SUPER DAD WORKOUT – HOW TO PUT IT TOGETHER!

Written By Elsie Velazquez Cert. Personal Trainer Prescription Fitness

Unless you’ve been lifting weights for years, I recommend doing a full body routine that you can do two or three times a week.  You want a routine that has at least one exercise for your quads (front of your legs), butt and hamstrings (back of your legs), your push muscles, your pull muscles, and your core.  Yes, this means you can develop a full body routine that uses only four or five exercises.  This also means you will have more time to spend with the kids!  Oh, you should also throw in a few cardio bursts for your heart’s sake.

1. Quads – squats, lunges, squats, box jumps
2. Butt and Hamstrings – hip raises, deadlifts, straight leg deadlifts, step ups, lying hamstring curls.
3. Push (chest, shoulders, and triceps) – overhead press, bench press, incline dumbbell press, push ups, and dips.
4. Pull (back, biceps, and forearms) – chin ups, bicep curls, dumbbell rows.
5. Core (including lower back) – planks, side planks, exercise ball crunches, mountain climbers, reverse crunches, toe touches.
6. Cardio bursts – high knees, butt kickers, burpees, jumping jacks, jump rope

If you pick just one exercise from each category above, you’ll work almost every single muscle in your body. Of course, I recommend picking two exercises from each category, but do what your time and fitness level allows for.  The exercises I listed above are just a few examples of what you can do, but you really don’t need to make things more complicated than this.  In my opinion, complicated usually leads to discouragement.  Mix and match these quick exercises in 10-minute segments and try to fit three segments in each day, for a total of 30 minutes. Or, if you are doing another fitness routine, fit these in when you can’t commit the time to the regular plan.

The best part about creating your own workout is that you can do a variety of combinations.  I’m sure you’ve heard that if you do the same routine week after week, month after month both you and your muscles will get bored.  Well, if you had not heard that before, I am here to tell you that it is true!

Another thing to think about when putting together a workout plan is that you must allow your body to rest.  Muscle mass is built when you are resting. Give your muscles 48-72 hours to recover between workouts.  A Monday-Wednesday-Friday workout routine usually works well.

There you have it – you will be looking like a “Super Dad” in no time if you challenge yourself and practice consistency!