoulders, spine, hips, knees, and feet. The club highlights this resistance, and it helps you create greater stability.” Because of its dimensions, doing something as simple as a squat while holding a club is difficult to accomplish without bending or twisting to one side (rotation). But, over time, you’ll learn to move in exactly the planes you want, and the resulting stability will translate to other exercises and athletic movements.

Similar to unilateral exercises, “the club also shows you which of your sides is stronger,” says Heins, “so you can begin to correct the imbalance between the left and right halves of the body.”

3. Build Grip Strength

When you train rotation, you create centrifugal force. As a lever moves around an axis, it wants to pull away from that axis and move outward. In addition to having a thick handle and an offset load, the club is tough to grip because it wants to fly out of your hands when you swing it. “The steel club is great for building a grip that’s really alive,” says Heins. “You can’t just clamp down on it like you do a barbell before a 500-pound deadlift. Wherever you’re holding or moving it, the club is always pushing down or pulling away from you, so you need the dexterity and articulation and sensitivity, in combination with appropriately applied tension, to hold on and control it.” With this in mind, imagine how club training could help a grappler who needs to hang on to an opponent’s gi, a construction worker who hauls heavy materials up a scaffold with a rope, or a fisherman trying to reel in a fighting marlin.

“When you use a club, you have to feel the load transition from between your thumb and forefinger to the pinky and palm of your hand,” says Heins. “The information it sends to your central nervous system is constantly changing.”

The steel mace works the grip in a similar fashion, but the club is harder to hold on to. The handle is shorter, giving you less surface area to grasp. It’s easy to regress the challenge on a steel mace exercise by holding the handle nearer to the ball on the end, or widening your grip, which increases your control. But the load on the club is elongated, and more offset. You have a lot less handle to spread your hands apart on, and gripping the fat end totally changes the nature of the load. It can sometimes feel like your only option is to hold on for dear life. Sound scary? Take it slow, and it’s not as hazardous as you may think. (See Steel Club Safety below.)

4. Decompress Your Joints and Tissues

Most weight-training exercises tighten your body up, literally. Think of what happens to your spine when you do a back squat: the bar rests on your back, shoving your vertebrae closer together. When you press heavy weights, your shoulders and elbows get squeezed. Continually compressing your joints and shortening the muscles that act on them can lead to pain and loss of flexibility, but the steel club can help to alleviate both.

“You have to pull back on the club a bit as it swings,” says Heins, lest you want the centrifugal force to rip it out of your hands. “That creates some traction in your wrists, elbows, and shoulders, which allows fluid to pass through them, helping recovery. You can strengthen a joint with traction just like you can with compression. Pulling it apart makes the muscles and connective tissues work to hold the joint together, and it’s a nice counterbalance to compressive forces you get in your other training.”

Heins says to think of club training like an accordion. “If you squeeze it, you’re only getting half the music. You have to pull the ends apart again to play a song.”

Traction and rotation also have the effect of helping your muscles into new ranges of motion they wouldn’t otherwise explore. Look at a pullover exercise (see the workout below) with the club, in which you hold it vertically and lift it over your shoulder and behind your back in an arcing motion. The weight of the club will help to stretch your triceps, lats, and shoulders as it moves downward behind you. At the same time, holding your ribs down with your core tight to maintain good spine and hip alignment trains your core. You get stretching and strengthening in one movement. How’s that for training economy?

Big weightlifters and powerlifters often report that working the club into their routines helps to open up their shoulders and backs, adding longevity to their competitive careers and easing aches and pains.

5. Get More Out of Light Weight

The handle, the offset load, and the rotational nature of club training make it virtually impossible to use heavy weight, and that’s perfectly alright. If you’re expecting a 10-pound club to feel like a 10-pound dumbbell, get that thought out of your head right now.

“The top-end weights we work with are 35 pounds,” says Heins. “That’s super heavy for club training, but it’s still only 35 pounds of overall load, so even when you get strong on the club, it isn’t hard to recover from. It’s certainly not like recovering after a one-rep max squat with 400 pounds.” Heins notes that doing a long session of club training might leave you mentally zonked, similar to how you’d feel after taking a final exam, because the club requires so much nervous system activation. But it’s too light to leave you physically wrecked for days. For athletes who need to compete frequently, it’s helpful to have a tool that lets them train hard and bounce back fast.

Light weight also makes clubs highly portable. If you’re planning a road trip that will take you away from your gym, clubs can fit easily into the car, providing you with a workout you can do anywhere from a hotel room to an empty parking lot.

6. Make Training Fun!

“I’ve taught training certifications for the club all over the country,” says Heins, “and every time people walk in and pick up a club for the first time, it’s always funny. They think it’s going to feel like a baseball bat or a bowling pin, and then you watch them have to put it down right away because they realize they can’t control it. They take a step back, and then try again.”

To say club training provides a novel workout experience is a given, but it also taps into a primal instinct in us all that’s inherently fun. Clubs can even be used for creative expression. As you master club exercises, you can begin to transition from one to the next seamlessly, creating what’s known as a flow. There’s no wrong order or movement, per se, you just move gracefully from one position to the next, working your whole body in the process. Workouts then become more like warrior dances than weight training.

What Club Should I Buy?

As mentioned above, steel clubs are denser than wood, so they offer easier handling for a wider array of loads (plus, they take up less space). We recommend starting with steel that has a powder-coated handle. Some club handles have knurling (rough texture, same as you see on barbells), which makes for an easier grip, but they can tear up your hands over time—especially if you do a lot of swinging, where the club is pulling away from you with centrifugal force.

Other clubs have handles that are completely smooth, which Heins says presents an even worse problem. “When you sweat, the handle becomes slick,” he says, “which can turn the club into a missile.” The powder coat on Onnit’s clubs provides just enough friction for the club to change positions in your hand without you losing control of it, and it won’t chafe your palms in the process. Additionally, a club should have a knob on the end of its handle—where the pinky end of your grip gets firm purchase—to help stop your hand from sliding back off it.

Heins recommends men start with a pair of 15-pounders and a single 20 or 25-pound club, and says most women will do well with one pair of 10 pounders and a single 15 or 20-pound club. Most of your club training will be done using both hands on one club to start, as this provides the greatest stability. As you progress, you’ll find that exercises done above the waist (such as presses and pullovers) are hardest when utilizing a club in each hand. Those that are done below the waist (swings and leg drivers) are easier when done with a club in each hand versus two hands on one.

How To Warm Up For a Steel Club Workout

Use the following warmup drills to increase mobility and prepare your body for training. Perform 5 reps for each exercise in sequence, and repeat for 3 total rounds.

1. Kneeling Spinal Wave (See 00:42 in the video below.)
2. Kneeling Arm Thread (02:17)
3. Kneeling Hip Flexor Twist (03:43)
4. Clasped-Hand Elbow Rotation (04:45)
5. Pullover Spiral Down (06:35)

3 Steel Club Exercises You Have to Try

Experiment with steel club training by incorporating the following exercises into your workouts wherever you see fit. The spiral lift around is great for improving shoulder mobility, and can help to stretch the wrist flexor muscles, which can cause elbow pain when tight. That makes it a good choice before an upper-body training session as part of your warmup, or after a workout to help you lengthen the muscles again.

The side pullover opens up your shoulder and lat, and helps you maintain a tight core position, making it a natural for inclusion in any kind of ab training you do. Lastly, the front swing can be used anywhere you would normally do a kettlebell swing or other deadlift/hinge movement. Suggestion: try it as a finisher at the end of a session, combining short rest periods and high reps to get your heart rate soaring (once you’re experienced and familiar with the movement, that is).

Directions: In your first session, take it slow, and focus on your technique so that you learn the exercises correctly. Perform each for time rather than reps, starting with 30 seconds. So you’ll do reps for 30 seconds straight and then rest. On the spiral lift around and side pullover, work for 30 seconds on one side, and then switch sides and repeat. Perform 3 to 5 sets for each movement.

Spiral Lift-Around

Step 1. Stand with feet between hip and shoulder-width apart, and hold a club at your side in your left hand. It should point vertically to the floor below. Tuck your tailbone so that your pelvis is parallel to the floor, brace your core, and squeeze your glutes. Draw your shoulders down and back—think “proud chest.” Maintain this body position throughout the exercise.

Step 2. Begin raising the club straight up in front of your body, pulling from your elbow and allowing the weight of the club to bend your wrist and stretch your forearm. Let the weight of the club pull down as you continue moving the club around the back of your head, and lower the club back to your side, extending your elbow as it comes down. The end of the club should point to the floor throughout the movement.

Try to keep the club as close to your body as you can during the exercise without bumping into it. Heins says to visualize the club as a candle that’s floating around your body—keep it vertical and control its path.

Side Pullover

Step 1. Hold the club with the end pointing upward, and your elbow bent 90 degrees. Turn your arm so that your knuckles point out 90 degrees from your torso with your elbow by your ribs. Maintain the tight core, pelvis position, and proud chest described above.

Step 2. Reach the club over and behind your head, as if you were raising it to deliver a blow. Turn your head so that your eyes can focus on your arm. Swing the club back down to the start position by driving your elbow next to your ribs until the club is pointing vertically again.

As you raise the club on each rep, allow the weight of it to pull your elbow back and stretch your triceps and shoulder, but don’t relax anything. You may find that your range of motion increases over the course of a set. Bring the club down with force, but not so fast that you can’t control its descent and lose alignment.

Front Swing

Step 1. Hold a club in each hand and, keeping your head, spine, and pelvis in a straight line, swing the clubs down and back behind you at a 45-degree angle as you hinge at the hips.

Step 2. Drive your hips back as far as you can without losing alignment, and then explosively extend your hips to stand tall. Use the momentum to swing the clubs up to eye level. Control the downswing to go back into the hinge and repeat for reps.

Beginner Steel Club Workout

The following routine works well on its own as a fat loss-focused conditioning workout, or (if done for only 3 rounds only) a finisher at the end of a heavy training session. If doing the former, perform it three times per week on non-consecutive days (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for instance).

Directions: Perform the exercises as a circuit, so you’ll complete one set of each movement in turn. (For unilateral exercises, work one side and then the other before going on to the next exercise). At the end of the circuit, rest 45 seconds. Repeat for 3–5 total rounds.

Instead of aiming for a specific number of reps, you’ll perform your sets for time. Complete as many reps as you can in 30 seconds, and aim to perform one more in the same amount of time each time you repeat the workout, or perform the set with better form and greater control. Don’t rush to get as many reps as possible; focus on perfect execution.

1. One-Arm Pullover

(See 01:20 in the video above)

Reps: Work for 30 seconds (each side)

Step 1. Hold the club in front of you with the end pointing upward, and your elbow bent 90 degrees. Tuck your tailbone so that your pelvis is parallel to the floor, brace your core, and squeeze your glutes. Draw your shoulders down and back—think “proud chest.” Maintain this body position throughout the exercise.

Step 2. Reach the club over your shoulder and behind your head, as if you were raising it to deliver a blow. Swing the club down to its starting position by driving your elbow forward again and down next to your hip, so the club is pointing vertically again.

As you raise the club on each rep, allow the weight of it to pull your elbow back and stretch your triceps and shoulder (but don’t relax anything). You may find that your range of motion increases over the course of a set. Bring the club down with force, but not so fast that you can’t control its descent and lose alignment.

2. Double Leg Driver

(See 02:46 in the video.)

Reps: Work for 30 seconds

Step 1. Stand two clubs on the floor so they sit vertically, a little outside shoulder width. Stand just behind them with a hip to shoulder-width stance, and, keeping your head, spine, and pelvis in a long line, hinge your hips back and bend your knees so you can reach down and grasp the clubs by their handles.

Step 2. Tip the clubs back toward you and extend your hips and knees enough to pick the clubs off the floor and allow them to swing back behind your body.

