For some great dumbbell interval workouts, and information on how to lose fat by combining dumbbell and bodyweight training, check out the Gladiator Body Workout. Click here for more information.

P.S.

If you made it this far then you are definitely ready to grab this workout. Do not hesitate! You need to take charge of your health and this program is the perfect gift for anyone that cares about strength, mobility, health, and well being.

Click here to learn more about the Gladiator Body Workout

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.

In order to gain lean muscle mass, an overloading stimulus must be applied to the muscle. This means that you must place greater stress on a muscle today then you did in your last workout.

A second requirement for greater muscle gain is sufficient volume. Volume refers to the total amount of work you perform – the combination of exercises, sets and repetitions.

Rest is also an important aspect of mass gain. You must rest both during the workout, in between sets and exercises, and after your workout. The rest after your workout is more important then rest during your workout.

Finally, you must eat enough, and enough of the right foods to fully recover and grow from your workout. If these four aspects are not taken care of, you will not be able to pack on sufficient amounts of muscle.

Does Circuit Training Help you Put on Muscle?

Lets look at each of the training principles presented earlier to answer this question. Circuit training does provide an alternative method to place greater stress on your body, especially when one does not have access to heavier weights.

Sometimes, simply lifting heavier weights will not work, since your body requires both aerobic capacity and raw strength in order to lift an object. Hence,occasionally even a strong athlete must perform circuit training in order to improve their aerobic capacity.

But the real plus point with Circuit Training is that it allows you to perform more work, or volume, within a shorter period of time. We’ve all seen bodybuilders lift weight endlessly in the gym.

One of my bodybuilder friends used to spend 2-3 hours at the gym per day. But once he got a full-time job, this was next to impossible for him to do. For the average person, an abbreviated circuit-style workout may be a more practical method of packing on muscle.

It won’t turn you into Mr. Olympia, but it will make you bigger then you are currently.

The last aspect is rest. Rest is usually frowned upon in a Circuit routine. However, if your goal is to pack on muscle, you should rest a few second in between each exercise.

30-60 seconds of rest is more than enough. Most bodybuilders spend up to 3-5 minutes sitting around and “resting.”

With these points in mind, Circuit training seems like a very valuable method in packing on a decent amount of muscle mass. My suggestion is to always use a modified approach to Circuit training: focus on lifting heavy, resting (but not too much), and keep your overall volume in check.

For some intense muscle building workouts you can do in the comfort of your own home, check out the Gladiator Body Workout. Click here for more information.

Many women are told not to workout with weights. This is absolutely false. One of the biggest misconceptions is that women who lift weights will develop bulky, ugly muscle mass.

Trust me, it’s very tough to build lean muscle mass. It takes a combination of proper exercise, diet, and hormonal processes. The fact is that women just do not have the same amount of testosterone that men do to build the kind of bulky muscles that men have.

On top of that, women also have high levels of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen is a fat-storing hormone, which is why women often find it more difficult to lose weight then men.

However, weight training, done properly, can help women lose weight, and maintain it in the long term. Women will build lean muscle mass, however the muscle mass will help them increase their metabolic rate and shape their physique.

Your metabolic rate is the rate at which your body burns calories. Hence, the higher your metabolic rate, the more calories you will burn at rest. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat, which means it requires more calories to maintain a pound of muscle than a pound of fat.

Weight training can also help shape your physique. Bodybuilders do this all the time. But women can learn some things from bodybuilders without having to worry about building huge muscles, as I mentioned earlier.

When bodybuilders want to bring up a particular body part, they engage in a specific program to target that muscle group and to improve it. This is why they perform split training routines.

Now, I’m actually an advocate of full body workouts. However, once you have developed a good base of fitness, it’s a good idea to spend some time training a particular muscle group just to improve upon it.

Developing a basic dumbbell workout is quite easy. What you want to do is choose 3-10 exercises that train your entire body and organize them into a routine using a variety of training methods.

For beginners, a simple straight set method is sufficient. A straight set refers to the act of simply performing an a set of an exercise, resting, then performing another set for the desired number of total sets.

More information on how to develop your own dumbbell workout can be found in Coach Lomax’s Gladiator Body Workout program. Click here to learn more about this program.

When I was just starting out with bodyweight training, I thought that all I needed to do was pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats. So I did them, got good at these workouts, and then hit a plateau.

