Day 2 Functional Circuit
This workout is designed to be metabolically demanding, training the entire body with exercises that work multiple muscle groups.
Warm-up (part 1): Rowing.
Jason completes 10 minutes on the rowing machine at less than 20 strokes per minute. (Jason’s distance: 2238m.)
Warm-up (part 2): Static Hold Circuit.
Directions: do these four exercises as a circuit. For each exercise, you’ll hold a specific position for 30 seconds, then have 10 seconds to change stations, before starting the next exercise. Do four rounds.
1. Ring Dip Hold
Hold yourself in the top position of a dip for the prescribed amount of time. Like the ring chin-up, Jason performs this using gymnast rings instead of a dip station with parallel bars.
2. Kettlebell Farmer Hold
Grab a pair of heavy kettlebells (dumbbells will work in a pinch) and let them hang at arm’s length at your sides.
3. L-sit on Parallettes or Dip Bars
Jason uses parallettes to perform this exercise, but the L-sit can also be done on a dip station that has parallel bars. (See these articles for a description of this device, how you can make your own, and photos and a description of how to perform the hold.)
4. Bodyweight Squat Hold
Lower yourself to the bottom position of a squat with your thighs parallel to the ground and hold.
Workout: this routine, called the “Big Five 55 Workout”, comes compliments of strength coach Dan John.
Here, Jason performs a circuit of five exercises, which he does a total of 10 times.
There is no prescribed rest and ideally you move continuously from one exercise to the next while keeping the sets unbroken. Focus on going as fast as possible while maintaining form, full range of motion and control. The weights should be light enough to allow this.
You can run the stopwatch and race through this workout, but for better results and quality movement you should simply try to keep the momentum and flow through the exercises continuous. Jason starts with 10 reps of each movement, and each time through, reduces the reps by one. So he does 10 reps of all exercises in the first round, nine in the second, eight in the third, and so on, until he’s doing just one rep in each set. The result is that he completes a total of 55 reps of each exercise. Again, the weights below are the amount Jason used in this particular week.
1. Front Squat (45kg)
2. Chin-ups
3. Decline Parrallette Push-ups
Directions: hands on the parrallettes, feet on a box so that they are about 30 centimetres higher than your hands. Do the prescribed number of push-ups. Typically, because you’re elevated on the parrallettes you can go much deeper in the bottom position and really push the range of motion, although this is dependent on shoulder flexibility.
4. Power Cleans
5. Knees to Elbows
Directions: hanging from a chin-up bar or from the rings at the half-cocked positon (elbows at a right angle), raise your knees until they touch your elbows. Lower them back down in one controlled movement so you don’t swing.