Step 3. Reverse the momentum and swing the clubs in front of your legs, bending your knees to decelerate them. The range of motion is fairly short. Continue swinging the clubs in this pendulum motion, bending your hips and knees to power the movement. Do not allow your hips and knees to lock out at any time, and maintain a proud chest position and alignment from your head to your pelvis.

3. Two-Hand Front Press

(See 04:44 in the video.)

Reps: Work for 15 seconds with right hand on top, then 15 seconds left on top

Step 1. Stand with feet between hip and shoulder width and hold one club with both hands to the right side of your torso. Your right hand should be on top of the left, and your left should be at the bottom of the handle.

Step 2. Keeping a proud chest, level pelvis, and shoulders square with your hips, press the club straight in front of your chest until your hands are at eye level and your elbows are locked out. 

4. Mountain Climber to Down Dog

(See 06:28 in the video.)

Reps: Work for 30 seconds

Step 1. Get on all fours on the floor. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. Your toes should also dig into the floor. Tuck your tailbone so that your pelvis is perpendicular to the floor, and brace your core. Draw your shoulder blades down and together (“proud chest”).

Step 2. Try to maintain your shoulder and hip position as you step your left leg forward and place your foot on the floor to the outside of your left hand. Take a second to retract your shoulders and extend your hips after the rep. Return your leg to the all-fours position, and repeat on the opposite side.

Step 3. When you’ve done the mountain climber on both legs and returned to the all-fours position, push your hands into the floor, extend your knees, and drive your hips back into downward dog. Your head, spine, and tailbone should form a straight line as you balance on the balls of your feet. From there, you can pedal your feet, extending one knee at a time to help loosen your hamstrings. Afterward, return to all fours to begin the next round of mountain climbers.

Steel Club Safety

There’s no denying that the club was originally created to bash things over the head, so we understand if you’re a little reluctant to start swinging it around your living room near your spouse or children. But with a little practice, you’ll see that the club poses no more danger than any other piece of exercise equipment—and maybe even less. Consider this: you’ll never get trapped under a 400-pound squat with it and have to call spotters to pull it off of you.

Heins offers the following safety tips: “Keep your eyes on the club at all times. Turn your head and follow it wherever it goes. When you feel your hands get sweaty, or you’re losing your grip, or you notice your form is starting to break down, end the set and put the club down. There’s no ‘just one more rep!’ with club training. Also, be aware of your surroundings and make sure you give yourself space.”

The post The Steel Club: Benefits and Uses appeared first on Onnit Academy.

OK… If you woke up and looked in the mirror this morning to see a painful reminder of all your holiday season overindulgences firmly attached to your waistline, the last thing you might be feeling right now is “happy.”

But what if I told you that in 12 weeks you could not only get back to fighting form—ripped even, beyond where you’ve ever taken your body before—and you wouldn’t have to count a single calorie or give up your favorite foods to get there?

No, I’m not promising a quick, easy fix. I’m not telling you that you can keep eating and drinking the way you did over the holidays (or the past few years) and expect a different result. But I do have a foolproof plan to knock the weight you’ve added to your belly/ass/thighs off of you and get you a beach-ready body by the start of spring. And it doesn’t require you locking yourself in at night and subsisting on lettuce and protein powder. In fact, you’ll be amazed at how taking the most basic of steps will yield significant results in just the first four weeks alone.

Begin following the first month-long phase of this 12-week program as outlined below, and then see the next two parts, linked at the bottom. Combine these nutrition guidelines with any Onnit 6 or Onnit in 30 program, you’ll have both the fuel and the fire to transform your physique and performance.

Ready? Then without further ado, Onnit and I proudly present the 12-Week Fat Loss Nutrition Plan.

The First 3 Rules of Eating For Rippedness!

#1 Only Eat When It’s Time To Eat

Losing weight is primarily about controlling calories. The easiest way to start doing that—without having to count your calories or weigh your food—is to simply stick to planned, structured meals. I.e., breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“But wait, I thought small, frequent meals were best for getting ripped. That’s what all the bodybuilding magazines say.”

Yes, they do, and that’s an approach that can work. But I’d rather you keep it simple. Looking at it logically, the more times you sit down to eat, the more calories you’re likely to take in. Plus, the frequent-eating approach means taking the time to plan and cook your meals well in advance, which I know many of you just won’t have the time to do. And let’s face it, it’s also a hassle. Think of spending your Sunday grilling chicken breasts instead of watching football. It could also mean having to grab food on the go every couple hours when you’re working or running errands. It’s not practical for most people who have busy lives (or, ahem, lives they’d like to enjoy).

“What about fasting?”

If eating often leads to taking in more calories, then it stands to reason that skipping a meal entirely, or at least going a long time without one, would mean you’d eat less food. So, if you think that will be the case for you, then go ahead and fast. Most people who like the intermittent fasting style of dieting prefer to skip breakfast, which usually gives them about 16 hours without food. This can work very well, provided that you’re not the type who goes mad with hunger and overeats at their next meal, which research has shown is a possibility. Ultimately, the frequency with which you eat comes down to a matter of preference, but I recommend sticking to three normal meals a day for simplicity’s sake. It’s the easiest schedule for most people to stay on.

Cut out all snacking. No more pretzels from the vending machine, lattes on the way to work, or late-night brews. This may sound brutal at first, like you’ll starve, but in Rules #2 and #3 I’ll show you how to fill up on healthy food so you don’t have these cravings anymore.

And, like most rules, there are some exceptions. If you normally work out after dinner, you can (and should) have a snack afterward so you don’t go to bed on an empty stomach (more on what this should be later). Or, if you typically eat lunch at noon, work out mid day, and won’t be eating dinner until later that evening, a post-workout snack should be added as well. Heck, even if you don’t plan to work out mid-afternoon, if you eat an early lunch and can’t have dinner until 8 or 9 p.m., you should have a snack sometime in between to tide you over.

What exactly is a snack?

● Veggies and hummus? Great.
● Berries and nuts? Yep.
● Apple and peanut butter? Perfecto.

Almost any combination of protein, fiber, and whole-food fat is a winning trio. Chips, dip, soft drinks or sugar-bomb lattes? No.

Apart from these snacks, don’t eat anything unless you’re sitting down for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. When you’re done with your meal, the kitchen is closed.

One of the biggest obstacles to weight loss is eating out of sheer boredom, not physiological hunger. Maintaining the “kitchen closed” policy will help break that cycle.

#2 Control Portions With Your Hands

All of your meals should be structured the same way. They should contain at least one handful of protein, a minimum of two handfuls of vegetables (or one piece of whole fruit and one handful of veggies), and one handful of starchy carbohydrates.

Protein, if you weren’t sure, is any type of meat or fish. A handful-size chicken breast or a hamburger patty is one serving of protein. The same goes for whole cuts of beef, turkey, pork and salmon or tuna fillets. Similar amounts of eggs, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt (no sugar added), and protein powder supplements are also good sources.

Fatty, processed foods like hot dogs and bacon are permissible in this first four-week block, but use common sense and avoid them most of the time. If you’re at a football game and can’t get a lean chicken breast, a ballpark frank is better than starving (unless you prefer to fast), but don’t convince yourself that you don’t have better options most of the time. Because protein is filling and it supports muscle growth, I’m not putting a firm limit on it. Have at least a handful in every meal, but if two or three handfuls is what it takes to keep you full and feel like you’re recovering from workouts, then go ahead. Again, the leaner and plainer the protein source the better. Think meat and fish, not In-N-Out Burger, even if you do toss the bun.

Starches include potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, beans, and whole grains like rice, oats, and quinoa. A slice of whole-grain bread like Ezekiel is great too.

Beyond just making your meals easier to control and stick with, there is some solid nutritional science behind my recommendations. A palmful of protein, regardless of the source, will usually give you 25–35 grams of the stuff (depending on the size of your hand).

Vegetables and fruits are foods you can eat liberally. Fruits don’t rank quite as high as veggies since some are higher in sugar and calories, but no one ever gained weight because they couldn’t stop eating fruit. As long as you’re eating whole fruit—say, a peach as opposed to canned peaches that have marinated in a pool of syrup—you can count on its fiber slowing down the digestion of the sugar, keeping your energy steady and your belly full.

In fact, if in the first few weeks you find yourself absolutely unable to adhere to the “eat only at breakfast, lunch, and dinner” rule, there’s no harm in breaking it with veggies and fruit and more protein as well. I’d still prefer you eat three meals a day and that’s it, but if you’re going to fall off the wagon, I’d rather you crashed into a bed of celery, carrot sticks, and a hamburger patty than a pile of potato chips or bowl of ice cream. Overeating with natural, healthy food always trumps gorging on more calorie-dense junk. Make sense?

Veggies in particular are naturally low in calories and high in fiber—not to mention numerous essential vitamins and minerals—so they help your weight loss in multiple ways. When I say to serve yourself a “handful” in this case, it’s just for the sake of practicality. Don’t feel you need to limit your intake of greens in any way. If you’re using tongs to serve yourself veggies at a salad bar, feel free to squeeze as many between the claws as possible.

Because starches contain a fair amount of calories and raise blood sugar, they need to be contained—but not cut out, because they supply energy. A handful of starch is the amount that would fit in your cupped hand (in the case of potatoes, it’s typically one potato, and for bread, it’s one slice).

We’ll worry about maximizing the quality of what you’re eating in later installments of the program, but for the time being, it’s enough to just get in the habit of eating less and with balanced portions.

If your eating habits are so out of whack that you’re consuming Big Macs on a daily basis… Well, one Big Mac is better than two. It’s still more important that you focus on eating your meals—however imperfect they may be—according to the formula here than trying to make massive, sweeping changes that you can’t possibly sustain. I’d love for you to start eating lean chicken and broccoli every day, but if you’ve been eating fast food three times a day for years, I don’t expect you to make the switch overnight.

#3 Start Each Day With Protein

Studies have shown over and over that protein helps fill you up so you don’t overeat. It also helps you build and repair muscle, and burn more calories throughout the day—because it takes so much energy to digest.

Most people eat no protein in the morning and not enough throughout the day, so simply resolving to eat a high-protein breakfast can make a huge difference—and it doesn’t have to take long. The following are a few examples of protein-rich starters that you can make in minutes and take with you, or simply grab off a shelf in a deli or gas station.

● 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
● 1 cup cottage cheese
● 4 whole eggs (or a few whole with a few whites, if you prefer)
● 2 whole eggs and 2 oz of steak or chicken
● 1 handful smoked salmon
● protein smoothie made with 1 scoop protein powder

Each of these counts for about one serving of protein, and should be balanced with veggies/fruit and a starch. The next time you rush off to work in the morning, think about grabbing a yogurt, one piece of whole fruit, and a slice of toast, or a single-serving package of instant oatmeal.

One Perfect Day of Eating

Use the following sample menu as a guide for how to eat over the next four weeks. Note that this plan does not need to be followed verbatim every day, but is an example of how to portion your meals and choose your foods. Adjust it to your own tastes—if you don’t enjoy the process, you won’t stick with it.

Breakfast

Egg Scramble and Oatmeal

● 2 whole eggs
● ½ handful smoked salmon
● 2 large handfuls of spinach (cooked into the eggs)
● 1 small handful of cheese* (melted on the eggs)
● 1 handful oats (cooked as oatmeal)
● 1 handful berries (fresh or frozen)

*I don’t recommend you eat cheese by itself, but a handful (just enough to fill your palm, not all the way up to your fingers!) can be added occasionally to round out your protein serving.

Lunch

Tuna Salad

● 1 can tuna
● 1 tbsp balsamic vinaigrette*
● 1 handful cherry tomatoes
● 1 handful mixed greens
● 1 cup brown rice (tip: you can buy packs of brown rice that can be microwaved and are done in 90 seconds)

Mix all ingredients and enjoy

*Seasonings and condiments that contain sugar and fat should be limited to the serving size recommended on the container.

