Schedule Wisely With Your Lower Body Strength Training

Most forms of HIIT are going to really stress the lower body muscles, so be mindful of when you do them in relation to lower body strength training. If you’re doing sets of heavy squats, lunges, and dead lifts one day, the next day do upper body or full body plyo (HIIT) workout. Your lower body needs time to recover from the strenuous weight day.

If you keep these points in mind, you should be able to successfully make the transition to high intensity interval training and reap all the benefits it has to offer. 

Short on time? Here’s a quick way to get a burst of cardio into your day!

After a short dynamic warm-up, do one round of the workout to get your heart rate pumping and your body loosened up. Then with each subsequent round, you can increase your intensity for a killer workout.

Each round is only 1-minute long and you can do as many rounds as you want! Simply set an interval timer for 10 seconds of cardio work and 5 seconds of squats, and get going!

THE WORKOUT (ONE ROUND)

• 10 seconds: Jumping jacks (Advanced option: Star jumps)
• 5 seconds: 1 to 3 Squats

• 10 seconds: Scissors (Advanced option: Split lunges)
• 5 seconds: 1 to 3 Squats

• 10 seconds: Jog (Advanced option: Sprint)
• 5 seconds: 1 to 3 Squats

• 10 seconds: Speed Skaters
• 5 seconds: 1 to 3 Squats

Recover for at least 30 seconds, and then repeat the round, increasing your intensity if possible. Challenge yourself to complete 5 rounds!

Phew! What did you think? Share in the comments below!

Compound exercises

Instead of isolating your muscles with exercises such as the bicep curl, you can maximize the time you spend in a workout by doing exercises that work out multiple muscle groups at once. With just a few exercises, you could get a full-body workout. Another benefit is that your muscles are working together as they do in the real world, rather than alone. Some great compound exercises include squats, deadlifts, good mornings, lunges, pushups, bench presses, military presses, rows, pullups, dips, and more.

The Bent Over Row

The bent over row. The biggest mistake here is letting momentum take over the exercise.

As you bend over, you want to really think of squeezing the shoulder blades back and together as you lift the bar up towards the chest. Never swing the weight upward or you’ll have very little muscle activation and put yourself at risk for lower back pain. Keep the back as stationary as possible and that too will help ensure it’s only muscular power driving this movement.

The Full Squat

Of all the moves you do in your workout program, perhaps the full squat is the most important. Squats work multiple muscle groups at once, boost your heart rate, and will enhance your balance and agility.

The biggest error made with this movement is not going all the way down to the ground. Remember, if you move halfway through an exercise, you’ll see half the results. By going all the way down to the ground in the squat, you’ll get greater glute activation, meaning better butt building results. If you want that round, curved backside, squatting as low down to the ground as possible is a necessity.