Alternating pistol box squats

Primary muscle group(s): Glutes & Hip Flexors, Quadriceps

Secondary:  Abs, Calves, Hamstrings

Instructions:

Prep: Find a box or surface with a height set for your difficulty (lower is more difficult). The box can be anything, like a sofa or chair. Any surface you can get yourself down to. 

• Position yourself in front of your box, standing straight with your feet hip width apart, arms fully extended and your hands by your sides.
• Raise your left foot from the floor, extending your leg out in front of you.
• As you do so, raise both arms out in front of you in a smooth arc for balance.
• In a controlled movement, lower your body toward the floor by bending your right knee while pushing your hips back as if sitting down in a chair.
• Continue this downward movement until your right thigh is parallel to the floor and your hips touch a box behind you.
• Return to the start position by pushing down through your right heel and straightening your leg. Lower your arms to the start position as you do so.
• Repeat.

Beginners

This exercise can be completed by placing your hand on a chair, bench, parallel bar or other support to one next to you. Use a higher box and reduced range of motion as needed.

Advanced

Use a lower box to make the exercise more challenging. This exercise can be completed holding weights down by your side.

Bottom half air squat

Primary muscle group(s): Hamstrings, Quadriceps

Secondary:  Abs

There are huge benefits to working in the bottom range of the squat. Working below parallel to parallel for your legs will strengthen the lower half of your squat movements.

Instructions:

• Place your feet at shoulder width apart while keeping your chest up and your abdominals braced.
• Begin the movement by swinging your arms up towards your shoulders. At the same time, bend at the knees and drive your hips back like you’re sitting in a chair.
• Once your upper thighs are parallel with the ground, pause, then come back up half way.
• Lower yourself back to the bottom of the rep.
• Finally, drive your body all the way back up to the starting position.

All difficulty levels:

Keep going for the whole minute. If you have to pause a little here and there during the minute, that’s fine, but keep going as much as you can do to as many reps as you can in the full minute.

Jump Squats

Primary muscle group(s): Hamstrings, Quadriceps

Secondary:  Abs

Your legs will be pretty fried at this point. The cummulative fatigue of putting all these will really train your endurance and metabolic overload.

Instructions:

• Place your feet at shoulder width apart while keeping your chest up and your abdominals braced.
• Begin the movement by swinging your arms up towards your shoulders. At the same time, bend at the knees and drive your hips back like you’re sitting in a chair.
• Once your upper thighs are parallel with the ground, quickly and powerfully drive your body into the air, pushing with your toes to activate your calf muscles.
• Repeat.

All difficulty levels:

Keep going for the whole minute. If you have to pause a little here and there during the minute, that’s fine, but keep going as much as you can do to as many reps as you can in the full minute.

Handstand Pushup

Primary muscle group(s): Shoulders

Secondary:  Abs, Triceps, Rhomboids

Instructions:

Prep: Find study wall. 

• With your feet against a wall, bring yourself into a push-up position.
• Walk your feet up the wall until you are upside down.
• With a tight core, allow your feet to support you as you slowly lower yourself towards the floor.
• Pause at the bottom, feeling the tension in your shoulders, then push yourself back up.
• Repeat.
• When finished, walk yourself back down the wall.

Beginners

Instead of leaning against a wall, place your body on an elevated surface like backwards up some stairs. Alternatively position in a knees down pushup position and push your body backwards towards your knees (the power pushaway movement; see below).

Advanced

This is a very difficult exercise and is naturally more advanced. To make it more difficult, lift your head back slightly to get your chest a bit lower to the ground. You can also experiment with your hands being a little closer together.

Twisting Push Up

Primary muscle group(s): Chest

Secondary:  Abs, shoulders, triceps

This rotational push up has more of a chest bias to really get that chest pumping. It gives you that little added relative adduction of the chest for inner chest development.

Instructions:

• Get into plank position and place hands wide apart, supporting your body on your toes. Your body should be straight and elbows extended. Keep abs engages and hips lifted off the floor.
• Allow the elbows to flex and lower your chest to the floor.
• As you push yourself back up, squeeze one arm inwards more as you rotate slightly onto your side. Squeeze that side of your chest as that side hand comes up onto the fingertips.
• repeat the movement with the other side.