Afternoon Snack*

● 1 handful mixed nuts
● 1 apple
● Protein shake blended with a banana

*This is optional, and you should only consume a snack if it’s going to be several hours before you have dinner and you know you’ll feel like you’re starving otherwise. Additionally, you can have a snack if you’ve just worked out.

Dinner

● 1–3 handfuls portion of rotisserie chicken (from any grocery store)
● 2 large handfuls of arugula
● 1 large handful mixed, colorful veggies (picked up from the salad bar at your grocery store to make it easy)
● 1 cup black beans
● 1 tbsp oil
● 1 tbsp vinegar

Post Workout*

● 1 cup Greek yogurt
● 1 cup berries
● Protein shake blended with a banana

*Only have this snack if you work out after dinner.

Alcohol and Dessert

We won’t ban these in this stage of the plan but, as with obviously sub-par protein choices like hot dogs, we have to limit them. Here’s the rule: you can enjoy booze, cookies, soda, etc. only when you’re with other people at a social event. You will never consume them alone.

Not going out Friday night? That doesn’t mean you can stay in and throw a party for yourself. And when you do go out, give yourself a maximum of two alcoholic drinks or servings of junk food. No more than two nights per week also.

There you go. Get on it (er, Onnit!), and check out the next two installments when you’re ready!

Fat-Loss Nutrition Plan, Part 2.

Fat-Loss Nutrition Plan, Part 3.

The post New Year All You: 12-Week Fat Loss Nutrition Plan, Part 1 appeared first on Onnit Academy.

By figuring out how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat you need to consume to reach your goal, and hitting those numbers each day, you empower yourself to have complete control of your transformation. It will also allow you to troubleshoot any problems that come up along the way with much less guesswork. Not gaining muscle? You’ll be able to assess how many carbs you’re eating versus fats, and which macro it makes sense to bump up. Hit a standstill in your weight loss? You’ll know how and where to cut calories from your day.

Pull up your calculator app and get ready to write down some numbers…

Step 1: Determine Your Resting Metabolic Rate

Your resting metabolic rate (RMR) is the number of calories your body burns at rest—just keeping you alive with no additional activity. There are many equations that nutritionists and dieticians use to determine this number and none are 100% accurate, but they all give you a solid starting point. I like the good ol’ Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which has been demonstrated to be more accurate than most. This formula takes into account your weight, sex, age, and even height.

First, you’ll have to convert your bodyweight from pounds to kilograms (divide your weight by 2.2) and your height from inches to centimeters (multiply by 2.54). 

For men:

(10 x your weight in kg) + (6.25 x your height in cm) – (5 x age in years) + 5

For women:

(10 x your weight in kg) + (6.25 x your height in cm) – (5 x age in years) – 161

Let’s plug in some numbers using me as an example. I’m a male, 205 pounds (93kg), 6’2” tall (188 cm), and 45 years old. 

Using the men’s equation, I find…

(10 × 93) + (6.25 × 188) – (5 × 45) + 5

930 + 1173 – 225 + 5 = 1,880

My resting metabolic rate is about 1,880 calories. (Note that it’s OK to round this number off.)

Step 2: Factor In Your Activity

We obviously don’t lie in bed all day (although some days it’d be nice), so we need to factor in how many calories our activities burn. 

If you work out or play sports 1–3 times a week, you perform what’s known as light activity, and you will multiply your RMR number by 1.375.

If you exercise or play 3–5 times a week, you’re moderately active. Multiply by 1.55.

If you train or are active 6–7 days a week, you’re in the “very active” camp. Multiply by 1.725. 

Finally, if you’re crushing it nearly every day AND have a physically demanding job as well, multiply by 1.9.

I lift weights for a total of about two hours every week, and I play tennis up to five hours per week, but my job has me mostly in front of a computer all day, so my activity level is probably only in the moderate range. Therefore, I’ll multiply my 1880 RMR by 1.55. That gives me 2900 (again, rounded), which is the number of calories I need to eat to maintain my weight.

Step 3: Calculate Your Calorie Needs

If you want to MAINTAIN your current bodyweight, aim to eat whatever number of calories you calculated from your RMR x activity factor daily. 

If you want to LOSE weight, start by subtracting 500 from that number. If you want to GAIN weight, add 500.

Step 4: Calculate Your Macros

Once you have your daily calories figured out according to your goal, you can break them down into macronutrients. This not only makes your calories easier to count, it lets you know exactly how much of each type of food you need to consume. You see, you have to take in a certain number of calories to gain or lose weight, but the breakdown of protein, carbs, and fat determines your body composition—i.e., how much of the weight you lose or gain is fat versus muscle. Some muscle loss is inevitable when you’re dieting, and when you’re bulking up, you’re bound to gain some fat too, but the right combination of macros will put the odds in your favor, letting you keep more of the tissue you want while you shed or maintain the kind you don’t.

Protein

Protein supports muscle growth and maintenance as well as satiety (feeling less hungry between meals), so it’s the most import macro. Every meal you eat should feature it, and when and if you snack, you should choose foods that offer primarily protein as well. Aim to eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of your bodyweight each day. You can get by with a little less, and a little more won’t hurt either.

Note that if you’re very overweight, eating your bodyweight in grams of protein is probably impractical and not ideal. In this case, eat one gram per pound of the bodyweight you’re shooting for. In other words, a 300-pound person who remembers looking and feeling their best at 200 pounds will eat 200 grams of protein daily.

Another way to look at it is to have 25–35% of your calories come from protein. Each gram of protein contains 4 calories, so if I’m following a 2400-calorie diet to lose weight (2900–500=2400), I should eat 600–840 calories from protein-rich foods. That equals 150–210g protein. (Again, for simplicity’s sake, I’m happy with eating one gram per pound, which for me is 205g… but since 200 is a round number and easier to remember, I’ll just go with that. I also think it’s a good idea to aim toward the higher end of the protein spectrum when you’re dieting to ensure that you preserve as much muscle as possible.)

Most of your protein should come from the purest sources available, which are animal foods. Chicken, lean beef, fish and other seafood, eggs, yogurt, and cottage cheese are some of the best protein sources, but protein powder supplements are OK too for convenience. Most animal foods will contain some fat as well, so to keep things simple and prevent the fats from adding up too fast, choose the leanest cuts of meat most of the time. Sirloin steak, for instance, has a better protein-to-fat ratio than ground beef. That said, count the fat grams in your protein foods whenever possible.

Tip: If you like to snack on cheese, or use it to garnish your dishes, Parmigiano Reggiano is a smart choice. It has the highest amount of protein, gram for gram, of any cheese—and even more than chicken, beef, or fish. We’re talking 10 grams of protein in a one-ounce serving!

Of course, if you’re a vegetarian/vegan or plant-based eater, you’ll need to get your protein through non-animal sources. Combining foods such as beans and rice, nut butter and bread, etc., can provide the protein you need, but beware of how many carbs and fats you’re taking in as well. Supplementing with a plant-based protein powder may be necessary to make sure you hit your protein goals without overstepping your carb and fat allowances.

Fat

Unfairly maligned for weak associations with heart disease and other health ailments for years, dietary fat is now recognized as an important nutrient for hormone production and overall health, but it still packs a lot of calories—nine per gram, which is more than twice what a gram of carbs or protein provides. That means that while we need fat in the diet, we don’t want to go overboard because the calories will add up too fast. That’s a concern even if your goal is to gain weight. Calories that your body doesn’t convert to muscle will be stored as fat.

I recommend you aim for 0.5 grams of fat per pound of your bodyweight to start. As with protein, if you’re very heavy, you’ll be better off calculating this based on your goal bodyweight. Using myself as an example, I would eat about 100g of fat per day at a bodyweight of 205. At 900 calories, that’s a little under 40% of the total I’m allowed.

Most of your fat intake for the day should come by way of your protein foods, as there will always be at least a few grams in chicken, beef, salmon, etc. Nuts and seeds, olives and olive oil, fish oil supplements, and avocado can make up the difference. You may also prepare foods with cooking oils, but be careful about your serving sizes, as they can add a lot of fat without your hardly noticing.

Carbohydrates

Now that you have your protein and fat numbers figured out, you can simply subtract them from your total number of calories to find the carbs you need. My 100g fat allowance is 900 calories, and my 200g of protein equals 800 calories, so that leaves me with 700 calories for carbs. Since carbs contain four calories per gram, that gives me 175g carbs to eat. This is a little under 30% of my calorie total.

Here’s your list of carb-rich foods: grains (bread, cereal, pasta, rice), legumes (beans and peas), tubers (potatoes, sweet potatoes, other root vegetables like squash and carrots), fruit, and green vegetables. Be sure to count the carbs in your starchy foods and fruits toward your carb total, but the green vegetables are so low in calories that you can eat as many as you want (of course, count any dressings or sauces that you add to them!). Realize that there are also some carbs in dairy foods (milk, yogurt), so try to keep track of those as well.

How Do I Track Macros?

Now that you know how much of each type of food to eat, you’ll have to get comfortable with reading food labels so you can add your macros up properly. A food scale to measure your portions is a good idea too. This may seem like a nuisance at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll memorize how many proteins, carbs, and fats are in your favorite meals and you won’t have to obsess over them.

You can estimate your macros to some degree by using the hand-portioning trick I discuss in the fat loss guides. This will allow you to eyeball your portions with some accuracy when you eat out, or otherwise can’t control the exact ingredients and amounts you’re served. But to stay as close to your macro numbers as possible, I recommend you read labels and keep a tally throughout the day. Apps such as My Fitness Pal can be helpful for recording your numbers, as well as telling you how much of this or that nutrient is in your meal.

Try to include at least one food from each of the protein, fat, and carb food lists above in your meal plan each day. Focus on eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, and the vitamins and minerals you need to look and feel great will take care of themselves.

Adjusting Your Numbers

The calories and macros you calculate here just give you a starting point. They should send you in the right direction on your cutting or bulking program, but you’ll have to keep an eye on them. Make sure you record your numbers daily, and take note of any days you exceed your allowances or fall short. If you’re totally compliant for two weeks and haven’t lost a pound yet, cut 300 or so calories from your carb and/or fat numbers (never protein) and see if that makes a difference. If you’re trying to bulk up and haven’t gained a pound after two weeks, add 300 or so more calories, pumping up your carb and/or fat quotas as you see fit.

In either case, slow and steady is the best progress. If you’re losing several pounds per week (when cutting) or gaining more than one (while bulking) you’re dieting too hard or eating too much, respectively, and that means you risk losing muscle/gaining fat. You may lose a few pounds in your first few weeks of a diet as your body sheds excess water weight, but you don’t want to see the scale go down by five pounds or so on a regular basis. 

However, don’t go by the scale alone. Take measurements and progress photos of your physique so you know the weight is coming off or going on in the right places. Monitor your progress in the gym and make sure you’re still getting stronger and have energy enough to fuel your workouts. You have to experiment, be patient, and pay attention to how your body looks and feels.

For recipes that make healthy meals, see the following:

Healthy Pork Recipes

Gluten-Free and Nut-Free Snacks That Taste Great

3 Killer High-Protein Lunch Ideas

3 Healthy and Easy Rice Recipes for Weight Loss

BBQ Recipes

The post How To Set Up Your Diet for Fat Loss or Muscle Gain appeared first on Onnit Academy.

You can have a blast this weekend, and the season surrounding it, by foregoing some foods when you indulge in others, making healthy swaps that save calories without sacrificing flavor, and training with enough intensity to crack the Liberty Bell. This page serves as a hub for some of our favorite articles that show you how.

Below you’ll find:

• Delicious, nutritious, calorie-sparing recipes
• Strategies to eat healthy at parties
• Pointers for how Onnit products can help pump up summer foods and workouts
• Training routines you can do outside or on the road
• Places to train and eat well in your next vacation destination
• And more!

Bookmark this page and return to it, as needed, all summer long. We bet that you’ll be leaner and stronger by Labor Day if you do.

