Be so good they can't ignore you.
Regardless of your age, gender, advanced or beginner, this workout program will benefit you. This program is 4 weeks long but can be repeated as many times as desired. Every other week you will repeat the same workout so that you can track your progress. So, week 1 & 3 will be the same, and week 2 & 4 will be the same. Try your best to increase your intensity the second time around.
Tip 1: Clean up Nutrition: It is important to choose a healthy eating pattern at an appropriate calorie level to help achieve and maintain a healthy body weight, and support nutrient adequacy. We will go through the steps on how to calculate your daily caloric intake needs as well as determining the right macronutrient balance on(page).
Tip 2: Supplementation: In a perfect world we would get plenty of sleep, stay hydrated, and eat all nutritionally dense food full of all your vitamins and minerals, but that is just not the reality. 90% of people do not get the recommended amount of important nutrients from food alone. Supplementation is used to bridge that gap and It is important that we get the right amounts and type of nutrients before, during, and after exercise to maximize the amount of energy available to fuel optimal performance. The two main goals of pre-exercise snacks are to optimize glucose availability and glycogen storage. Secondly, we want to have enough fuel needed for exercise performance.
Proper post workout nutrition is the most important window in your training for the purpose of recovery! In order to maximize your performance studies have shown it is best recommended to consume protein within 30 minutes after exercise followed by a high carbohydrate meal within two hours. This is known as the metabolic window. This helps replenish glycogen stores to help with muscle repair.
Tip 3: Measuring success: Ditching the scale. Taking before and after photos
Your weight can fluctuate drastically over the course of a 24-48 hour period depending on many factors. It can depend on what you ate that day, how much water you drank, sodium intake, and what time of day you weighed yourself, your weight may change. Another important factor to remember is muscle weights more than fat. You may have gained some muscle which reflected in an increase on the scale but dont worry! This is called body recomp, which is especially common when you’re a beginner to weight training. Tracking weekly measurements by taking progress photos is a great way to track your progress. It’s important to take your photos at the same time/ day every week on an empty stomach.
Tip 4: Importance of stretching
Flexibility is an important component of health and is often neglected. It helps improve our activities of daily living such as bending, reaching, squatting and stepping over things, posture, and reduced risk of injury. This is why its important to get our muscles warmed up before exercise to help improve circulation, muscle flexibility, and range of motion. Increased blood supply helps bring nutrients throughout the body and remove harmful waste from the body's muscle tissue which can ultimately accelerate recovery time.
Here are some tips to get the most out of your flexibility training:
Day 1: Upper body
Day 2: High-intensity cardio/core
Day 3: Lower body
Day 4: Low-intensity cardio/core
Day 5: Rest
Day 6: Full body
Day 7: Low-intensity cardio
Before we get started we are going to complete a baseline test to help evaluate our overall physical status and starting point: To begin we are going to complete 2 min of each exercise at max effort. Be sure to only rest 1 minute between movements. You can use this time to record how many reps you completed for each exercise.
Save your scores in a place where you can go back to these so that you can compare your new scores at the end of the 8 weeks.
Max Squat -1 min rest (record reps)
Max Push up -1 min rest (record reps)
Max butterfly sit up -1 min rest (record reps)
Max lunges Right + left = 2 reps -1 min rest (record reps)
Max mountain climbers -1 min rest (record reps)
Before completing the workout complete 5-10 minutes of light cardio. You should be able to easily carry a conversation at this pace. This can be a jog, brisk walk outside, rower, treadmill, bike, elliptical, etc.
Warm-up exercises:
Jumping jacks (x 20)
Alternating lateral lunges (x 12 each side)
Hold the worlds greatest stretch 10 sec each side
Walking toe touches (x 10)
Frog squat (x 10)
Inch worms slowly (x 10)
Cool down after each workout : 30 second stretch
LET’S GET STARTED!!! If you have access to more equipment please feel free to add weights to these movements to make it more challenging.
None of these movements should be painful but they should challenge you. If you have any pre existing injuries or concerns and cannot perform an exercise please reach out to us.
Day 1
Take a little bit of time here and reflect on what just happened. You made a decision to increase the quality of your life and more importantly acted on that decision. Anybody can decide to be better but few ever turn that decision into action. Build on this momentum and carry it into the rest of your day, See you tomorrow!
There's a full community of like-minded Wilderness Athletes taking action. Get in on the conversation for and help keep each other accountable.