Weekend Warrior Cardio Burn - Melissa Bender Fitness

Hi Everyone,

I have a great workout for you today! I had fun doing it, and I feel great now. J

Before I give you the breakdown I wanted to talk to you about listening to your body. This goes for your workout, your diet, and your life in general. Many people have been trained to do things like finish their plate of food even if they are full. Does that sound familiar? Maybe you heard, “you’re not leaving this table until you have eaten everything on your plate.” Things like this may be well intended (if someone refuses to eat any vegetables maybe), but they can also teach you not to listen to your body. You forget how to tell when you are full. This can lead to over eating.

The same thing can also happen in your workouts. There are two extremes to this. Extreme number one is the person who consistently pushes themselves to the point of breaking. They will finish this workout, in the best time ever, NO MATTER WHAT! The other extreme is the person who does one rep of an exercise and says “This hurts! I’m done!”

You should never push yourself to the point of injury. You need to be able to tell the difference between the good burn you feel when your muscles are working hard. The exhaustion of a good workout is great. If you start feeling shooting pains during any exercise, stop! The point of fitness is to improve your health not hurt it. So if this sounds like you please focus on listening to your body. Push yourself, but rest when you need it.

If you are the other extreme, and you complete your workout and think to yourself later, “I probably could have done the full set of reps” it’s important to be aware of that tendency. You want to feel the burn, and have good tired muscles.

So learn your tendencies, and be aware of them while you workout. Learn to listen to your body. It knows what it’s doing, and it wants to be fit too!

Melissa

Weekend Warrior Cardio Burn

Warm-up: Jump Rope or High Knees (I use an interval timer to keep track of this, but a stopwatch or oven timer will work just as well)

Beginner: 2 minutes

Intermediate: 4 minutes

Advanced: 5 minutes

1.       Roll-over Mountain Climber Push-ups (10 mountain climber jumps in between each pushup). If this is too difficult do it from your knees.

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

2.       Full Squat Jumps

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

3.       Rock the Boat pose

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

4.       Lunge Jumps

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

5.       Warrior 3 Kick Back (right): This can be done holding onto a chair or table for balance.

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

6.       Warrior 3 Kick Back (left)

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

7.       Down Dog Leg Lift (right): Don’t worry about how high you can lift your leg. Flexibility varies. Just go as far as you can comfortably.

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

8.       Down Dog Leg Lift (left)

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

9.       Oblique Crunch (right)

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

10.   Oblique Crunch (left)

Beginner: 10 reps

Intermediate: 15 reps

Advanced: 20 reps

Cool Down: Jump Rope or High Knees

Beginner: 2 minutes

Intermediate: 4 minutes

Advanced: 5 minutes