Thursday 17 October 2013

Legs & Lungs workout in the Gym - No 8

As promised its body weight and rowing again :)

Did this the other day in the gym and posted to Facebook. And although I was slightly injured it was still such a good workout that left me pretty knackered but exhilarated at the same time, so had to share again. This particular day I was short of time so wanted to be in and out of the gym fairly quickly but wanted to get out of my comfort zone (like always) and hit a lot of muscles too.

So this routine is 10 x 2 minute rows with 30 seconds rest period.  Now when I say rest I mean its active rest.  Your going to alternate 10 high hand rows and 10 press up's.  The transition period from rower to floor has to be quick (it is your rest period, and the slower you take the less rest you have).  As I have a slight shoulder issue on my right I did narrow presses on the end of the water rower (which was a tad easier on my shoulder but got my triceps quite nicely!)



After 10 minutes of mobility and warm up, here I am on the Water Rower.  Love these new rowers, you really do feel like your on the water, funnily enough!  Very smooth strokes, now unlike the           Concept 2 rowers their isn't a damper setting so you have to rely on nice long power strokes.  But experiment with your stroke to find what works.  If I was on the Concept 2 I'd be looking for SPM's 28 to 30 plus and the damper setting on level 8.  If you don't know how to programme in timed intervals ask an instructor.


Now as rowing is mainly upper body pulling, my first body weight exercise was press ups, narrow and inclined as you can see.  This meant my pulling muscles could have a short recovery, but my core is still engaged.  It also shows that if you are carrying an injury (like I was) an exercise can often be adapted, no excuses!
Here we see me performing a wide stance prone hand row or high elbow pull.  This is a really great exercise for core and upper body strength.  Also a great exercise to do if you spend many hours seated.  This will help you pull your shoulders back and down and greatly improve their mobility.  In the picture I took a wider than hips stance to aid balance and stop me from moving my hips too much.  Although that said this exercise will definitely challenge your balance, which is not a bad thing, right?


Adaptions, the rower could be made harder with more intervals or less recovery time.  Made easier with less intervals or more recovery time.  Press ups are of course a very challenging exercise, my version was slightly easier and of course knee press ups are easier still.  Hand rows are a great exercise and as the main aim is to retract your shoulder blade I can't think of a replacement here. 
But a standing version would be a resistance band pull or retraction (again ask an instructor if unsure).

So there we have it, another great duo.  Give it a go along with the Burpee one and let me know which is your favourite :)

Till next time, all the best.

Amanda

www.mw-pt.co.uk