10 Articles for A Fit, Fun Summer

How To Have a Healthy Fourth of July

5 Foods You Should Be Grilling (But Aren’t)

3 Ab-Friendly Fourth of July Recipes

Forest Bathing: Bust Stress and Boost Your Health By Reconnecting With Nature

Aid Performance With Electrolytes

The Best Medicine-Ball Workouts

At-Home Chest Exercises and Workouts

Summer Salad Recipes: No Lettuce Included

Where To Train and Eat on Your Summer Road Trip

Healthy Snack and Foods for Road Trips, Camping, and Hiking

The post Summer Reading List: 10 Articles For A Fit, Fun Season appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Elite Physique offers regimens for fat loss, muscle gain, and targeting weak body parts, but it also teaches you the science of how to train to reach your goals, empowering you to catch your own fish, so to speak, rather than rely on an endless stream of other fitness books to hand them to you. Below is an edited excerpt from the chapter on fat-loss training, along with the first four weeks of a sample 12-week training plan that you can do at home.

Modifying Your Training for Fat Loss

The simplest approach to losing fat is to follow any muscle-building workout program while eating less. If you can cut a couple hundred calories a day from what you’re currently eating, you’ll lose fat. And for the first few weeks, it should work exactly like you expect. However, problems begin after the first month or so. Sooner or later, you’ll feel the effects of that calorie deficit. You’ll have less strength during your workouts and slower recovery between them. The negative impact on your training means you’ll end up doing less total work in the weight room, thereby burning fewer calories, and that will eventually stop your fat-loss efforts in their tracks.

The solution is to find ways to keep up your calorie deficit while accommodating for the effect it has on your strength, so you don’t sacrifice muscle mass and set your metabolism back further. Low-intensity cardio (longer, slower activities) and its counterpart, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), are two good options to accelerate fat loss in a way that won’t sacrifice your strength and muscle. Low-intensity work burns calories and builds the aerobic system, which enhances recovery, while HIIT offers big results for a small time investment.

Thus, you need these program modifications when training for fat loss:

– Perform fewer sets of weight training, or the same number of sets but for fewer exercises (to compensate for your lower energy levels).

– Don’t train to muscular failure, except for the final set of bodyweight exercises (again, to reduce the stress of strength training).

– Supplement strength training with a broad spectrum of energy systems work (cardio/endurance training) to burn calories and support recovery.

These key changes, combined with a calorie deficit, will ensure that you lose fat while maintaining muscle and strength. And you’ll build endurance that translates to virtually any sport. In the end, you’ll emerge with a leaner, more athletic physique—exactly what you expected when you bought this book.

Let’s take a closer look at energy systems—the way your body fuels your weight-training and cardio—and then I’ll show you how to combine cardio and lifting for the ultimate fat-loss program you can do at home with minimal equipment.

Utilizing Energy Systems Training for Fat Loss

Your body relies on three different systems to produce energy. First is the ATP-PC system, which uses phosphocreatine to fuel high-intensity muscle contractions. The ATP-PC system kicks in for the first few seconds of any activity you do, and it supplies the bulk of the energy needed for explosive, powerful muscle contractions, but it peters out quickly. (Creatine monohydrate has become one of the most popular supplements in history because of its powerful support of this energy system.)

The second energy system is anaerobic glycolysis, a process where your body breaks down glucose without the help of oxygen. This is used primarily after the ATP-PC system tires, and it kicks in hard while you’re lifting weights for higher reps or running short to moderate distances. The third system is aerobic metabolism, which breaks down glucose and fatty acids for fuel with the use of oxygen. It also uses ketones when you’re following a low-carbohydrate diet (Volek, Noakes, and Phinney 2015). You draw on aerobic energy to run, swim, or cycle long distances; it’s your main fuel source for endurance activity.

With all that said, these three systems constantly overlap to provide the energy you need during exercise, so it’s important to train them all. Of the three systems, aerobic metabolism can directly burn fat for energy, which is why it should be part of any fat-burning program. The other two systems, ATP-PC and anaerobic glycolysis, are used to build more muscle and mitochondria in your cells, which in turn increases your metabolic rate.

Importantly, each system does not make an equal contribution at any given level of intensity. During maximal activity, ATP-PC and anaerobic glycolysis are the primary drivers. Conversely, low-intensity activity is dominated by aerobic metabolism. For example, an MMA fighter could shadowbox at a low intensity for 30 minutes to develop his aerobic base, or strike with maximal intensity for 10 seconds and then rest a bit. Both kinds of training will contribute to powerful endurance in different ways. Same activity, but different energy systems.

There are two primary types of energy systems training:

1. Continuous training, which is performed at a relatively low intensity from start to finish without stopping, such as a 30-minute jog or 45 minutes on a bike. This is also called low-intensity, steady-state cardio (LISS), and primarily works the aerobic energy system.

2. Interval training, which consists of two or more bouts of high-intensity exercise with a period of rest between each. For example, a swimmer might perform eight 50-meter sprints with 90 seconds’ rest between each; a boxer might perform 12 20-second bouts of punching with 60-second rest intervals.

Programming Energy Systems Training for Fat Loss

The simplest solution here is to program LISS on days when you don’t lift weights, whenever possible. As a general rule, 30 to 60 minutes of LISS exercise performed three days per week covers your bases, and you can rotate workouts of different durations for the sake of variety. Regarding HIIT, the goal is to use a work-to-rest ratio that allows you to maintain your high-intensity performance. Think of HIIT as speed training: Once you start slowing down, the training effect diminishes.

These days it’s common to see HIIT protocols with extremely brief rest periods, which can make some people nauseous. That is not necessary, and it can even be detrimental in the long run. In the program below, you’ll see longer rest periods between bouts for HIIT than you’ll typically find in YouTube videos or other places vying for your attention. That is by design. There will be times when you’ll probably feel like you can perform these HIIT protocols with significantly less rest than what is prescribed, but I don’t recommend that. As the saying goes, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Remember that when you’re training to burn fat and keep muscle, you don’t want your workouts to be more stressful than they have to be.

Programming Intensity

The intensity of HIIT training is straightforward: Exert maximum effort during each bout of activity. With LISS, however, there are a few different ways to determine the correct intensity, and any of them can work. They are as follows:

– Start at a level of intensity you think you can maintain for 30 minutes. 


– Be able to carry on a conversation the whole workout. This means you can complete a sentence without gasping for air (commonly referred to as the “talk test”). 


– Monitor your heart rate to determine your maximum aerobic heart rate (MAHR).

The third option here stems from Dr. Philip Maffetone, author of The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing. His formula for LISS is simple: Subtract your age from 180 to determine your maximum aerobic heart rate (MAHR) in beats per minute (bpm). That formula helps you determine the heart rate you don’t want to exceed while performing LISS. For example, a typical 42-year-old man has an MAHR of 138 bpm (180 – 42). Since it’s impossible to maintain a specific heart rate during exercise, MAHR should be taken as a range between the number you calculate and 10 bpm below that, which, in this example, is 128. So your low-intensity aerobic workouts should keep your heart rate between 128 and 138 bpm for the duration.

How do you measure heart rate? Ideally, with a heart rate monitor. But you can ballpark it by holding two fingers to the carotid artery in your neck and counting the beats for six seconds. Multiply the number of beats you count by 10, and you’ve got the approximate beats per minute.

Maintaining the MAHR range helps you train at an intensity high enough to improve aerobic power but low enough to avoid the anaerobic threshold, where your body starts burning more glucose for fuel, thereby taking away from the aerobic training effect you’re trying to get (Maffetone 2010). Over the course of weeks and months of aerobic training, you’ll develop more mitochondria, capillaries, and myoglobin within the hypertrophied type I muscle fibers (Qaisar, Bhaskaran, and Van Remmen 2016). Low-intensity activity also increases your heart’s stroke volume, allowing more blood to be ejected with each heartbeat (Hellsten and Nyberg 2015). This means your cardiovascular system can maintain your performance with fewer beats per minute.

The MAHR calculation works well for most, with a few exceptions. It will probably not be accurate for someone who is severely deconditioned, is recovering from an injury, or has a very low resting heart rate. In those cases, stick to a level of intensity you can maintain for 30 minutes, or follow the talk test.

Sample Fat-Burning Program

You’ll perform three LISS and two or three HIIT sessions each week. The LISS sessions are intended to be performed on the days you don’t lift weights in order to burn fat, accelerate recovery, and reduce the likelihood of an interference effect (cardio endurance training eating into your muscle recovery from strength training), but if that doesn’t fit your schedule, perform them whenever you can—earlier or later on the days you lift weights, or directly before or after those sessions. This isn’t ideal scheduling, but you’ll still make progress.

The HIIT workouts are intended to be done at the end of your lifting workouts, but, as with the LISS sessions, you can put them elsewhere in the week if it better suits your schedule.

There are three types of workouts for both LISS and HIIT. Each time you do cardio, you’ll alternate between LISS and HIIT, and rotate through the specific protocols. Here are the workouts you’ll do.

LISS

Perform a 30-, 45-, or 60-minute session on three of your non-lifting days. Keep your heart rate at your MAHR or within 10 bpm below. Appropriate exercises include brisk walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, stair-climbing, rowing, a basketball game, shadowboxing, or soccer drills.

HIIT

Perform any activity that allows you to train with speed and an all-out effort. Examples include jumping rope, sprinting, kettlebell swings or snatches, stair-stepper climbing, sled pushing or pulling, loaded carries, elliptical machine, rowing machine, Assault bike, battle rope slams, roundhouse kicks to a heavy bag, or vertical climbing. Rotate between the following.

5:45 protocol: 5 seconds of maximal activity followed by 45 seconds of rest. Repeat for 10 rounds. 


10:60 protocol: 10 seconds of maximal activity followed by 60 seconds of rest; 10 seconds of maximal activity followed by 60 seconds of rest; 10 seconds of maximal activity followed by 2 minutes of rest. That’s one round. Repeat for three total rounds. 


15:45 protocol: 15 seconds of maximal activity followed by 45 seconds of rest; 15 seconds of maximal activity followed by 2 minutes of rest. That’s one round. Repeat for four total rounds.

For example, in Week 1 of the program, you may do the 5:45 protocol (HIIT) after your lifting session on Monday, a 30-minute jog (LISS) on Tuesday, the 10:60 protocol after lifting Wednesday, a 45-minute bike on Thursday, and a 60-minute walk Saturday. The following week, you could pick up with the 15:45 protocol after lifting on Monday, and begin the cycle again with a 30-minute jog on Tuesday.

The Elite Physique Fat Burner 3 Workout

The FB3 plan prioritizes your bodyweight for resistance. Additionally, you’ll need one moderately heavy dumbbell or kettlebell, a long resistance band, and a Swiss ball to fill in the gaps. Since a range of loads isn’t possible with bodyweight, most of your sets should be performed for as many repetitions as possible (AMRAP), but stop each set one rep short of failure. On the last set, you can push closer to exhaustion, as long as it doesn’t compromise your form in any way.

Your full-body strength relies heavily on your core. Since it’s common to lose strength while cutting calories, this program emphasizes making your midsection stronger. That’s why your core exercises in this program are almost always performed first, when you have the most energy, instead of at the end of a workout when you’re fatigued.

DIRECTIONS: WEEKS 1–4

You’ll lift weights three days a week, rotating between Workouts A, B, and C. Space the workouts apart by at least a day. So you could do Workout A on Monday, B on Wednesday, and C Friday, rest on the weekend, and repeat the cycle on the following Monday.

For each workout, perform exercises 1A–D as a circuit. So you’ll do one set of 1A, rest as prescribed, 1B, rest, and so on, until you’ve completed every exercise in the circuit. That’s one round. Rest 90 seconds, and repeat for 4 total rounds.

The first four weeks of the program appear below, and you can find the remaining eight weeks—as well as several other programs for fat loss and muscle gain—in my book, Elite Physique.

