Real Detroit Muscle

Last week in class we did a workout that would be very easy to take on the road with you and alter however you need.

We did 8 different 3 minute mini workouts trying to get in as many reps as possible in each mini workout, then recorded the totals to try and beat sometime in the future.

The only thing required for this workout is a jump rope and timer.
Go Hard for 3 minutes then take about 2 minutes between sets and move into the next exercise.

1. Jump rope – aim for 600 jumps, it’s tough but possible
2. Pushup/Squat – do 10 pushups then 10 squats that makes 1 set, get as many sets as possible.
3. Burpees
4. Down Dog Pushups
5. Lunge
6. Run – mark off a distance of about 25yds and record your number of lengths
7. Bear Crawl
8. Jump rope

I had to modify this workout a little for myself to make it fit into the training I had done the day before and what I was planning for the next day, so I made it truly a cardiovascular workout. This one was tough for me!

1. Run
2. Bear Crawl
3. Burpees
4. Jumprope

…and repeat.

That’s it just those 4 exercises, 2 times through, 24 total minutes of work.

The next time you’re looking for a great little workout give this a try and modify the exercises however you’d like, but GO HARD.

Just Because It's Really Cute

One of the ultimate upper body exercises. We’ve all tried them, may even do them regularly in our workouts, but how many of us have really mastered them with perfect form.

While this is definitely a chest and tricep exercise, when doing these correctly your lats are engaged and work to pull you toward the ground.

While I’ve yet to completely master this exercise (they’re always hard for me) here I walk you through the steps of the perfect pushup.

Perfect Pushups from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

And a little video of some fun at the Super Saturday Workouts at the Warehouse.

Tire Flips from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

Prowler Training at the Warehouse from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

You train 5 times a week. You do the same weight workout each time. You run the same distance every run you do. Your workouts are challenging and tough, but you don’t understand why you are not seeing the results anymore. Nothing is changing.

If you want results, your body needs change. You need to constantly stress the different muscular systems in order for them to grow and develop.

In class we do a different workout each time. If you’re on your own, a program done with the same exercises, same set and rep scheme, same weight should not be done for longer then 4-6 weeks. You need to continue challenging the system to make changes. You need to keep growing.

I try to take the same approach with my learning. I am constantly reading, researching and studying the latest news in the fitness industry as well as the tried and true methods that have been around for ages. I find it very important to continually challenging myself to read new topics and study the areas I am not as well versed in. You need to keep growing.

The last several years I have adjusted my business around quite a bit to both stay in line with fitness trends as well as accomodate my schedule so I could continue coaching. Many of you already know the news, but the most recent change and growth has come with the addition of a little warehouse. A nice open space to do some heavy lifting, resistance training with bands and ropes on the new Gladiator Wall and a little agility training.

My hope is to work with the high school and college athletes, but to also have some small group adult training going on in the mornings. Through all of it though I will continue with the Boot Camps that are currently offered.

For my own personal training I am going to drop the weights for the next month and work on some of the things outside my comfort zone, higher rep bodyweight exercises. I will also throw in some lower rep stuff with single leg squats, 1 arm pushups (in a very modified form for now), and I am always working on pullups. My friend Kasey has also put out the challenge of a 3 second Iron Cross to anyone who comes to the warehouse so I’ll have to work on that as well. Otherwise I’ll be getting a lot of time in with the new prowler, sleds and tires. (Training videos to come)

Another note of someone who is stepping out there a bit and growing his business is a friend who has filled in for my Boot Camp classes. Justin is starting some classes down on Belle Isle, so if you’re in the mood for a great workout and live or work downtown check out his class, you’re sure to enjoy it.

Click the link below for the flyer on his new, intense workouts.
Belle Isle Boot Camp

There has been a lot of debate in the fitness industry about the necessity of squats, particularly barbell back squats. Some say it is a mandatory tool in the development of any one interested in training, others say not everyone has the build and or mobility to get through the necessary range of motion therefore causing a lot of undue stress on the lumbar spine.

With all of the debate, single leg training has risen in popularity. Bulgarian Split Squats, Lunge Variations, Single Leg Squats, Single Leg SLDL’s, Split Squats and so on when executed properly work all of the core stabalizer muscles of the hips and torso as well as the recruit all of the fine muscles of the working leg. If you train heavy you will also find that single leg work can be trained proportionally heavier then that of 2 leg training in a squat or deadlift.

I have thrown a lot of single leg work into my training for the last couple years, yet still do my regular back and front squats and deadlifts as well. I use the single leg work as additional work to the big lifts and typically do them for a few mroe reps then the big guys.