I went through many free bodyweight programs and most of them were relatively the same. I needed something new, and something more complete. It wasn’t until I purchased Coach EddieLomax’s Workout Without Weights manual that my bodyweight training journey really began.

In a previous article, I mentioned that there were actually 7 different forms of bodyweight training. Coach Lomax’s eBook covers 4 out of the 7 methods: basic bodyweight training, calisthenics, plyometrics, and animal training. Click here to read more about the 7 methods.

What is Calisthenics Training?

It is very important to make a distinction between all the various forms of bodyweight exercise because each method can be used for a specific purpose. Basic bodyweight exercises such aspushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats can be used for overall strength and conditioning.

Calisthenics training, on the other hand, is more of a cardio-type form of exercise. I go much deeper into the difference between bodyweight and calisthenics training in a previous article. Click here to read that article.

Because I personally despise steady state cardio, I tend to use bodyweight and other training methods to replace the necessity for cardio. But besides my personal distaste for steady state cardio, there are other very important benefits to using high intensity calisthenics training as a form of cardio:

The Benefits of Calisthenics

One of the biggest benefits of Calisthenics is improved cardiorespiratory endurance, which is the ability of your body to gather, process, deliver, and sustain oxygen to produce the energy needed for the successful completion of a particular activity.

• It is characterized by a healthy and efficient heart and lung. Cardiorespiratory (cardio) endurance is probably more important than fat loss or muscle gain, but is one of the least talked about aspects of fitness.

• If you have greater cardio endurance, then you can simply do more for a longer period of time. This improves your ability to perform in sports, work, and life activities. If you combine basic calisthenics movements with bodyweight training, then you will be able train your muscles while training your heart and lungs
• This will help you perform other physical activities better. Most people get winded and exhausted trying to perform simply tasks such as lifting boxes up the stairs or trying to catch a bus.
• Well, these activities require both physical fitness and cardio endurance. Many gym rats will often face injury because they fatigue easily. When your body fatigues from heavy weight training, it is actually a sign of poor recovery.
• Your muscles are not being delivered the proper amount of oxygen for full recovery. Fatigue leads to poor form, which in turn leads to injury. Overall, you’ll be much healthier if your heart and lungs are healthier.
• Cardio conditioning basically allows you to improve your ability to live life to the fullest. On the flip side, many people are brainwashed into believing that there is a specific “target heart rate zone,” which effectively helps you burn fat and improve cardio endurance.
• This is false and no such zone exists. Athletes with the best cardio endurance – a balance of healthy heart and lung function along with good physical fitness – are ones that engage in high intensity exercise, such as sprinters.
• In short, train hard to last longer. But be warned, bodyweight calisthenics workouts are very intense and difficult. You should steadily build yourself up to it, especially if you’ve been spending most of your time following the easy, bring cardio workouts published in most magazines.

Sample Calisthenics Exercises

Coach Lomax covers a good number of calisthenics movements. Some of them you have heard of and perhaps have even performed before. But many will be completely new to you.

Here’s a list of the Calisthenic movements that Coach Lomax will teach you:

• Split Jump
• Jumping Jacks
• Simulated Jump Rope
• Standing Twist
• Reach and Bend
• The Windmill
• High Knees
• Jogging in Place
• Marching

Calisthenics movements will seem easy to you, however the key is to perform them for time. You can start off by performing each exercise for 60 seconds, then moving straight to the next movement.

This circuit style workout will be much more fun and exiting then a traditional sort of cardio workout. Once you get good at these basic calisthenics movements, you can start to learn Animal Calisthenics movements which places greater stress on your heart, lungs, and muscles.

To learn all of these incredible bodyweight exercises, check out Coach Lomax’s Workout Without Weights manual. Click here for more information.

For busy professionals looking to get in a quick, intense workout in order to stay in shape despite a busy schedule, dumbbells workouts may be the way to go. This is because dumbbells allow you to create workouts based on any goal you wish to achieve.

Many busy individuals often choose bodyweight training in order to stay in shape. Bodyweight training is great, however in order to achieve strength and size goals, workouts need to be slightly longer, and more time needs to be spend on learning new, technical, and challenging exercises.

This is not the case with dumbbell training. Want to lose fat? Just perform high intensity circuit training. Want to gain muscle? Eat a little more, rest a little more, and lift a little heavier. Want to get stronger? Simply aim to increase the weight you use while lowering the repetitions you perform.

As you can see, it just takes very simply changes in order to create a program based on your goals.

