Workout Routines Guide For Women

It isn’t always possible to go to the gym everyday for your workout, especially if you have a busy schedule, and for most people it would be very impractical. This is why a lot of people decide to workout from home. The good news is that you don’t need to spend your cash on expensive gym equipment to do this.

Compound Exercises

Compound exercises work on more than one muscle group and require the movement of more than one joint. This type of exercise causes your body to work harder and is great for building big muscles and a high post-exercise calorie burn. Below you will find compound exercises for the entire body:

CHEST EXERCISES:

Bench Press

My personal favourite and a great compound exercise. The bench press will mainly work the chest muscles, but will also work the shoulders and triceps.

You can do a bench press with either a set of dumbbells or a barbell, and preferably a bench. However, if you don’t have access to a bench at home you can do it on the floor. If you have an adjustable bench you can mix it up by setting it to decline/recline.

Push Up

Nothing beats a good old push up. The only thing you need for this is a floor and your own body. Ideal! Push ups work the same muscles as the bench press, with slightly more emphasis on the triceps.

Remember to keep your head and back straight, and have your hands placed slightly more than shoulder width apart.

 

TRICEPS EXERCISES:

Triceps Extension

This exercise will work on the triceps, as well as chest and shoulders. You can do triceps extensions with either dumbbells or a barbell, and lying down on a bench is recommended. Though you can do this exercise standing up, sitting or even from the floor.

Keep your elbows locked at your side and when extending the weight, try to focus on a spot on the ceiling to aim for (if you are doing the bench version). This should help with controlling the weight.

Dips

Bend at the waist, keeping the back straight face forward. Do not curl your arms to lift the weight when standing back up.

 

ABDOMINALS:

Bicycle Kicks

It can’t be just me that gets sick of endless crunches and sit-ups, so doing bicycle kicks makes a welcome change. Not only that, but they are far more intense than crunches or sit-ups (which is what we want), and they also include a small amount of cardio.

Position yourself on the floor using your forearms to raise your torso and kick, bringing one leg to the chest and straightening out the other. No equipment needed!

Push It To The Limit!

These are some great compound exercises to get you started and all of them alone will increase your workout intensity. However I suggest cranking it up a notch by performing the exercises in supersets. A superset is when you perform two or more exercises in a row without stopping in between. For example, you could perform 10 reps of triceps extension, followed immediately by 10 reps of biceps curls. Then repeat this 3-5 times with 30 seconds of rest in between sets.

Whenever I do supersets. I prefer to perform 3 different exercises in one set as it increases the intensity. Remember, to get full use out of the afterburn effect you want your workouts to be as intense as possible.

Full Body High Intensity Interval Workout

You can even take it to the next level by performing a workout for every muscle (excluding abs), in ONE SET! This will push your body to it’s limit and give you one hell of an afterburn effect. Ideal for weight loss and muscle growth! Check the video below to see the workout:

In this video, Mike Chang shows you an incredibly intense workout for your entire body! The best thing is that whilst this workout is massively intensive, it also doesn’t take very long. I recommend that everyone try this as it makes your body feel great.

CARDIO AFTERBURN EXERCISES AT HOME

Everybody loves cardio right!? RIGHT!? Wrong. Most people despise cardio because it is usually boring and takes up way too much time. Fortunately, when doing cardio afterburn exercises at home, you don’t need to spend hours jogging or on some grudgingly bought treadmill to lose weight.

As always, high intensity interval training is what we want to be doing, and this means that you only need to spend 15 to 30 minutes on your cardio days.

Start the star jump by standing with your feet togeger, and hands at your sides. Perform the star jump by jumping whilst separating your legs and raising your arms, then jump back to the start position. Do this as fast as you can! (I know, most of you know how to do a star jump, sorry!). Do this for 1 minute flat, then rest for 30 seconds. Repeat for desired amount of time.

Jump Rope

This is a favourite of boxers and for good reason, it’s incredibly intense. I personally hate it because I have poor coordination and always trip over the rope. Obviously this requires a jump rope (see the next exercise for an alternative).

How to:-

Skip, jump, and try not to fall over! Go as fast as you can manage for 1 minute. Rest for 30 seconds then repeat.

High Knees

If you don’t have a jump rope or are like me and simply can’t skip without falling flat on your face, you can try high knees as an alternative. Watch the video below to see how:

In the video you will notice the woman moving forward whilst doing the high knees, though you can do them on the spot if you wish. (I prefer this personally).

These are just a few examples of cardio exercises that you can turn into high intensity workouts. You can get the afterburn effect from many other forms of cardio as long as you apply the basic guidelines of; 1 minute of intense exercise followed by 30 seconds of rest.

Putting It All Together

Now that you have some ideas of afterburn exercises, it’s time for you to put them together into a routine. You can do this in many ways and it’s entirely up to you how you do it. You could for example separate your cardio and weight days, or you could do both on the same day.

You could also mix the weight lifting exercises and cardio workouts into sets. For instance, you could do a set of push ups, followed immediately by 1 minute of high knees. This flexibility of mixing up and changing how you do your workouts will hopefully keep you motivated and prevent you from becoming bored of the same old routine. So what are you waiting for? Go and fight that flab!