Workout A

1A Swiss-Ball Rollout

Reps: AMRAP  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Start on your knees with your forearms resting on a large Swiss ball, elbows bent and resting below your chin (see figure a).

Step 2. Brace your abs, squeeze your glutes, and then shift your body forward as far as possible while you simultaneously extend your elbows, rolling the ball forward (see figure b).

Step 3. Slowly reverse to the starting position and repeat.

1B One-Arm Overhead Push Press

Reps: AMRAP  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Hold a kettlebell or dumbbell in your left hand at the side of your shoulder, palm facing in and elbow tucked tightly to your side. Take a step forward with your right foot to get in a split stance, with your toes forward and both knees bent slightly. Extend your right arm to the side for balance (see figure a).

Step 2. Bend your knees quickly to lower your body four to six inches (10-15 cm) to prepare for the leg drive (see figure b).

Step 3. Push through the center of your feet to straighten both legs as you simultaneously press the weight overhead until your elbow is locked straight (see figure c). The movement is intended to be explosive, so dip your knees quickly and extend them fast to generate momentum.

Step 4. Lower the weight under control and repeat for reps.

Step 5. Switch the weight to the right hand, put your left foot forward, and repeat.

1C One-Arm Row

Reps: AMRAP  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Grab a dumbbell or kettlebell in your left hand. Stand with your feet shoulder width, then step your right leg forward a couple feet. Push your hips back and shift your trunk forward until it’s around 45 degrees relative to the floor. The majority of your weight is on your right (front) leg. Your left arm is straight and hanging down, palm facing in (see figure a). Place your right hand on the top of your right thigh, and slightly arch your low back.

Step 2. Bend your left elbow and pull the weight up until your left palm is near the side of your torso (see figure b).

Step 3. Slowly reverse the motion. Switch the weight to your right hand with your left leg forward and repeat.

1D Reverse Lunge

Reps: AMRAP  Rest: 90 sec.

Step 1. Stand with your feet together while holding a weight in your left hand hanging down at arm’s length (see  figure a).

Step 2. Take a long step back with your left leg, plant the toes, and lower your body until your rear knee is at or near the floor (see figure b).

Step 3. Step back to the starting position.

Step 4. Perform all your reps with one leg, and then switch the weight to your right hand and repeat the reps while stepping back with your right leg.

Workout B

1A Hardstyle Plank

Reps: Hold for 10 seconds with max effort  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Start with your elbows resting directly below your shoulders and your body in a straight line from neck to ankles (see figure).

Step 2. Brace your abs, squeeze your glutes, and then pull your elbows toward your knees. Your elbows won’t move but you’ll feel an intense contraction in your lats and abdominals.

Step 3. Maintain the effort for as long as possible.

1B Face Pull

Reps: 12  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Attach a long resistance band to a sturdy object, and hook the open end of the band across the back of your wrists with your palms facing forward, fingers spread and pointing up (see figure a). Stand tall with your arms held in front and parallel to the floor. Step back to generate tension on the band.

Step 2. Perform a horizontal row, and then at the halfway point of the motion, externally rotate the shoulders until the upper arms are slightly below parallel to the floor (see figure b).

Step 3. Slowly reverse the motion and repeat.

1C One-Arm Floor Press

Reps: AMRAP  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, wider than shoulder width. Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in your right hand directly above your right shoulder, with your elbow locked straight. Place your left arm on the floor, angled out slightly from your body (see figure a).

Step 2. Squeeze your glutes, brace your abs, and then bend your right elbow and lower the weight until your elbow is resting on the floor (see figure b). Press the weight until your elbow is locked straight. Repeat for reps.

Step 3. Switch to your left hand and repeat.

1D Stepup

Reps: AMRAP  Rest: 90 sec.

Step 1. Stand with your left foot flat on a box or step, high enough so that your knee is bent 90 degrees. Your right foot is on the floor behind the left while holding a weight down at your side in your right hand (see figure a).

Step 2. Push through the heel of the left foot to lift yourself up until it is straight and the foot of the trailing leg is alongside it (see figure b).

Step 3. Without putting any weight on the trailing leg, lower it back to the floor.

Step 4. Perform all your reps, then switch sides and repeat the set.

Workout C

1A Pallof Press

Reps: Hold 20 seconds each side  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Attach a band to a sturdy object around chest height. Grasp the handle of the cable or the band with both hands, fingers interlocked.

Step 2. Step away from the cable or band so it’s to your right and approximately parallel to the floor. Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width, hands against your chest (see figure a).

Step 3. Brace your abs, squeeze your glutes, and then slowly straighten your arms in front, parallel to the ground (see figure b). Maintain the position without rotating your trunk or pelvis.

Step 4. Hold for the recommended time, then switch sides so the cable or band is to your left.

1B Feet-Elevated Pushup

Reps: AMRAP  Rest: 45 sec.

Step 1. Get into the top position of a pushup, with your hands on the floor slightly wider than shoulder-width apart (see figure a). Your feet are approximately hip-width apart and resting on a box or step that’s up to 24 inches (60 cm) high. Your body is aligned from neck to ankles.

Step 2. Bend your elbows and lower your body as one unit until your chest is near the floor (see figure b).

Step 3. Push back up and repeat.

1C Straight-Arm Lat Pulldown

Reps: 12  Rest: 30 sec.

Step 1. Loop one end of a long resistance band over a secure structure higher than your head. Loop the other end under your palms, and stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Push your hips back and bend your knees slightly to shift your trunk forward to around 70 degrees relative to the floor. Hold your arms parallel to the floor, slightly wider than shoulder width (see figure a).

Step 2. Brace your abs, squeeze your glutes, and then pull your arms down until your palms are just outside your thighs (see figure b).

Step 3. Slowly elevate your arms back to the starting position and repeat.

1D Kettlebell Swing

Reps: 5  Rest: 90 sec.

Step 1. Stand with your feet wider than shoulder width, with a kettlebell resting on the ground about a foot (30 cm) in front of you. Push your hips back, keep your knees directly above your feet, and then reach forward to grab the kettlebell with both hands while maintaining a neutral spine (see figure a). This is only the starting position and is not repeated throughout the subsequent reps.

Step 2. To initiate the swing, explosively pull the kettlebell so it swings back between your legs (see figure b).

Step 3. Explosively thrust your hips forward as you stand, driving through the center of your feet, using minimal assistance from your arms to elevate the kettlebell. Swing the kettlebell up until it’s around chest height (see figure c). Your body should be perfectly vertical at the end of the motion.

Step 4. Reverse the motion, and continue for the desired number of reps. To end the set, perform a hip hinge and lower the kettlebell straight down to the floor.

Pick up Elite Physique at HumanKinetics.com

The post Fat Loss Workouts For an Elite Physique appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Conventional physique programs that focus solely on building your muscles and “blasting your abs” only take you so far. Sooner or later your back hurts, your knees ache, you plateau on your exercises, and you wonder what all your hard work is for.

And then what happens? You quit. Time passes, you feel guilty, and you tell yourself you’ll start again in the New Year and give it all you have.

Well, it’s 2021, and it’s high time you stopped making the same mistake.

You CAN have abs, and athleticism, and greater overall health and fitness—without spending considerably more time at the gym—by taking an optimized approach.

Our approach.

Take on our 12-Week Fat Loss Workout Plan, and you’ll not only get in the best shape of your life but know how to keep that shape for the rest of your life.

Who Is This Fat Loss Workout Plan For?

The former athlete looking to get back into fitness, or men and women who have been working diligently for months (or years) but are disappointed with their results. These workouts consist primarily of body-weight exercises, but don’t read that as “easy.” Even an experienced and especially strong lifter will be humbled by them.

What This Fat Loss Workout Plan Will Do For You

You know the conventional approach to getting ripped all too well. Hit one or two body parts at a time, do three sets of 10 reps, isolate the muscles, blah blah blah.

We don’t mean to knock those methods and they certainly have their place, but we feel they present a very one-dimensional view of training, and they limit the potential of what your body can do and even how it can look.

Have you noticed how guys who blast their chests tend to end up with bad posture? How lots of bench pressing hurts your shoulders and crunches make your lower back sore? And it’s probably occurred to you that spending a whole day training your arms means you’ll need to spend another on your back, another on your legs, another on your deltoids… It gets awfully time-consuming, and what good is having a great body if you never have time to do anything else with it?

We say: scrap all that. Start training your body like the integrated system that it is rather than a disjointed collection of parts, and you’ll see better, faster results without side effects.

1. Improved Mobility

First, you need to work to offset the muscle imbalances and limited range of motion you’re no doubt suffering from (perhaps without even realizing it) due to living in the modern world. Only then will you be able to get the best results—from our program or any.

Onnit’s workouts don’t begin with the “first exercise.” The days of doing a few shoulder circles, cracking your knuckles, and loading up the barbell right away in your workout are over. Today, smart coaches know the value of doing a thorough joint mobility warmup first. Each session, we ask that you take five minutes to do a series of mobility drills including neck glides, Egyptians, and lateral hip rooting (shown below). It’s designed to help correct the problems that result from sitting in front of a computer screen, driving in a car, and other activities that tighten the hips and weaken the upper back and core.

This warmup will prepare you to perform the exercises in the main workout more efficiently. It will improve your ranges of motion, and help to prevent injury when you start loading up heavy weights and blasting through circuits—don’t skip it.

2. Strength, Muscle, and Fat Loss

Second, we want you to work the whole body each session, which burns more calories and activates more muscle than body-part splits (much of it in your core). This will automatically have you training each muscle group more frequently. The more often you can train a muscle the faster it will grow, provided you can recover from the previous session. Short, intense, frequent workouts allow you to train hard, recover well, and make gains fast.

The workouts feature a strength superset, which serves as your “meat and potatoes” training—the work that will give you the majority of your results by challenging your muscles with heavy loads that tax your whole body. It’s worth noting that we’ve built some mobility in here as well: we opted for the Romanian deadlift because it’s safer for the lower back than the conventional version, and teaches you to hinge at the hips properly—a fundamental movement skill. This is paired with the dumbbell pullover, which opens up the lats while sparing the elbows, which are often irritated by chinup exercises.

In Workout B, you’ll focus on hanging from a bar in the bottom of a pullup position. Simply holding on and letting your own body weight stretch you is enough grip and core training to qualify as serious strength work, and you’ll see what it does for your ability to do full range pullups down the road.

After the strength superset, you’ll hit a conditioning circuit, in which you’ll perform a series of body-weight exercises that will burn calories and force you to stabilize your body in ways that you can’t while lifting weights. You’ll do as many rounds as you can in 20 minutes one week and Tabata intervals the next. It puts conventional cardio to shame.

3. Better Gains Long-Term

Lastly, you’ll use a decompression circuit (“cool down”) to end each session. This consists of static and dynamic stretches (downward dog, hip flexor stretch) that pull the tension out of your muscles to promote recovery and further improve mobility. As with the warmup, it only takes five minutes, and will help to re-acclimate your body to life outside the gym, and keep you healthy and fit to train for as long as you choose to.

Directions

The program goes for 12 weeks. The workouts for Part 1—Weeks 1–4—appear here (come back in February for Part 2). While the exercises for the first four weeks remain the same, the way in which you perform them will change slightly on a weekly basis. See the “notes” on each week at the bottom of the page.

Perform each workout (Workout A and B) twice per week. An ideal schedule would be to do A on Monday, B on Tuesday, rest Wednesday, do A again Thursday and B Friday. Perform some kind of light recreational activity (walking, biking, swimming, sports, etc.) the remaining days of the week. Repeat the cycle for four weeks.

Begin each workout with the prescribed mobility warmup, and then do the strength superset, conditioning circuit, and decompression.

Each workout should take 45 minutes or less.

For a nutrition plan to accompany the workouts, CLICK HERE.

