| Hello Everyone,
If you have done strength work before and are able to get up and down off the floor, this is the email for you! If you are new to strength workouts and especially if you have trouble getting down and up off the floor, please go to the email for Beginner Exercisers.
Monday March 2nd is the first day of the 12 week Fitness Challenge! As a reminder, each week you can earn 0-2 points. You earn 0 points if you exercise for less than 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours), but good job getting some exercise in! You get 1 point if you do ANY exercise for 150 minutes. This includes low intensity things like walking. To score 2 points for the week, that exercise needs to be either moderate cardio (you could talk while doing it, but not sing a song) and include some strength training. If you do vigorous cardio ,you can count every minute of that as double minutes! You do not have to do any of my workouts to earn points. Please do whatever you want that would be considered strength or moderate cardio, and I trust you to keep track of your time.
At the END of the challenge (i.e.. after May 22nd), please email ndavies@losgatosdoctors.com with your point total for the 12 week challenge. I will remind you when the time comes, of course.
As I mentioned in the last email, I have made 5 videos which show me doing a 15 minute workout routine that is only strength for 4 of the days and one cardio day. This routine will make sure that you cover most of the major muscle groups. We will be doing exercises where we get down on the floor. All the exercises can be made easier by using lighter or no weights, or harder by using a heavier weight, doing the reps faster, and for some I give other modifications to make them harder. If these exercises seem to hard for you, do the beginner workouts. They can be quite challenging as well!
General info about the workouts:
- I do not play any music so that you can choose whatever music you like to workout to.
- Bring a water and, in general, make sure to stay hydrated. The more you workout, the more you will need to increase your water intake.
- A lot of these exercises do not require you have any weights. Some of them will be fairly easy without any weights, however. Invest in some weights! For most of you, if you have two 3, 5, 8, 10 and 15 lb weights, you will probably be fairly well covered.
- Due to these being packed 15 minute videos, I did not include any stretching before or after. If you have time, you will have less chance of injury and feel better if you can do both!
- If you look at the description of the workout on the YouTube page, it tells you what you will be doing. I also will try to include a list on another day.
Disclaimer! I am not a professional trainer! I have tried very hard to make these into a routine that I think will be safe for nearly everyone, but all exercise is done at your own risk. If you are not sure if you should be doing this, please talk to me first. If you have had any serious cardiac issues, you might want to talk to me or your Cardiologist to see if you should be careful about how high your heart rate goes. I also made a video with some tips for people with injuries, particularly back issues. Please watch this first.
Tips for people with back and shoulder issues
15 Min Intermediate/Advanced Workouts
Day 1: Intermediate/Advanced workout – core/biceps/quad/triceps. Med-heavy weights.
Day 2: Intermediate/Advanced workout – core/chest/glutes/back. Need med-heavy weight.
Day 3: intermediate/advanced: HIIT day! Need – nothing!
Day 4: Intermediate/Advanced workout – shoulders/adductors (inner thigh)
Day 5: Intermediate/Advanced workout – core/hamstrings/back/hips
If you do these 5 workouts, you still need to do one session of 30 minutes and one session of 45 minutes on the last two days in order to get 2 points for the week. Ideally you do each of the arm/leg exercises one more time, so you will have done them twice in the week. I already have you doing core 3-4 times, so you don’t need to do that again over the weekend (but you could do core every day and it wouldn’t be wrong!). I’m guessing you could do the strength exercises without the core in about 45 minutes and that would then leave a 30 minute moderate cardio to do (brisk walk, hike, bike ride etc.).
You also could do something like this:
Mon – do day 1 followed by day 2 workout (30 min total)
Tues – do day 4 followed by day 5 workout (30 min total)
Wed – day 3 workout (15 min high intensity cardio)
Thurs – repeat day 1 and 2 workout
Fri – repeat day 4 and 5 workout
Sat/Sun – one day of rest and one day of moderate cardio for 30+ minutes
You are more likely to be able to get stronger if you do each strength exercise twice a week.
Good luck! You’ve got this! Please let me know if you need any help.
Thank you for partnering with me to keep you healthy!
Sincerely,
Tiffany Davies, M.D.
Dr. Davies website
408-378-1101 |
