Revamping Your Workout

Every winter I change up my exercise routine.

2 winters ago I was doing lots of situps, pushups, jumping jacks and a variety of body weight exercises for building core strength. Because I love using traditional exercises.

Last winter I was focusing on upper body muscle gain - shoulders, triceps, biceps, etc.

This coming winter I want to focus on my abs.

Which means a combination of cardio exercises (likely utilizing the Afterburn Effect so I can shed a few extra pounds and avoid the post-Christmas paunch) and ab workouts.

I also want to focus on upper body strength again this year, but this time doing more pushups to target my pectorals, triceps and back muscles.

However knowing how to revamp my workout in this way takes years to determine what "B" exercises I need to do in order to get "A" results. (And what kind of "C" diet I should be eating.)

And this is just one of the many services a personal trainer can help you with. (Hint hint, hire me!)

So what are the results I am looking for? Nicer abs and pecs. I am easy to please that way. But it will also up my archery form by giving me better mirror muscles - right now I have overdeveloped back muscles and I need to fix this by working on my front muscles more, namely the abs and pecs. The overdeveloped back muscles is because I have been doing archery almost every day this Summer.

So what will my personal workout look like this winter? (I say winter, but I am starting this workout in Autumn.)

Well I am still fine tuning it, but here goes...

MY NEW WINTER WORKOUT ROUTINE

High Intensity Jumping Jacks, 3 times MAE (Morning, Afternoon, Evening). 200 each time.

2 sets of 25 pushups, 3 times MAE.

YOGA, 20 minutes in the morning.

Pectoral and Shoulder focused weightlifting, afternoon.

Situps with Weights and resistance bands, evening.

Oblique Twists x 100, afternoon.

Squats x 100, evening.

MUSIC

Now you might go, wait, music? Yes. Music. I do all my weightlifting, yoga, etc while listening to music. I have gotten bored of the songs I was listening to last winter so it is time to revamp my playlist so I feel more revved up while exercising. Gonna Fly Now will still be on my exercise music playlist however, as will Eye of the Tiger.


DIET

Diet wise I have increased my green tea intake (for its anti-toxin properties), and I want to explore new vegan recipes this winter. I am not fabulous in the kitchen, but I can follow a recipe. I want more vegan recipes because I am no expert at cooking veggies and I want to increase my veggie intake.

Last winter and the year before I was experimenting a lot with high protein pancakes and that is too high in carbs (although I was getting a lot of protein from them), so this year I want to explore more low carb alternatives that are still high in protein. Less flour and more eggs.