Specific Movements for Busy Professionals

In order to save time while getting the most out of your workouts, you want to choose compound and hybrid movement. Compound movements are exercises that train more than one muscle group. Examples include the floor press, front squat, anddeadlift.

Hybrid movements are actually two or more dumbbell movements put together to develop a uniquely new one. One of the toughest hybrid movements is the clean, front squat, and press. This one movement trains 90% of you entire body.

Because you’re recruiting so much muscle during compound and hybrid movements, the exercises are perfect for fat loss, mass gain, and increases in strength. And to get even more out of yourdumbbell workouts, you can pair up the exercises with bodyweight movements.

In fact, such a program does exist. It’s known as the Gladiator Body Workout, which combines bodyweight and dumbbell exercises to develop 6, 4-week training programs to help dramatically change your body. Click here for more information.

Getting lean with bodyweight exercises is actually quite easy. There are dozens of different ways you can set up a quick, fat burning bodyweight training routine. I will go over a few of these methods:

Tabata Intervals

Tabata Intervals are a unique interval scheme which requires performing 20 seconds of high intensity exercises, followed by 10 seconds of rest. You repeat this for 7 cycles, or 8 cycles.

That’s 4 minutes of exercise. Most Tabata workouts include 3-6 exercises, which comes out to a 12 to 24 minute workout. Beginners might need to do just 1 exercise per workout.

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.

Circuit Training

Circuit training can be as intense as you want it to be. The main idea is that you alternate between four different exercises with little to no rest in between each set. The more rest you take between each exercise, the less intense the workout will be.

Try to choose movements that target different muscle groups. If a particular muscle group is lagging, for example if your chest muscles are dramatically weaker then the rest of your body, then you can create a circuit with allpushup variations.

Tabata Circuits

Here’s a training method I’ve been experimenting recently. It basically combines Tabata and Circuit Training. What you do is choose 4 exercises. Perform the first exercise for 20 seconds, rest 10 seconds, then move onto the second exercise.

Here’s a sample template to help you understand how to perform Tabata Circuits:

• Exercise #1, 20 seconds
• Rest 10 seconds
• Exercise #2, 20 seconds
• Rest 10 seconds
• Exercise #3, 20 seconds
• Rest 10 seconds,
• Exercise #4, 20 seconds
• Rest 10 seconds
• Go back to exercise #1

In the beginning, you will not be able to perform 8 rounds of this circuit. But start off with 3-4 rounds, and slowly build yourself up to 8 rounds. For more interesting workout techniques and bodyweight exercises, checkout Workout Without Weights.

Click here for more information.

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.

I honestly don’t advise people to do any sort of exercise daily. Everything has wear and tear. Even walking. People who walk 5-10 miles on a daily basis – whether it be a part of their weight loss routine or work related – will eventually feel the burn out and exhaustion from the routine.

Exercise works in a very simple way: High intensity exercises will cause burn out quicker. Lower intensity exercise will cause burn out slower. Of course, this is all based on frequency.

Going back to bodyweight squats, I’ve heard of people doing a mini morning routine consisting of pushups, pullups, and squats. Perhaps such a routine using only a fraction of the repetitions you are able to do in each movement would be beneficial as a warm up and a way to get the blood flowing early in the morning.

I’ve used such a routine in the past. But the key to using a daily wake up routine is to make sure that it in no way interferes with your regular training. Mine did. Or I should say that my regular training interfered with my morning routine.

Try doing a set of pushups first thing in the morning when your shoulders are dead tired. Or, try doing a set of squats when you cold calves from the lower body work you did the day before.

So, like most things in life, I can’t give a straight answer to this question. However, what I can say is to be careful with such a high frequency routine. Carefully track your level of intensity and frequency and keep recovery in mind.

In fact, your recovery should be your number one concern.

For more insights, ideas, workouts, and bodyweight exercises, check out Workout Without Weights. Click here for more information.

Everyone out there is talking about pullups, pushups, and squats when it comes to bodyweight training. However, what about some really unique exercises? The reason why people believe that bodyweight training alone can not help them achieve the kind of fitness they desire is because they do not take the time to seek out some unique exercises.

Well, I’m going to show you a few unique movements that will really help you spice up your bodyweight workouts:

Reverse Pushups

• Lie face down with your arms at your sides as if your were doing a typical pushup. However, instead of the fingers pointed towards the front of your body, reverse the grip and have your fingers point towards your feet.
• Keep your hands and elbows close to your body and push your body up until your arms are extended. Lower and repeat.