This single leg work came in handy on a hike I did last week. I was in Scottsdale AZ for lacrosse and had the opportunity to hike the legendary Camleback Mountain Trail.

This is not an easy hike, it’s more like bouldering as you climb up and over, and then of course back down, large rocks. But people turn out in mass to tackle this climb. I was there 2 mornings in a row by 6am and the 45 car lot was already full and I had to park on the street. Let me tell you, my legs were definitely shaking at various parts of this climb, but the view from the top was well worth it.

Check out the Camelback climb, and even if you think your legs are nice and strong from all that running or biking you do, you still need to stengthen your legs with a few single leg exercises. So get out in the yard and work on your single leg squats and bulgarian split squats.

Camelback Mountain from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

I have been kind of out of it for a while now. I have never been more sick then everything that had me down for 6 weeks.

Needless to say my workouts have suffered quite a bit. Some things are still tough to get through with my lungs not up to par yet, but I can typically get through a heavy weight workout without much issue. So for the next 4 weeks this is the program I am putting myself through.

Lifting weights 3x’s a week.

Each day will consist of one exercise from each of the following categories:

Core Lower Body Lift of the Day for 5 sets of 5 reps (ie Squats, Front Squats, Deadlifts, Sumo Deadlifts)

Single Leg Heavy Lower Body 3-4 sets of 5 reps (ie Alternating Drop Lunges, Split Squats, Bulgarian Split Squats, Step Ups)

Alternated with

Main Upper Body Lift of the Day 3-4 sets of 5-6 reps (will alternate days for back, shoulders, and chest-primarily back and shoulders which are a definite weak point of mine- DB Chest or Incline Chest Press, Pullups, Overhead Press)

Tri Set of

Single Leg (Straight Leg Deadlift, Split Squats 3-4 sets of 8 reps)

Upper Body (Reverse Fly, Shoulder Rehab type exercises, pushups, high rows)

Low Back and/or Ab exercise(Ab Wheel/Stability Ball rollouts, leg throws, cobras, hyperextensions)

Finisher- a bodyweight circuit either done for reps or time, or a bunch of kettlebell swings (the 3 I have done so far are 30 sec of each bench jumps, an ab exercise, high knee runs and cobra then repeat 3 times; and I grabbed the 80lb kettlebell and had to get 50 swings in as few sets as possible-3; the one you’ll see on the video below-kettlebell burpee cleans=KILLER)

Sprints are still a little tough for me as I can’t do them without coughing like crazy so for now the other 3 days of the week will include some biking, jumproping, kettlebell swinging and sandbag shouldering.

What will not be included in my workout:

Reading a book while walking!

No kidding, as I was writing this I saw a woman “multi-tasking” with this very activity.

Check out the video of a few of the exercises from my new plan. If you watch all the way to the end you’ll see some funky camera work that will get you staring at the computer screen sideways, and finally the exercise that I was unable to complete for all the sets I had intended. This finisher had me lying on my back gasping for air.

Untitled from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

Short Sprints from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

Day 1 of the Michigan High School Spring Sports Season

Exciting stuff-if you are in HS, have a kid in HS, coach, or…want to remember the good old days of your athletic career.

This week is generally used for tryouts. With tryouts comes A LOT of conditioning.

No doubt you’d love to be able to keep up with those high school kids (it’s one of my goals-I still have to be able to beat them in at least 1 sprint!) so here are 2 very challenging conditioning drills you can give a shot.

Just head on out to your local football field, pull on the old sneakers (or cleats if you really feel like reliving the old days) and challenge the nearby highschooler to a great workout.

#1 100 yard sprints every minute
Get a stop watch, head to the goal line of the football field and get ready to sprint. If it takes you 15 seconds to sprint to the opposite goal line, then you have 45 seconds to recover. Repeat for 20 SETS. A nice 20 minute workout!

#2 Run the football field every 5 yards
This run is less then 2 miles, but after doing it I’m fairly certain you’ll choose a 10k any day over this one.
Start on the goal line. Run to the 5yd line then back to the goal line; pivot, and run to the 10 yd line, then back to the goal line. Continue this the ENTIRE length of the field, so in the end you’re running to the opposite goal line (100yds) and back. Then you get to work your way back down the field, going next to the far 5yd line and back etc.

You will not forget this workout, the kids talk about it all throughout the year.

There’s no reason you too can’t be out there TRAINING LIKE AN ATHLETE!

Partner Workout from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

Sitting on the bike in the high school weight room I observed this interaction and overheard the following conversation.

Coach to Athlete 1 who walks in the door “I put out an APB on you. I’ts been awhile where have you been?”

