My Spring Break Workout

As part of my preparation of spring break, I am trying to get into shape for the beach! As I train long and hard during the week, I decided to record all of my daily workouts to show you guys. At your request, I’m turning this post into a video tutorial of workouts for abs/core, legs and arms. Feel free to take some of my favorite workouts outs and put them into your daily workout routine!

Since I don't play any sports during the week, I go to the gym everyday for around two to two and a half hours. During that time, I focus on either legs or arms and alternate between the two everyday. I consistently make sure I incorporate ab and core workouts into those days by adding a half hour of cardio (steps or elliptical are my favorites) and keeping a slower pace during the exercises. The best way to keep a slower pace, and to keep that core engaged, is to add more weight and do less reps. 

I've always had trouble with keeping a set number of reps and sets I do per workout, which is why I am usually at the gym for so long. I've finally come to a good amount that I can do per exercise. For each workout I do, I will do either 2 or 3 sets of 10, depending on how intense each exercise is. 

My daily Ab workouts consist of focusing on the upper and lower parts of the stomach, along with obliques. The hardest part for me during my ab workouts are being able to make it more intense. To keep your core engaged in the ab workouts, all you need to do is just make sure your stomach is tight and try your best not to release it as you are doing the exercise. In this video, you'll see that the more you exaggerate an exercise (but still keep that slower movement), the more you will feel it. Once you start to shake or feel like you can't do anymore, you obviously stop. If you've done more than the 2 or 3 sets of 10 and don't really feel any different (which is what I had issues with in the past), then you know you either need to add more weight or do the exercise slower to make your abs stronger. 

In this video, I show you all of my favorite leg workouts. Since most of the workouts are on machines, it's hard to not to be able to do the same thing if the machines are not available to you. For these leg exercises, it is super effective when keeping the movement slow. There are two types of exercises that can help work your legs. The one that I'm doing the most of in this video is Aerobic which is those exercises that won't make you out of breath and will make your legs stronger. The other type of exercises that I didn't put in this video are the anaerobic ones, which are ones like the steps, elliptical, bicycle or treadmill. When doing those, I usually do intervals. I start out going slow to warm up and then the highest I'll go up to, on average, is 13 (except for the treadmill which I sprint at 10 because I have small legs). A mix of both will help keep your legs strong!

My daily Arm workouts are ones that don't require a lot of material, which is helpful if you wanted to do them at home. When doing a cardio for my arm day, I will usually go to the rowing machine (not sure what the real name is?!). Although this machine will basically exercise everything, it's one of those machines where the more effort you put in, the more you'll get out of it. The more exaggerated movement the you put in when pulling, the more your arms will get out of it. I usually do this machine for around ten minutes (a solid amount of time for cardio when you are working that hard). As you are constantly pulling, the position of your grip will really influence which muscles are being worked. In the video, I show 5 different ways to grip the bar. Within all of the positions, you can engage core by keeping the stomach tight and exaggerating the pull back. When I am working with the dumbbells, I make sure to take a light pair (around 5 pounds) and a pair that is heavy (15 pounds). If you alternate between the two, it will not only make the muscles bigger, but also more defined. When I took bar method, I learned that when doing small movements with lighter weights for a period of time, it will help define the muscles in your arms more than the heavier weights will. When working with the heavier weights, it helps make the muscles bigger and stronger. So, alternating between heavier and bigger movement and lighter smaller pulses will help you with both!

After all that, one of the most important things to do after a workout is to refill on protein! As tempting as it is to have a snack that isn't healthy, maintaining a healthy diet will help you keep everything that you've worked on that day!