All types of exercise are equal, but some are more equal than others. There are benefits to all forms of exercise, but when your workouts combine the big 3 – the results are unmatched.
What are the big 3?
When we talk about the big 3 – we are referring to form, strength and speed. Correcting and perfecting your form is essential for muscle activation. Once your muscles are awake, we apply layering techniques, bodyweight holds, resistance and repetition, to fatigue, strengthen and tone your muscles. When we combine this with fast-paced, high intensity sequences, you burn calories and energy to tone and tighten your body.
Why is it important?
Not all workouts require a balanced combination of all three, but when our workout routine incorporates elements of each, we are able to achieve strong, toned muscles while boosting our energy and rediscovering our confidence.
How do we incorporate them into each workout?
FORM – start your workouts with a warm-up to wake up the muscles and get the blood flowing. Your muscles need to be awake and activate before you start to move. Fluidform is unique in that your muscles start working from the moment you step onto the mat. Start with low-intensity, high repetition sequences to get the muscles firing. Focus on the key components of your form:
- Are you maintaining a neutral spine?
- Can you feel your core connect?
- Are your shoulders back and chest open?
- Is there even weight across all 10 toes of fingers?
STRENGTH – now it’s time to increase your repetitions, layer your exercises with small equipment, add resistance, holds and pulses to fatigue your muscles. Here are some ways to integrate strength training into your workouts.
- Add ankle weights or wrist weights to increase the intensity
- Play with different resistance bands to progress or regress the movements
- Count five layers to each exercise, try this one!
Layered chest lifts over the ball.
This exercise sequence will activate your lower and upper abdominal muscles, switch on your obliques and fatigue your muscles to strengthen and tone your entire core.
- Chest lifts over the ball with two bent knees (10 x reps)
- Chest lifts over the ball with one long leg (both sides, 10 x reps)
- Repeat with rotations to your bent knee (both sides, 10 x reps)
- Repeat with rotations to your bent knee, lifting your long leg with your chest (both sides, 10 x reps)
- Repeat steps 4 and 5, adding 10 pulses in the top range to finish (both sides, 10 x reps)
SPEED – when our muscles are on and strong, it’s time to increase your heart rate to boost and burn your energy. This is the final stage in the transformation process. The combination of strength and speed are equally important to build muscle mass and burn energy, to boost your metabolism. Here are some ways to integrate speed into your workouts.
- Double the pace and number of your repetitions
- Start and finish each workout with 5 minutes of skipping
- Integrate boxing, fast walking, jogging or skipping twice a week
- Use discs to increase the speed of your mountain climbers
- Use a barre to increase the speed of your pulses
Now put this to practise with this 20-minute, total body workout which combines form, strength and speed to transform your body.
Total Body Combo 5
Total Body Speed 1