Fat Loss Workout A

Mobility Warmup

Perform 5 reps of each exercise (on each side, where appropriate) in sequence. Repeat the series for 3 total rounds.

A. Forward/Backward Neck Glide

Stand tall with soft knees and tuck your tailbone slightly so your hips are level with the floor. Think “proud chest,” drawing your shoulder blades back and down. Brace your core and place your hands on your belly to draw awareness to any movement in your torso during the drill (there shouldn’t be any), and slowly extend your neck straight forward. Avoid tilting your head up or down—move it forward as if it were sliding on a straight path. Go as far forward as you can and then retract your head straight back until you feel you’re making a double chin.

B. Double Backward Shoulder Roll

From the same tall standing position described above, allow your arms to hang at your sides and begin rolling your shoulders backward. Make big circles, moving only at the shoulders, drawing them back, down, forward, and up again. Move your shoulders as far as you can in each direction.

C. Egyptian

Raise your arms out 90 degrees, actively reaching them apart as far as you can. Rotate purely at the right shoulder, twisting your arm so your palm faces behind you. Allow your head and torso to rotate to the left as you twist. Unwind your right arm and repeat on the opposite side.

D. Lateral Hip Root

Stand with feet between hip and shoulder-width apart and tilt your pelvis backward. Keeping a “proud chest,” drive your hips back to one side, allowing your knees to bend as needed. Bend as far as you can, reaching your arms out straight for balance. Squeeze your glutes and tuck your pelvis back under as you come back to standing and repeat on the other side.

E. Hacky Sack

Bend one knee 90 degrees and raise that leg up so your thigh is parallel to the floor. Keep your balance and rotate your lower leg in toward the midline of your body as far as you can. Reverse the motion and rotate the leg outward as far as possible.

Strength Superset

Complete one set of 1A and then 1B before resting.

1A. Romanian Deadlift
Sets: 4
Reps: 8
Rest: 0 sec.

Place a loaded barbell on a power rack or mats so that it’s at about mid-thigh level. Grasp the bar with a shoulder-width grip and pull the bar out of the rack so it hangs at arm’s length in front of you. Step back a few feet to clear the rack and stand with feet between hip and shoulder width apart.

Imagine screwing your feet into the floor—twist them out and apart—but not to the point where they actually move. Just activate the muscles on the sides of your hips and feel the tension you’ve created in your lower body. Take a deep breath into your belly and draw your shoulder blades back and down (think of Superman pulling his jacket open to reveal the “S” on his chest). Tilt your hips back.

Begin lowering your torso toward the floor, pushing your hips back as far as you can until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings. Allow your knees to bend as needed. You should feel your weight on your heels.

Keep your spine long from your head to your pelvis. As you bend, keep the bar pulled into your legs the entire time, firing the muscles in your back and keeping a “proud chest” position.

When you’ve gone as far as you can safely, squeeze your glutes to come back up to standing.

1B. Dumbbell Pullover
Sets: 4
Reps: 10
Rest: 120 sec.

Hold a dumbbell by one of its bells with both hands and lie back on a bench, suspending the weight over your chest. Take a deep breath and begin lowering the weight behind your head while keeping your elbows straight.

When you feel a stretch in your lats, pull the weight back up to the starting position using your back muscles.

Conditioning Circuit

Perform the following exercises back to back for 20 minutes. Do not rest in between exercises; work at your own pace. Complete as many rounds (exercises 1A–1D) as possible without stopping and record the number you complete. Try to beat this number in Week 3.

1A. Body-weight Squat
Reps: 20

Stand with your feet between hip and shoulder-width apart and toes turned out slightly. Look straight ahead, take a deep breath, and screw your feet into the floor as you did in the Romanian deadlift.

Drop down as if sitting in a low chair, spreading your knees apart as you descend. Go as low as you feel comfortable while keeping a long spine from your head to your pelvis—your head, back, and hips should form a straight line and your torso should be very vertical. Your knees should line up with your big toes. Drive through the middle of your feet to stand back up.

1B. Pushup
Reps: 10

Place your hands on the floor at shoulder-width apart and extend your legs behind you in a straight line. Your feet should be about hip-width apart. Breathe into your belly and brace your core. Pull your shoulder blades down and together.

Think about twisting your hands into the floor to create tension in your shoulders. Begin lowering your body toward the floor by pulling yourself down with your upper back. Stop when your chest is about an inch above the floor and press back up, continuing to push until your shoulder blades are spread wide apart.

1C. Bicycle Crunch
Reps: 10 (each side)

Lie on your back on the floor and clasp your hands behind your head. Extend your legs in front of you. Crunch your torso off the floor and twist to your left while simultaneously raising your left knee to your chest until your knee and elbow meet. Lower your torso and leg and repeat on the opposite side. You’ll look like you’re pedaling a bicycle. Each twist is one rep.

1D. Hip-Opening Mountain Climber
Reps: 10 (each side)

Get into pushup position and draw your right knee up to the outside of your elbow, pulling the leg inward while driving the arm out so they touch each other firmly. Drive it back and bring the other knee up. Alternate in a steady rhythm (each knee drive is one rep). Keep your core engaged and resist any rotation at the shoulders or hips. Fight to keep your “proud chest” position—try not to let your upper back round forward excessively.

Decompression

Perform each exercise for 60 seconds (30 seconds per side where appropriate).

A. Standing Forward Fold

From the tall, “proud chest” position, bend your hips back and reach behind your ankles. Pull your legs toward you with your arms while simultaneously trying to extend your hips. Keep the tension and feel your lower back open up.

B. Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch

Kneel on the floor in a lunge position and stack your head and spine directly over your hips. Allow your front knee to drive forward but maintain your upper-body position. You should feel the stretch in the front of your trailing leg. As your hip opens, allow your knee to drift further forward and your hips to stretch more deeply.

C. Kneeling Inverted Pushup Hold

Get on all fours and rest the backs of your hands on the floor directly underneath your shoulders. Keep a “proud chest” position with your spine and hips aligned as you straighten your elbows to feel a stretch on your wrist extensors (in the forearm). Turn your biceps to face forward and hold the position.

D. Downward Facing Dog

Get into a bear crawl position with hands on the floor at shoulder-width apart. Push your feet and hands into the floor to raise your hips into the air. Allow your knees to bend as neeed to keep your head, spine, and hips aligned. Hold the position while actively driving your hands into the floor.

E. Floor Scorpion

Lie on your chest on the floor and spread your arms out 90 degrees. Bend your left leg and drive it up off the floor and over behind your right arm. Plant it flat on the floor and drive it actively into the floor so you feel a stretch in your hips. Allow your shoulder to come up as you turn but try to drive it back down.

Note that the way in which this workout is done changes slightly week to week. Above is what you should do for Week 1. See the “notes” on the bottom of the page for instructions on Weeks 2–4.

Fat Loss Workout B

Mobility Warmup

Repeat the warmup from Workout A.

Strength Superset

Complete one set of 1A and then 1B before resting.

1A. One-Arm Dumbbell Row
Sets: 4
Reps: 8 (each side)
Rest: 0 sec.

Hold a dumbbell in one hand and rest the opposite hand and knee on a bench. Think “proud chest,” drawing your shoulder blades down and together, and row the weight to your side until your upper arm is in line with your torso. Complete your reps and repeat on the opposite side.

1B. Pull-up Bar Hang
Sets: 4
Reps: Hold as long as possible
Rest: 120 sec.

Grasp a pullup bar with hands outside shoulder width and palms facing away from you. Draw your shoulder blades down and try to pull them together. Pull your ribs down. Think about keeping your head, spine and hips aligned and making your spine as long as possible. Hang from the bar as long as you can.

Conditioning Circuit

Perform the following exercises back to back for 20 minutes. Do not rest in between exercises; work at your own pace. Complete as many rounds (exercises 1A–1D) as possible without stopping and record the number you complete. Try to beat this number in Week 3.

1A. Split Squat
Reps: 10 (each side)

Lunge forward with one foot so your feet are staggered. Keeping your torso upright, lower your body until your rear knee nearly touches the floor. Come back up. Complete all your reps on one leg and then switch legs and repeat.

1B. Twist And Sit
Reps: 10 (each side)

Get into a bear crawl position—on the balls of your feet with your knees under your hips and hands under your shoulders. Rotate your body to the right, pivoting on your right foot and turning until your left hip can touch the floor—hold for a moment and feel the stretch. Reverse the motion and repeat on the opposite side. Keep your shoulders square to the floor the whole time.

1C. V-Up
Reps: 20

Lie on your back on the floor and raise both hands behind your head. Extend your legs. Take a deep breath and brace your abs. Sit up all the way, raising your legs simultaneously. Your body should form a V shape at the top.

1D. Alternating Tripod Extension
Reps: 5 (each side)

Sit on the floor with hips and knees bent 90 degrees and feet flat. Twist your torso to place your left elbow inside your right thigh and rest your right arm on the floor behind you. Think “proud chest” and take a deep breath. Brace your core.

Drive through your heels and bridge your hips up until your body forms a straight line from your head to your knees. As you rise, reach your left arm to the ceiling. Reverse the motion and repeat on the other side. Both sides equals one rep.

Decompression

Repeat the cool down from Workout A.

Note that the way in which this workout is done changes slightly week to week. Above is what you should do for Week 1. See the “notes” below for instructions on Weeks 2–4.

Week 1 Notes – Set Your Pace:

Don’t compete with yourself too hard this week. Your main goal is to determine what loads to use and make sure your form is precise. If you have to reduce the weight you’re using between sets, so be it. Keep a log, recording the weights you use and how the workouts feel. In a few weeks, you’ll be able to look back and see how far you’ve come.

On the conditioning circuit, try to find a comfortable pace that allows you to keep moving for the full 20 minutes. If you need to take breaks because your muscles are fatigued, take note of which body parts are fatiguing faster than others. If it’s your lungs that need the break, slow down and focus on breathing between each rep of every exercise. You’re welcome to perform your reps with a bit more time in between them. Each rep should be done with crisp technique. You will be able to pick up the pace each week.

Week 2 Notes – Compress The Workload:

Now that you’ve found the appropriate weights to use for your strength exercises, aim to get the same amount of work done with them in less time.

The rest period at the end of the superset now drops to 90 seconds.

This can have a significant effect on how you feel in the last few sets, so make sure not to increase the loads you’re using until you’re sure you can complete all the prescribed reps for them while respecting the rest time.

The format of the conditioning circuit changes too. You’ll now perform each exercise not for reps but for time. You’ll work for 20 seconds and then take 10 seconds off (you may know this as the “Tabata Protocol”) and repeat for 8 total sets before moving on to the next exercise. Note that, technically, this is not a circuit anymore but straight sets. For example, you’ll do squats for 20 seconds, then rest 10, and repeat for 8 sets. Then you’ll go on to do pushups, bicycle crunches, and mountain climbers in the same fashion. Rest one minute between exercises.

This change-up will increase the endurance demands on your muscles dramatically, so be sure to do your reps at a conservative pace. Make note of the reps you can do each set for each exercise. Afterward, add the lowest score of all your sets for each movement. This is the number you want to beat the next time.

Week 3 Notes – Turn Up The Volume:

This week returns to the format used in Week 1.

The strength supersets will continue to be done with 90 seconds rest but the number of sets will increase. Do 5 sets each for the pair.

One set may not sound like much but it represents a 25% increase in workload. It should feel substantially different than last week even if you use the same weights.

The conditioning circuit returns to reps instead of work and rest intervals, and you’ll complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes again. Try to beat the number you recorded in Week 1.

Week 4 Notes – Test Yourself:

Reduce the rest for the strength superset to 60 sec. Perform the conditioning work as a Tabata again and try to increase your score by one rep on every exercise.

The post New Year’s Resolution Series: 12-Week Fat Loss Workout Plan for 2021 appeared first on Onnit Academy.