Athlete 1 Gives a little laugh and says “I’ve been working out.”

Coach “Really? Because I see Athlete 2 (points to kid throwing around some dumbbells) 4-5 times a week and I haven’t seen you once.”

Athlete 1 just laughs

I get back to reading my book, Zen Golf. Yes I was reading a book while working out! I’ve got a good system going, sprint everyother page.

I look up a little later to see Athlete 2 finishing a set of 42 inch box jumps with Athlete 1 standing by. For those of you unfamiliar with a box jump, its simply standing in front of a platform, squatting down and jumping up to the box landing into a squat and jumping back down.

42 inches is crazy high and this kid was easily doing sets of 6 reps-basically he’s a stud!

Athlete 1 then steps up to the box, and you can tell he’s mentally trying to process what he’s going to attempt to try. He partially squats a few times gets about and inch off the ground and stumbles into the box.

Meanwhile Athlete 2 is now onto the 30 inch box doing 1 leg jumps while holding a medicine ball. He looks at Athlete 1 shakes his head and says “Man, but I work out”.

Here’s Athlete 2 who trains everyday and he’s telling his buddy, don’t expect to be able to come in and do the same stuff I do, I put the work in.

Then Athlete 1 throws in the whammy, “But you don’t call me (to lift)”

Athlete 2 “Man, I’ve called you 3 times…”

Athlete 1 “Yeah but…”and he goes on to blame yet another friend.

Excuses

The guy couldn’t give his friend any credit for the amount of hard work he’d clearly put in, and recognize the steps he needs to take to get to the same level. Instead he came up with excuses.

It’s hard work getting into/staying in shape, losing weight, training for a sporting event/race and there are all kinds of things that can get in the way, but when you have to come up with all kinds of excuses as to why you didn’t get the job done you won’t get as far as the person who get’s their work finished no matter the circumstances and knows no excuses.

Here’s a couple women who definitely don’t use age and challenging terrain as an excuse. I’d venture a guess that not much has held them back through their long lives.

This woman had already walked uphill about 100yds and she just kept trucking along.

Nothing is holding her back!

Many of the schools in the area are on break this week so I know some of you are off hitting the slopes and the beaches alike.

I just got back from Santa Barbara- where it’s suppose to be warm and sunny- but we didn’t see any decent weather until our drive to the airport, but I was still able to get a couple great workouts in on the beach.

Whether you are on vacation or not I wanted to give you a few ideas for workouts you can do next week when we are off from class or that you can do while you’re traveling.

Despite the rain and cold, there was no way I was going to be on the beach in Santa Barbara and not run in the sand so that’s exactly where my workouts took place.

Day 1- After a long flight and drive up from LA I just need to stretch out and loosen up. So after we were all settled in the awesome hotel I ran across the street and out onto the beach where I did some dynamic flexibility moves like walking lunges with rotations, angels, side lungs, sumo squats and a lot of ankle and foot stretches because then I took off down the beach and did a nice, probably 2.5 mile run. Short and sweet and it felt great. When I got back I again did some calf stretches and ankle mobility exercises as well as roll my foot out over the lacrosse ball. My lower leg always is a tight but running barefoot in the sand really makes all those little muscles work so it was necessary to loosen them up well.

Day 2- Tried to get out to see the sunrise, but no luck. It wasn’t raining quite yet but the clouds were definitely there making it difficult to see the sun rise. (Last year at sunrise I saw dolphins swimming and jumping out of the water just off shore). No worries though it’s still the beach and it’s still beautiful so I progressed through a series of sprints, pushups, knee to elbow drives and hindu squats. 8 sets of about 200 yd sprints and 4 sets of each of the exercises for between 10-20 reps.

Day 3- Miserable out. Our game was played in 40 MPH winds and a torrential downpour, so I skip the morning workout but end up going for a long walk down the beach at night when the rain had slowed a bit.

Day 4- One more workout on the beach. I warm up with about a 7 minute run in the sand into the sunrise, which we finally have a nice day for and it’s beautiful. Then I picked 4 exercises and paired them up:
1 leg squats and Down Dog Pushups, back and forth for 4 sets of each with 5-15 reps and
Side lunges and Y’s, T’s, I’s back and forth for 4 sets of 20 of each
I finished off with 6 sets of about 100 yd sprints then a 5 minute run back to the van.

It’s not complicated, everything I did was very basic but allowed for a great quick workout in one crazy beautiful setting.

You can find time and space anywhere you go, just get out and do it!

I love to see kids being active; not inside in front of the computer
or TV, but out playing and goofing around.

This group of kids is ALWAYS outside.

