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Keep yourself motivated and switch up your training by taking on these tough gym challenges
If you've hit a plateau in the gym or you're getting tired of the same old routine, you could do worse than setting yourself a new challenge to give your training a boost and keep yourself on track.
The ten gym-based challenges below are not for the faint-hearted, but mastering each of them will result in significant fitness gains and give you a stimulating goal to work towards – not to mention giving you an enviable
arsenal of party tricks…
This is much more draining than you would imagine, but it's one of the cheapest, best and most portable workouts there is.
Practice against a wall – beastskills.com founder Jim Bathurst advises you to "spread your fingers and shrug your shoulders towards your ears." Remove wall, add balance and wow strangers.
With a set of dumbbells, do seven partial curls using just the middle of the movement. Hold for seven seconds at the top while turning your wrists from up to down then back again. Finish with seven full reps.
This is the minimum you should aim for. If you're stuck below that, your stabilising muscles may need work. Add pull-ups and bent-over rows to build your back, giving you a better base for benching.
This puts you in a different league. The Smolov Jr bench specialist programme can help: do six sets of six reps at 70% of your max on Monday, 7x5 reps at 75% on Wednesday, 7x4 at 80% on Friday and 10x3 at 85% on Sunday. Add 5kg to all weights for week two and another 2.5kg on week three. Then go for a one-rep max.
It’s considered the minimum for F1 drivers. Who said they weren't real sportsmen?
Your goal is 32km, the shortest distance those swimming from Dover to Calais have to cover. Do it in two-and-a-half hours and earn a pat on the back.
Pro-athlete trainer Chad Waterbury has the easiest method: on day one go for a single max-rep set in the morning and another in the evening. Rest on day two, then repeat until you're in Club 20.
Proper ones, mind. Johnny Pain of strengthvillain.com suggests approaching them military-style. "Do lots of sets throughout the day but never hit failure," he says. "Do them when you wake up, before the shower, before bed, while you watch TV. Just get them done."
Make like Rocky and impress the whole gym. Try it with feet apart, and lock your lats in place – it should help.
Source: coachmag
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