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By Adi, January 22, 2010

Over the last year, I have followed different workouts including cross-fit, 8 Minute Fitness Workouts, long distance running, the push-up challenge and the pull-up challenge. During this time I discovered the importance of finding a workout that I can enjoy for it to be sustainable.

I put together some of these routines into a reasonably exhausting 7 day workout that seems to work well for me.

It isn’t a perfect workout, but it is a full body routine that has given me fast and visible results in the past two months. I know this routine can definitely improve over time. I’d love to hear feedback and suggestions from people with more experience.

My Workout Plan

Monday
1. Week 6 of 100 Push-up challenge: 45, 55, 35,30, max (at least 55) push-ups
2. Week 6 of 20 Pull-up challenge: 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 12 pull-ups
3. One hour of Tennis lessons

Tuesday
1. 20 Minutes on Elliptical
2. 2K on Rowing Machine
3. 8 Minute Abs workout (from 8 Minute Fitness)
4. 8 Minute Buns workout ((from 8 Minute Fitness)
5. Leg workout on machine

Wednesday
1. Week 6 of 100 Push-up Challenge: 22, 22, 30, 30, 24, 24, 18, 18, max (at least 58) push-ups
2. Week 6 of 20 Pull-up challenge: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 pull-ups
3. One hour of Tennis lessons

Thursday
1. 20 Minutes on Elliptical or 3K on treadmill
2. 2K on Rowing Machine
3. 8 Minute Abs workout
4. 8 Minute Buns workout
5. Leg workout on machine

Friday
1. Week 6 of 100 Push-up Challenge: 26, 26, 33, 33, 26, 26, 22, 22, max (at least 60) push-ups
2. Week 6 of 20 Pull-up challenge: 15, 13, 12, 10, max pull-ups
3. One hour of Tennis lessons

Saturday
1. 20 Minutes on Elliptical or 3K on treadmill
2. 2K on Rowing Machine
3. 8 Minute Abs workout
4. 8 Minute Buns workout
5. Leg workout on machine

Sunday – Setting new limits
1. Max Push-ups
2. Max Pull-ups
3. 3K on treadmill – newer/faster speed
4. 2K on Rowing Machine
5. Random new exercise that I read about and want to try

I am still trying to figure out the perfect diet to go with this workout. I am strongly influenced by Tim Ferris’s crazy diet, but find it hard to maintain since I don’t cook myself. Would love suggestions from anyone who has a convenient solution.

And as usual, the standard disclaimer for people who find this routine intimidating. I didn’t start with this workout. A few months ago, I was struggling to do my first pull-up.

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By Adi, December 29, 2009

After the hundred push-up challenge and then going from 0 to 5 pull-ups, my next goal is the Twenty pull-ups challenge.

Why pull-ups? They develop the arms, shoulders and back and help create that V shaped body that everyone likes. I prefer workouts that use body weight and exercise multiple muscle groups instead of isolating single areas using weights. Like push-ups, pull-ups are also easy to do with minimum equipment. After my initial success with cross-fit and pull-ups, I knew I had to incorporate pull-ups into my routine.

The twenty pull-ups site follows a similar layout to the hundred push-ups site. It has a customizable, progressive plan that takes you from 1-2 pull-ups to being able to do 20 continuous pull-ups within 6 weeks. For those of you who can barely do one pull-up, the site even includes two additional training weeks that have you trying half pull-ups.

Most people won’t have as much of a challenge getting through the first five pull-ups as I did, but if you do, reading about my initial pull-up journey may help. Personally I found it more useful to do assisted pull-ups with weights when starting out with my first few pull-ups. I could barely do even one pull-up when I started out.

I am on week 3 of the pull-up challenge right now, and did 26 pull-ups in five sets yesterday. My workout on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays has now become doing 150+ push-ups for the push-up challenge, about 20+ pull-ups for the pull-up challenge and then finally running on the treadmill for a couple of miles. I still can’t believe I am able do all of this. 6 months ago, I could barely do 1 pull-up, and even the prospect of starting the hundred push-up challenge was scary.

Its amazing how easily stuff seems to happen once you decide to just get started by taking small incremental steps to achieve big goals.

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UPDATE: I enjoyed the final week of both the push-ups and pull-ups challenge so much that I incorporated them into my daily workout routine. It is a reasonably hard-core workout that is focussed towards getting fast results while being sustainable and is an ideal way to get toned and in shape without needing too much gym equipment.

UPDATE 2: I successfully completed the twenty pull-up challenge by doing 21 continuous pull-ups today. I will continue to keep Week 6 of the pull-up challenge in my weekly workout

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By Adi, October 18, 2009

A lot of my friends have been on the whole Cross Fit band wagon. While I liked the idea, I found a lot of the exercises difficult to do without a gym, weights, and some experience with these exercises. I stayed away from it for a long time though I occasionally went to the site to check out the workout of the day.

One day I discovered an exercise they called “Cindy”; complete as many rounds possible in 20 minutes
i) 5 pull-ups
ii) 10 push-ups
iii) 15 squats

It seemed like a simple workout without any complicated routines that I didn’t understand.
The only problem? I couldn’t do even 1 pull-up.

I decided that this was something I wanted to work on. It took me almost a month before I could do one un-assisted pull up.

For the first week, I used to jump up on the pull-up bar, and slowly come down, so I at-least did the second half of the pull-up. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. I still couldn’t do a full pull-up (without jumping to build momentum, which didn’t really count).

The next week, I tried a different approach. I started doing assisted pull-ups with 6 or 7 plates. I used the assisted pull-ups to do my five reps and complete the Cindy workout. The pull-ups were still brutal, the squats a little easier. The push-ups, especially after the hundred push-ups challenge were the easiest part of the workout.

For almost an entire month, all I did every day was a one mile run and then Cindy. No other workout. Either the hundred push-up challenge, Cindy or running. After a few days, one plate came off, then another.

One month after I began, I was able to do 5 pull-up sets with just one plate. This is when I realized that I didn’t need the plate any more except as a mental crutch. The last plate came off.

Being able to do 5 quick unassisted pull-ups changed everything for me. I could be doing any other exercise, and for a quick break I would do 5 pull-ups and then get back to whatever I was doing. Soon I was doing 20-25 pull-ups every day in sets of 5. Today I can do 10 rounds of Cindy effortlessly.

Since I started this exercise, my upper body, arms and shoulder feel amazing. Include a run and squats, and I get a pretty good workout for all the large muscles in my body.

The visible results have got me a lot of positive comments and feedback from friends and family. Everyone notices that “I must work out” and “I look really lean and trim”.

The best thing about this workout is I need very little equipment, and it finishes so quickly it hardly feels like effort. No more 1 hour of cardio, no more heavy weights and complicated exercises.

And the results speak for themselves.

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PS: Now that I can do 5 pull-ups without any problem, my next goal is the twenty pull-ups challenge.

PPS: After the pull-up challenge, I integrated pushups, pull-ups and squats into my new daily workout