(P.S.: If you really are drinking a six-pack nightly, you won’t see definition in your abs no matter what workout you do. You need to cut calories and sugar from your diet to lose body fat… and maybe seek counseling?)

Bodyweight Ab Burner

Leija says you can do this routine at the start of a workout for other muscle groups (if you want to prioritize your abs), at the end of a workout (as a high-intensity finisher), or on a separate day entirely. All you need is some floor space. It takes six minutes (or less) to complete.

Directions: Set a timer for 6 minutes and start the clock the moment you begin the first exercise. Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set of each in sequence. Perform the first exercise for 30 seconds total, and then do the others for 20 seconds each. Do not rest between exercises, and rest as little as possible after the last one. Repeat for 3 total rounds, or until the 6 minutes are up.

1 Straight-Arm Plank/Knees to Elbows/Mountain Climber

Reps: Work for 30 sec.

Step 1. Get into pushup position with your hands shoulder-width apart and legs extended behind you. Tuck your pelvis slightly so it’s perpendicular to your spine, and brace your core. Your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet. Hold the position 10 seconds.

Step 2. Raise one knee at a time out 45 degrees and up to your elbow. Take it back, maintaining your tight core, and keep your hips and shoulders square to the floor. Continue for 10 seconds.

Step 3. Finally, perform mountain climbers, alternating knees straight up to your chest and back. Go for 10 seconds.

2 Full Situp

Reps: Work for 20 sec.

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor with your feet flat and knees bent 90 degrees. Raise your arms behind your head.

Step 2. Sit up all the way and hug your knees at the top.

3 Bicycle Crunch

Reps: Work for 20 sec.

Step 1. Lie on your back and place your hands at the sides of your head. Extend one leg in front of you and tuck the other near your chest.

Step 2. Twist your shoulders, bending the straight leg and extending the tucked leg until your opposite elbow and knee touch. Alternate sides; it should look as if you’re pedaling a bicycle.

4 Russian Twist

Reps: Work for 20 sec.

Step 1. Sit on the floor and extend your legs in front of you with a slight bend in your knees. Raise your feet off the floor to put tension on your abs.

Step 2. Twist your torso side to side, touching the floor next to your hip with both hands.

5 Hollow-Body Hold

Reps: Work for 20 sec.

Step 1. Lie on your back and raise your arms overhead. Tuck your pelvis so that your lower back flattens into the floor. Brace your core.

Step 2. Extend your legs, and raise them off the floor. Hold the position with arms and legs straight, maintaining your flat back position.

Medicine-Ball Ab Workout

A medicine ball allows you to add weight to your ab training in a form that’s easier to grip and handle than a dumbbell or weight plate. It also allows you to train the core for power, as in the rotational slam exercise, where you twist your torso and throw the ball into the floor. This kind of training prepares your core to produce and absorb force the way it needs to when you’re playing sports.

Directions: Do this workout at the start of one of your regular sessions—it should take no more than 6 minutes to complete. Perform the exercises as a circuit, completing one set of each in sequence. Perform 10 reps for each movement. Do not rest between exercises, and then rest 30–60 seconds after the last one. Repeat for 2 total rounds.

1 Med-Ball Butterfly Situp

Step 1. Hold a medicine ball with both hands overhead, and lie on your back on the floor. Bend your knees, bringing the soles of your feet together.

Step 2. Sit up all the way, bringing the ball down in front of your chest and touching your toes with it.

2 Med-Ball Leg Lift

Step 1. Lie on your back and hold the ball overhead. Extend your legs in front of you.

Step 2. Raise your legs up and your hips off the floor while using the ball as a counterbalance. Flex your abs at the top.

3 Table-Top Medicine-Ball Retrieve

Step 1. Lie on your back and hold the ball overhead. Raise your legs 90 degrees and then bend your knees to 90. Flatten your lower back into the floor and brace your core.

Step 2. Sit up and pull the ball from overhead to in front of your chest. Place the ball on the shelf provided by your shins, and lower your torso back down.

Step 3. Sit up again, and retrieve the ball from your legs, lowering back down again. Each situp is one rep.

4 Rotational Slam

Step 1. Kneel on the floor and hold the ball in front of your chest. Tuck your pelvis so it’s parallel to the floor, and brace your core.

Step 2. Raise the ball overhead and rotate to one side. Slam the ball into the floor and catch it on the rebound. Twist to the other side and repeat. Each slam is one rep. Perform 5 reps on each side (10 total).

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The Onnit 6 Bodyweight program is a six-week long, bodyweight-only workout plan you can do at home. Since its launch in 2018, Onnit 6 Bodyweight has sold more than 16,000 units.

O6 Bodyweight includes:

·            4 resistance training/metabolic conditioning sessions and 2 non-traditional yoga workouts per week.

·            A variety of fun, challenging training methods—including Tabata, EMOM, and circuit training—that leave you looking forward to each workout.

·            3 levels of progression for every exercise, so you can easily scale and customize each workout based on your ability level and experience.

·            Video instruction from Onnit Chief Fitness Officer John Wolf; you’ll feel like you’re getting personal coaching from one of the best trainers in the world.

·            Delicious, diet-friendly recipes and nutrition tips.

·            Mindset strategies from Onnit Founder Aubrey Marcus himself.

Onnit 6 Bodyweight for PS4® is available now, on the Littlstar app, and littlstar.com. Get Onnit 6 Bodyweight on your PS4 HERE.

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Apart from beating boredom, bag training offers some functional, athletic advantages that more mainstream modes of cardio don’t. “On a treadmill, bike, or rowing machine, there’s a consistent cadence, and your breathing is rhythmic,” says Onnit Pro Team manager Andrew Craig, who’s also a veteran of the UFC’s middleweight division. “But when you train with a heavy bag, your inhalations and exhalations are rapid and varied.” This makes them similar to how you would breathe in a fight, and most other stop-and-go, anaerobic activities. Assuming your striking technique is good, you’ll generate power that starts from your feet, and is then released with the twist of your torso. “The rotation required to throw a punch or kick works just about every muscle in your body. You move through multiple planes of motion in ways you wouldn’t with any other training tool.”

In this article, you’ll learn all about how to train with a punching bag, including the best bag to get and the right gear to go with it, and you’ll discover two punching bag programs that you can use for full-body workouts that get you lean and conditioned. It’s the baddest cardio on the planet!

What’s the Difference Between a Heavy Bag and a Punching Bag?

First, let’s clear up a small but significant matter of terminology. Many people refer to heavy and punching bags interchangeably, as if they’re one and the same. However, a heavy bag is just one type of punching bag.

“A regular heavy bag is usually four or five feet long, and is mainly used for punching,” says Craig. They often weigh between 30 and 200 pounds, and typically hang from the ceiling or another structure overhead. The heavy bag doesn’t move much when you strike it (hint: because it’s heavy). The classic heavy bag is a cylinder shape, but there are offshoot bags with different designs that offer distinct training advantages. “There’s a banana bag, which is longer—up to six feet—and often thinner,” says Craig. “Because of its shape, it’s easier to strike this one with your knees or elbows.”

There are also bags with contours that simulate an opponent’s body, making it easier to throw specific kinds of punches like uppercuts and body shots. However, unless you have a martial arts or boxing background, or you’re ready to invest in some expert coaching to learn good striking technique, Craig suggests restricting your workouts to throwing punches. “These other kinds of strikes are highly skilled movements, and you might hurt yourself if you don’t perform them properly.”

The term punching bag can encompass a variety of tools. The most prominent is probably the free-standing bag, which is basically a heavy bag that’s mounted to a base. They’re usually weighted down with sand or water, and can be rolled anywhere you want to place them, which makes them convenient to move and easy to set up in a home gym (especially if you can’t mount a heavy bag on your ceiling or wall). Free-standing bags usually spring back into place after you hit them, making them a good option to practice kicks on. Nevertheless, Craig isn’t a fan of bags mounted to a base because they can alter the footwork fundamentals needed to get in position to strike the target. These bags can slide and wobble on the floor when you hit them, changing your distance from and orientation to the bag throughout the workout. The dynamics of how they recoil can cause problems, particularly for a novice.

Speed bags are the small, ceiling-mounted, teardrop-shaped ones you’ve seen in videos of old-time boxers training (and all the Rocky movies where Stallone makes them rattle so fast you wonder if they sped up the tape in the editing process). Speed bags are great for improving reaction time, boosting hand-eye coordination, and, as the name suggests, developing punching speed, but they aren’t meant to be hit hard, and you don’t use the same striking technique you do for power punches. As they’re really a specialized tool for dedicated boxers, Craig says not to bother with a speed bag until you’ve gotten a heavy bag and mastered the boxing basics.

What Heavy Bag is Right For Me?

Back in the day, any boxing gym worth its salt would only have leather heavy bags. Though there are a bevy of man-made materials available now that all promise greater durability, Craig thinks good ol’ animal hide is still the way to go for longevity, quality, and feel. Generally, you’ll want a heavy bag that’s equal to about half your bodyweight. So, if a brand has three different weights available—say 75, 100, and 125 pounds—most adults should go with the middle option. As long as the bag doesn’t swing or shake dramatically with every blow you land, it’s offering enough resistance to provide a good workout. Heavy bags range in price depending on the size and material (leather, while more durable, is costlier than vinyl), but you can expect to spend more than $100.

Most bags come pre-filled, but you can save considerable money by buying an empty one and stuffing it yourself. Take a pair of scissors to some of your old T-shirts and shove those rags into the bag. However, bags can also be filled with sand, water, textiles, and air.

Not sure how to mount your bag? Check out this video from Fight Alex if you’re planning to anchor the bag to your ceiling, and this one if you’re going to affix your bag to a wall bracket instead.

What Do I Need To Work Out On A Punching Bag?

Hitting a bag with bare fists or workout gloves is about as dangerous as walking up to Mike Tyson and telling him he talks funny. If you’re going to train like a boxer, you need to go all in, and that means investing in gloves. Again, Craig recommends leather. Store sold out? Then synthetic leather is a good backup option. Get a 12 or 14-ounce pair, which are usually sold separately from a bag. Punching bags are often bundled with 16-ounce gloves, but Craig says those are more suited for sparring in the ring, and the weight of them will make your forearms and hands fatigue quicker when you try to pound the bag with them.

Gloves don’t just fit over your naked hands. Your fists have to be wrapped first to help stabilize them and prevent injury. Craig recommends cloth hand wraps that are at least 180 inches long each (they come in packs of two). Two other styles—quick wraps and elastic wraps—are also popular, but many people don’t like how the elastic feels on their hands. The old-school cloth wraps also absorb more moisture, keeping your hands dryer and reducing the risk of painful chafing. The one exception is if you’re always pushed for time, and scheduling your workouts is a challenge. In this case, quick or elastic wraps can help you start your heavy bag session without having to individually bundle up each paw like an Egyptian mummy.

Need specific brand recommendations? Of course, there’s Everlast, probably the biggest name in boxing equipment. But Craig also likes the Muay Thai kickboxing favorite Fairtex to supply a bag, gloves, and wraps, with INFIGHTSTYLE and Action Pro Gear also high on the list. Failing that, go with a classic boxing brand like TITLE or Ringside. If you can’t find the gear you need because every vendor is sold out, look on Craigslist, eBay, or, as sad as this is to say, a local gym that is going out of business. Check for wear and tear before you buy, and don’t feel bad about offering much less than what the seller is asking. Shrewd shoppers can pay as much as 50% less, and even get the stuff delivered free. People who sell fitness equipment see it as clutter (and often heavy, dirty, cumbersome clutter at that), and they’re usually desperate to get rid of it. Just tell them you can pay in cash, and you’ll take the gear right away. Ultimately, you’re doing them a favor, and they know it.

How To Stretch Before Hitting The Bag

Use the following warmup routine from Andrew Craig to prepare your body for a punching bag workout.

1 Reverse Lunge To Sumo Squat

Reps: 5 (each side)

Step 1. Step back with your right leg and lower your body into a lunge until your back knee is slightly above the floor and your front thigh is parallel to the floor.