Beginners

Complete the same movement on your knees instead of your toes.

Cobra Press Up

Primary muscle group(s): Triceps

Secondary:  Abs, chest, shoulders

There are huge benefits to working in the bottom range of the squat. Working below parallel to parallel for your legs will strengthen the lower half of your squat movements.

Instructions:

• Place your hands flat on the floor shoulder width apart.
• Keep your back straight and fully extend your legs behind you into a regular push up position, but with your feet spread slightly wider than shoulder width. Your body should be supported on your toes and hands only.
• Keeping your arms straight, move your body forwards away from your feet, until your back arches upwards with your chest up, your arms squeezed and your hands down by your waist line.
• Then bend your elbows, move your body backwards, until your shoulders are in line with your hands.
• Repeat.

Beginners

Complete the same movement on your knees instead of your toes.

Advanced:

The further back and together your hands are at the top of the movement (triceps contracted) the more difficult it will be.

Alternating Heel Grab

Primary muscle group(s): Hamstrings, Quads

Secondary: Abs, Calves, Glutes & Hip Flexors

By leaning forwards, we shift a lot of the focus onto the glutes.

Instructions:

• Stand up straight with a tight core.
• Slowly, lift your right leg, lower yourself vertically to the floor with the your weight on the other foot.
• As you lower your body down, place your hands down touch either side of your front heel.
• Push upwards to the original standing position.
• Repeat with the other leg.

Beginners

To assist your balance or reduce weight on one foot. Put the other foot out to the side slightly and use it like a “kickstand” to take around 10-20% of your weight off the main foot and help your stability.

Alternating Sprinter Steps

Primary muscle group(s): Hamstrings, Glutes

Secondary: Abs, Calves, Quads & Hip Flexors

By leaning forwards, we shift a lot of the focus onto the glutes and off the quads.

Instructions:

• Stand up straight with a tight core.
• Step back with one leg into a lunge position.
• As you lower your body down, place your hands down touch into a sprinters starting competition position.
• Push upwards and forwards to the original standing position.
• Repeat with the other leg.

Low Lunge Jumps

Primary muscle group(s): Hamstrings, Quads

Secondary: Abs, Calves, Glutes & Hip Flexors

With this movement, we really burn it out and aim to be as explosive and powerful as possible to really burn the calories. Your glutes are maximally engaged here.

Instructions:

• Stand up straight with a tight core.
• Lower yourself into a sprinters lunge position as in the previous exercise.
• Explode upwards into the air and swap leg position. Keep yourself as low as possible to minimise distance from the floor as you switch.
• Keeping your upper body close to the ground, lower back into position with the legs swapped.
• Repeat.

Beginners

If you need to, make that switch at a higher position. Come out of the lunge a little more before you swap legs. You can also do the movement as steps instead of jumps if you need to. Aim for power and explosiveness as much as you feel you can safely complete.

Lat Pull Up

Primary muscle group(s): Lower Back, Upper Back & Lower Traps

Secondary: Biceps, Forearms, Shoulders

Pull movements require something for you to pull your body weight on. If you don’t have a pull up bar in your house, no worries. Simply use a dowel or heavy duty pole between two chairs and pull yourself up to that from a floor seated position. See image below for alternative options using doors, tables and railings.

Instructions:

• Standing under a bar, reach up and hold onto the bar with an overhand grip.
• Make sure your hands are about twice your shoulder width apart.
• Keep your arms straight and hang from the bar so that your arms are taking all of your weight.
• Keeping your body straight and not swinging your weight, pull your body up towards the bar by pulling your elbows down towards your torso at an angle.
• Continue lifting until your chest is nearly touching the bar. You should feel a “squeeze” at the base of your lats (about midway down your back and to the side) as they contract.
• Once your lats have completely contracted at the top of the movement, slowly lower your body to the starting position.
• Repeat.