Side Plank

• Lay on your side on the ground. Prop your right elbow under your right shoulder and raise your hips up until your body is straight. Keep your abs tight and hips straight.
• Hold this position for the time desired, then return to starting position.

Elevated Pushups

• Get three chairs or surfaces of the similar height. Place them in such a way that you can place your hands and feet on them as if you were doing apushup.
• Keep your body straight and abs contracted as your lower yourself towards the ground. Keep going past the point of parallel. You should feel an extra stretch on your chest.
• Push back up to starting position and repeat.

For more intense and unique bodyweight exercises, check out Workout Without Weights. Click here for more information.

The 300 workouts, from the film “300″ is still a widely popular workout for people who want to challenge themselves with super intense workouts. However, many people are unable to do perform the full 300 workout because they lack a barbell and kettlebell.

Well, you can easily set up your own 300 workout using just your bodyweight. The idea behind the 300 workout is to perform 5-10 exercises with high repetitions each, and to complete the workout as quickly as possible.

The original 300 Workout looked something like this:

• Pullups – 25 reps
• Deadlifts with 135lbs – 50 reps
• Pushups – 50 reps
• 24-inch Box jumps – 50 reps
• Floor wipers – 50 reps
• Single-arm Clean-and-Press with 36lbs Kettlebell – 50 reps
• Pullups – 25 reps

Mens Health, who was the first magazine to publish the workout, actually did come out with a Bodyweight version. It looked something like this:

• 15 bodyweight rows
• 25 bodyweight squats
• 15 pushups
• 50 jumping jacks
• 20 mountain climbers
• 10 close grip pushups
• 15 bodyweight rows

As you can see, this workout only has 150 repetitions. You can double the repetitions to make it 300. There are hundreds of different variations to the this workout that you can perform.

All it takes is a little creativity. For example, if you wanted to create a workout that trained your body to be more explosive, then you can perform a workout like this:

• 30 Chinups
  
• 50 Squat Jumps
  
• 30 Clap Pushups
  
• 100 Jumping Jacks
  
• 40 Tuck Jumps
  
• 20 Dive Bombers
• 30 Pullups

Keep experimenting and come out with your own 300 workouts. To learn more bodyweight exercises and training techniques, check out Workout Without Weights. Click here for more information.

Calisthenics exercise has often been confused with bodyweight movements such as pushups and pullups. In reality, Calisthenics refers to movements such as Jumping Jacks and Running in Place.

Click here to Learn how to Perform over a Hundred Bodyweight Exercises

The best way to use these movements is during your warmups, or to replace Cardio. Calisthenics is great during the winter where you can’t workout outside.

So for those that run or perform sprints outside as their cardio, they can easily perform interval training with Calisthenics movements. One of the best resources packed with unique calisthenics and bodyweight movements along with sample workouts and training templates is Workout Without Weights.

Difference Between Calisthenics and Other forms of Bodyweight Training

In Workout Without Weights (WWW), author Coach Eddie Lomax goes into further detail about the difference between calisthenics and other forms of bodyweight training.

Coach Lomax’s definition of Calisthencs is, “any systemic, rhythmic bodily exercise performed usually without apparatus…or a type of exercise using explosive movements to develop muscular strength, power and/or endurance.”

There are many other forms of bodyweight training. In a previous article, I identified 7 different bodyweight training methods:

1. Animal Exercises (Bear Crawls, Duck Walks)
2. Dance (Break Dancing)
3. Basic Bodyweight Training (Pushups, Pullups)
4. Gymnastics (Bridge, ring training)
5. Yoga (Prasara)
6. Calisthenics (Jumping Jacks, Running in Place)
7. Plyometrics (Squat Jumps)

Creating your Own Calisthenics Workout

As you can see, you have many options when developing your own bodyweight program. I’ll end this article by giving you a simple, basic template you can use to create a bodyweight workout which combines traditional bodyweight exercises with calisthenic movements:

• Calisthenics Exercise
• Upper Body Exercise
• Calisthenics Exercise
• Lower Body Exercise
• Calisthenics Exercise
• Trunk Exercise

Perform this workout in a circuit, performing each exercise one after another with little to no rest in between each set. Work your way up to doing 5 circuits.

Click here to Learn how to Perform over a Hundred Bodyweight Exercises

This article promotes a product. If you purchase the product, I get a percentage of the sale. Click here to read my disclaimer.

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.