Step 2. Pivot on your right foot as you turn your knee out and stay low, so that you end up in a sumo squat, facing 90 degrees to the right of where you started. Reverse the motion to return both feet to standing and facing front. Repeat on the opposite side.

2 Quick Feet Drill

Reps: 20

Step 1. Stand just behind a line on the floor with your feet shoulder-width apart and a bend in your knees.

Step 2. Step your right foot just over the line, and then the left foot. Step the right foot back behind the line, followed by the left. Each step over the line and back is one rep. Move your feet fast, minimizing contact time with the floor.

3 Scorpion Pushup

Reps: 4

Step 1. Get into pushup position with your hands shoulder-width apart. Tuck your pelvis slightly so that it’s perpendicular to the floor, and brace your core and glutes.

Step 2. Lower your body until your chest is about an inch above the floor. As you go down, raise your left leg off the floor and reach it up and behind you, and twist it toward the floor on the opposite side. Continue until you can tap the floor with the bottom of your foot.

Step 3. Press your body back up, uncoiling it and returning the leg to the floor. Repeat the pushup, lifting the right leg. Each pushup is one rep.

4 Wall Suplex

Reps: 2

Step 1. Stand in front of a wall, facing away from it, with feet slightly wider than shoulder width. Squat down halfway, and then extend your back, reaching overhead until you can touch the wall behind you with both hands.

Step 2. Drive your hands into the wall so it can support your weight, and brace your core. Walk your hands down the wall toward the floor as far as you can—if your lower back gets uncomfortable, stop.

Step 3. Walk your hands back up the wall and return to standing. That’s one rep.

5 V Up

Reps: 10

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor and extend your arms overhead and behind you.

Step 2. Draw your arms forward in front of you while you perform a situp and simultaneously raise your legs. Your body should form a V shape at the top.

6 Quick Feet Drill

Reps: 20

Repeat the quick feet drill from above.

7 Scorpion Pushup

Reps: 4

Repeat the scorpion pushup.

8 Wall Suplex

Reps: 2

Repeat the wall suplex.

9 V Up

Reps: 10

Repeat the V up.

10 Switches

Reps: 20

Step 1. Stand with your right leg in front of a line and your left behind it.

Step 2. Quickly switch your feet back and forth. Each switch is one rep.

11 Scorpion Pushup

Reps: 4

Repeat the scorpion pushup.

12 Wall Suplex

Reps: 2

Repeat the wall suplex.

13 V Up

Reps: 10

Repeat the V up.

14 Jump Rope

Reps: Jump for 60 seconds

Step 1. Hold the rope with hands at hip level and stand tall.

Step 2. Jump over the rope with both feet, landing on the balls of your feet. You can land with both feet at once, or one at a time. Mix up your jumping styles as you become more comfortable.

The Beginner’s Punching Bag Workout 

If you’re brand new to bag training, try this routine from Craig. It uses only punches, so the risk of injury is low, even if your technique isn’t solid.

If you’re unclear how each punching technique should be performed, here’s a quick guide to some boxing basics.

Stance. Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart and legs staggered. If you’re right-handed, your left leg will be in front, and you’ll jab with your left hand while your right is reserved for power shots. If you’re a southpaw, stand with your right foot in front. You should feel balanced in your stance, and your hands should be held at the sides of your chin. Your chin is tucked, and your elbows are near your sides. At the end of every punch, return your hand to your chin immediately.

Jab. This is your main weapon—a quick, short punch done with the lead hand. Throw your front hand straight out, turning your knuckles toward the ceiling as your arm locks out. Your knuckles should point up just as the punch snaps to completion. Typically, the jab is done while taking a small step forward.

Cross. A power punch thrown with the rear hand. Drive through your rear foot, pivoting on the ball of the foot to turn your hips as you throw it. Again, turn your knuckles as the arm extends.

Hook. This is a swinging punch that can be done with either hand. Bend your elbow 90 degrees, and bring your arm up until it’s parallel to the floor. Twist your body, pivoting your foot to deliver the punch. The palm can face down, or toward you.

Uppercut. Once you’ve set up an opponent with jabs and crosses, you can often finish him/her with an uppercut to the chin or body. The movement is almost the same as the hook, but the punch comes on an upward trajectory. Shift your weight to the side that will throw the punch, and then throw it upward with your palm facing you and elbow pointing down.

On every punch you throw, let the first two knuckles of your hand (the index and middle finger knuckles) deliver the blow. Landing with the smaller knuckles will injure your hands. Try to stay relaxed as you’re moving with your hands up, and exhale forcefully as you throw each punch. Move your head from side to side when you throw punches.

Directions: Perform 6 rounds as directed. All rounds are 3 minutes, followed by 1 minute of rest (so set a timer!). Before you begin, wrap your hands, and use them for the first round of shadow boxing. Then put your boxing gloves on and use them for the rest of the workout.

Round 1: Shadow Boxing

With your hand wraps on, move around while you throw punches. Try to stay light on your feet and cut angles so your body is never square to your target. (You don’t need the bag yet; just box against an imaginary opponent.) Throw jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts, and focus on your breathing while you warm up slowly.

Round 2: Build Drill on Bag

With your boxing gloves on, cycle through these four combinations on your heavy bag.

• Jab
• Jab, cross
• Jab, cross, hook
• Jab, cross, hook, cross

Jab, cross, hook

Jab, cross, hook, cross

– Take a second between each combo to address your stance and defense (hands up!). Don’t stay in one spot in front of the bag the whole round—move at angles, imagining the bag is an opponent you want to cut off from the rest of the ring.

– After the combinations, hit 20 quick, straight punches for speed, alternating hands, while standing right in front of the bag.

Straight Punches

– Now perform a burpee—squat down, shoot your legs back so you land in a pushup position, and then reverse the motion to stand back up.

– Repeat the combinations, straight punches, and burpee for the whole round. When there are 10 seconds left on the clock, fire off straight punches nonstop, alternating hands.

– When the round ends, do 5 burpees.

Round 3: Jab, Cross Combos

Cycle through the following combinations.

• Jab, cross
• Jab, jab, cross
• Jab, jab, jab, cross

– The cross always comes hard, but the jabs can have different cadences behind them. In the example below, a short dash indicates a quicker combination, while a longer dash represents a slower combination with a longer pause between strikes. Experiment with all of them, and make up your own.

• Jab-cross vs. jab—cross
• Jab-jab-cross vs. jab—jab-cross
• Jab-jab-jab-cross vs. jab-jab—jab-cross

– When there are 10 seconds left in the round, throw straight punches nonstop, alternating hands.

– When the round ends, do 5 burpees.

Round 4: Same-Side Hands

Alternate the following two combinations. You’ll do combo 1 with your rear hand and combo 2 with your lead hand.

Combo 1

• Rear uppercut
• Cross
• Hook

Combo 2

• Jab
• Lead hook
• Cross (this is the exception; use your rear hand to cross)

– When there are 10 seconds left in the round, throw straight punches nonstop, alternating hands.

– When the round ends, do 5 burpees.

Round 5: Slow to Fast, Fast to Slow

Throw 5 slow/soft punches on the bag with both hands and, immediately after the fifth punch, rip off 3 hard and fast punches.

– Without resetting, repeat the 5 slow punches and 3 fast punches. Continue for the duration of the round.

– When there are 10 seconds left, throw straight punches nonstop, alternating hands.

– When the round ends, do 5 burpees.

Round 6: 7-Second Drill

Stand close to the bag so you don’t have to step in for all your punches. For the first 7 seconds of the round, hit the bag as hard and fast as you can. Rest 7 seconds, and then repeat the drill till the end of the round.

– Keep your hands up even while you’re resting. Maintain a bend in your knees, and keep moving your head side to side.

– When there are 30 seconds left in the round, throw straight punches nonstop, alternating hands.

– When the round ends, do 5 burpees.

The Ultimate Heavy Bag Workout 

This workout from Craig is for experienced strikers, and utilizes all weapons, meaning the hands, feet, elbows, and knees. Do not attempt it unless you’ve already had some instruction in kickboxing or Muay Thai.

Directions: Perform five rounds as directed. All rounds are 3 minutes, followed by 1 minute of rest.

Remember to practice defense and footwork. Don’t stand still between combinations. Keep your hands up, and use slips, rolls, and pulls (head movement) to evade counterattacks. Think about stepping out of range after every combo you throw. This will ensure you have to also step into your punches when initiating each combo.

Round 1: All Weapons

Work the following combinations for 30 seconds each.

• All punching combos
• All elbows
• Skipping knees
• Right kick
• Left kick
• Push kick

Elbows

Skipping Knee

Push Kick

– At the end of the round, throw a jab, cross, hook, cross with maximum power.

Round 2: Hook and Kick

Perform a lead hook, followed by a rear kick. Now throw a cross and then a switch kick. Let the switch kick land you in the opposite of the stance you started in.

Switch Kick

– Repeat the drill back and forth in both stances for the duration of the round.

– Vary your power output, and change the level of your kicks.

– At the end of the round, throw a jab, cross, hook, and cross with maximum power.

Round 3: Body Work

Cycle through the following combinations.

Combo 1

• Jab to the head
• Cross to the body
• Hook to the head

Combo 2

• Jab head
• Cross head
• Hook head
• Hook body

Combo 3

• Jab head
• Cross head
• Hook body
• Hook head

Combo 4

• Jab head
• Jab body
• Cross head

– At the end of the round, throw a jab, cross, hook, and cross with maximum power.

Round 4: Slip/Roll Drill

• Jab, cross
• Slip
• Cross, hook
• Slip
• Hook, cross
• Roll

– Repeat the combo, but replace the slips with rolls.

– At the end of the round, throw a jab, cross, hook, and cross with maximum power.

Round 5: 4 Series

• Jab, rear kick
• Jab, cross, switch kick
• Jab, cross, hook, rear kick
• Jab, cross, hook, cross, switch kick

– At the end of the round, throw a jab, cross, hook, and cross with maximum speed and power.

Circuit Training with Heavy Bags 

A circuit is a series of exercises done back to back with little or no rest in between. Circuits get your heart rate up and keep it elevated, which improves conditioning, and they can burn a lot of calories in a short time. Perform the following circuit on the bag with your boxing gloves on.

Directions: Perform the first exercise for 30 seconds straight, and then rest 10 seconds. Then go on to the next exercise and do the same. Repeat until you’ve completed every exercise in the circuit, and then repeat the circuit for 5 total rounds.

1 Straight Punches

Hit the bag with a right-left-left-right combination with full power.

2 Kick Combinations

Alternate legs for the following kick combinations.

• 1 right kick
• 1 left kick
• 2 right kicks
• 2 left kicks
• 3 right kicks
• 3 left kicks

3 Alternating Jumping Lunge

Get into a lunge position and then explode upward, switching your legs in mid air and landing with the opposite leg in front. Immediately jump again and switch back. If you can jump high enough so that you have time to fire a knee strike at the top of the movement, do so.

4 Hooks On the Bag

Square yourself up to the bag and throw hooks in a right-left, left-right combination. Use full power—rip them!

5 Kick Combinations

Repeat the kick drills from #2.

6 Pushup with Shoulder Tap

Perform pushups, tapping your shoulder with the hand opposite to it at the top of each rep. So, do a pushup, and at the top, touch your left hand to your right shoulder. On the next rep, touch your right hand to your left shoulder.

Want more workout ideas? Skip the Instagram poseurs and check out “Bazooka” Joe Valtellini, Tony Jeffries, or Damien Trainor—all well-credentialed striking coaches.

What Should I Do for A Cooldown?

For your cooldown, end each bag training session with three minutes of slow and smooth shadow boxing. Keep moving your feet, and consciously slow down your breathing.

The post Heavy and Punching Bag Workouts: The Expert’s Guide appeared first on Onnit Academy.