By using a wide grip, your lats are doing most of the lift, rather than your biceps. It doesn’t matter if you keep your legs straight or bent at the knees with your feet crossed. 

Beginners

If you can’t pull your bodyweight, use your legs or a resistance band attached between the bar and your knees to assist in lifting your body weight. Or pull using a table top from a seated position off the floor with your feet on the ground. (see below)

Advanced

As your strength increases, you can add weight by using a weight belt.

Floor Pullover

Primary muscle group(s): Lower Back, Middle Back / Lats

Secondary: Abs, Biceps

This looks a bit like the “Bruce Lee Dragon Flag”, but we want the lats to do the work here. You want to try and pull your entire body off the floor and up by pulling your arms against an immovable object.

Instructions:

Prep: You need the bottom of a sofa, bed, stairs, table. Something solid and low down to grab onto.

• Lay on the floor and position with an immovable object above your head.
• With your lats, pull down as hard as you can while keeping your glutes flexed and your body straight. Keep your abs tight to support your spine.
• Think of it not as bringing your legs up, but as bringing your arms down, like a pullover movement.
• Lowever yourself in control and repeat.

Beginners

To make it easier, bend your knees and bring your legs slightly closer to you. The more you bend your legs, the easier it becomes.

Table Bicep Curls

Primary muscle group(s): Biceps

Secondary: Forearms, Back

Focus on pulling up by curling your biceps instead of pulling with your back.

Instructions:

• Position under a table or bar and grasp it with your palms facing you and arms close together.
• Your arms should be fully extended.
• Bend your knees and place your feet flat on the floor
• Pull your body up by curling your arms until your elbows are completely bent and close to your body, reaching your nose to the underside of the table.
• Lower your body until your arms are fully extended in the starting position.
• Repeat

Beginners

Moving your feet more underneith you will make the exercise easier as needed.

Alternating Oblique Twists

Primary muscle group(s): Abs, Obliques

Secondary: Glutes & Hip Flexors, Quadriceps

With this exercise, we aren’t just getting activation of the lower abs, we are also getting a bit of bottom up rotation to engage the obliques as well.

Instructions:

• Lie on your back on a mat with hands either side to support your pelvis.
• Legs straight out in front of you, ankles together and feet slightly off the floor.
• Bending your knees slightly and raise your legs by flexing the hips until they are completely flexed.
• As you raise your legs upwards to a near vertical position, twist your hips as they come off the floor.
• Contract your oblique muscles hard and deep to get good activation.
• Return to starting position.

Black Widow Knee Slides

Primary muscle group(s): Abs, Obliques

Secondary: Glutes & Hip Flexors, Quadriceps

Instructions:

• Position yourself into a hands and toes push up position.
• Drive one of your knees upwards towards your chest.
• Move your knees upwards and curl your spine and contract your abs.
• Lower your knee and return it to the start position.
• Repeat.

Levitating Crunches

Primary muscle group(s): Abs

Instructions:

• Lie flat on your back with your feet flat on the ground, with your knees bent at 90 degrees. Alternatively, you can place your feet up on a bench a few inches apart with your toes turned inwards and touching.
• Place your hands lightly on either side of your head.
• Keep your elbows in so that they are parallel to your body.
• Push your back down flat into the floor to isolate your abdominal muscles.
• Gently curl your shoulders forward and up off the floor.
• Continue to push down into the floor with your lower back.
• Raise your shoulders about four to six inches only.
• Hold and squeeze your abdominal muscles for a count of one.
• Return to the start position in a smooth movement.

Angels and Devils

Primary muscle group(s): Lower Back, Upper Back & Lower Traps

Secondary: Abs, Biceps, Shoulders

This exercise is awesome for working the rotator cuffs, scapular and mid back and the shoulders.

Instructions:

• Lie on your front with your legs and chest off the ground. Arms outstretched over your head in front of you.
• Hold this position by flexing your glutes, hamstrings and lower back.
• Slowly sweep your arms around your body laterally until they come together behind your back.
• Slowly return to the starting position and repeat.