Thursday, April 19, 2012

BIGGEST LOSER "16" WEEK TWO

This week we introduced the group to a basic free-weight workout. Programs can vary widely. There are routines where you do exercises that hit the entire body. Typically, you’d do this routine three times a week, like on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The off days would be cardio or rest days.

Then there is a two-day split routine that works the muscles of the upper body on one day, and the lower body on the next day. Usually, you’d take a rest or cardio day on the following day and then start over. This means you’d hit each muscle group twice a week.

There are 3-day splits that do “Pushing” movements on one day (Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps), “Pulling” movements the next day (Back & Biceps), and Lower Body (Legs, Hips & Abs) on the third day. Then you either take a day off, or start over. So you can hit each muscle groups twice a week with the 3-day split too.

Finally, there are 4 and 5-day splits that are for people looking to focus even more on particular muscle groups. An example of a 5-day split would be working your Chest on Monday, Back on Tuesday, Legs & Abs on Wednesday, Shoulders on Thursday, and Arms (Biceps & Triceps) on Friday. Then you could do cardio on Saturday and rest on Sunday.

The rule of thumb is the more you focus on a particular body part, by doing more movements and sets, the more that body part will respond and grow. All that extra work means you might be sorer, though, so you’ll need more rest time to recover.

This week the group did the following full-body workout with dumbbells and an exercise ball. It hit all the major muscle groups and took about 20-25 minutes. They picked weights that they could comfortably do at least 10 repetitions on each exercise.

1. Dumbbell (DB) Chest Press on Ball & DB Squats (3x)
2. DB Single Arm Rows & DB Deadlifts (3x)
3. DB Lateral Raises, DB Curls, & DB Overhead Tricep Press (3x)
4. Ab Crunches on Ball, Knee-Ins on Ball & Leg Lifts (2x)

This week’s Biggest Loser was Brittany Cline, who lost 2.0% of her body weight and 3.2 lbs. T.J. Johnson placed second, losing 1.5% and 3.8 lbs. Tonya Westerfield was third, losing about a pound.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tomdolanfitness !

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