On Saturdays it’s an all day event, from about 10am until 8-9pm they
are outside skating and playing hockey. They’re all ages, big and
small, outside getting some exercise, having a great time and in my
opinion learning more about the game then any youth practice is going
to teach them.

We can all take a lead from them. The best most enjoyable exercise can be playing sports. Basketball pickup games, tennis (although I think a good game of singles is better then doubles!), paddle, squash,
hockey, indoor soccer, and the best of all LACROSSE (although I’ll
admit the opportunity for that is severely limited). There is no
better way to get good interval training in then to go out and play a
sport.

The BWLAXer’s putting in some hard training for the big season ahead!

Piggy Back Runs from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

If you don’t always have the opportunity then a good way to get your
aerobic work in is with High Intensity Intervals on any piece of
cardio equipment or even outside on a run done for about 20 minutes,
followed by steady state work for 10-15 minutes.

A workout looking something like this…
1 minute walk at 3% incline
1 minute run at 7% incline
Repeat this pairing, increasing the speeds as necessary, for 8-10sets
(16-20 minutes)
Follow this up with walking or biking for 10-15 minutes at a pace you
were at for your first walking interval.

An update on the Weight Challenge, I haven’t asked many of you where
you stand but personally I am up one pound, yet down 2% in body fat.
This doesn’t surprise or bother me at all. I had let my strength
training down quite a bit since last summers injury and lost weight. I
am back to my body’s comfortable weight, but I’d like to drop 1 more %
of body fat and I’ll be feeling darn good. I hope to have this down in
the next 2 weeks and you can bet I’ll be adding in quite a few of the
workouts similar to the one listed above to help get there.

Today is a long day, leaving the house at 5:20 am and getting home
tonight after practice close to midnight. This makes healthy eating
tough so I decided it was a great day for a morning fast and a dinner
stop at the Mexican restaurant for a nice big burrito bowl I described
last week. For the benefits of intermittent fasting check out the
Eat Stop Eat program

Lately my workouts have been hit or miss.

I’ve gotten most of them in, but the intensity isn’t always there.

You can check out one of me deadlifting last week on the Real Detroit Muscle Facebook page but what you’ll see is a pretty lackluster performance.

Unfortunately I know with my current schedule the workouts are not always going to be great. In fact, I may not even get a lift in on days I really should. Instead of becoming discouraged by this I either attempt to get in at least some activity for the day- a long walk at the park or through the neighborhoods with some sprints thrown in-or maybe I just don’t get anything in that day. It’s frustrating when I can’t fit the workout in, but I step right back onto the program the next day if at all possible.

There are some days I have a hard time motivating to start the workout but once I get going with it I feel great. Other times, I start out well and with the best of intentions then have absolutely nothing going for me, no strength, no energy, nothing.

Sometimes I continue to plug away, other times I just change the activity and try to finish with something.

The key is Flexibilty.

If you run out of time to fit in the workout you really want, try to do something quick at home just to make sure you are doing something. If you don’t do anything that day, make sure you jump right back on board the next day.

There are going to be ups and downs in your training, at times you’ll feel great, other days a workout will be the last thing you want to do. Just remember all of your options for training, there is so much you can do at home with just your bodyweight

Jumping Jacks
Running in place
Jumprope
Pushups
Situps
Squats
Burpees
Lunges
Planks
And on and on

Always keep in mind that you’re in this for the long haul. This fitness thing isn’t something to do for the next 3-6 months, or even 3-6 years, but for your lifetime. If you give yourself a little flexibility in your routine and make it a part of your daily life, a miss here and there isn’t going to knock you down at all, it’s all just built into the routine.

To make sure you are able to keep working out late into life make sure you keep yourself mobile and moving well.

There is one stretch that has really helped improve the mobility in my hips and in the video below you will find it is the second exercise. Recently I have started moving my feet a little wider which is really helping the flexibility of both my ad and abductors.

Warm Up #2 from Jen Dunbar on Vimeo.

The Super Bowl just finished and many of you were likely with friends watching the game and eating and drinking all kids of food that tastes awesome, but is not at all good for you.

This is so often where we find ourselves falling off the wagon, one day of bad eating leads into another day, leads into a week and so on.

Flexibility with your eating is also VERY important.

So you have one day of splurging, fine, get right back on track the next day. Make it a priority if you are serious about keeping or getting weight off.

While I believe the best way to eat healthy is to prepare and cook everything yourself I do find myself out and about without anything to eat and in a hurry to grab something fast. My favorite FAST FOOD FIX has become a burrito bowl from any of the newer Mexican Fast Food Chains -Qdoba, Chipolte being my favs.

I get a burrito bowl with both types of beans, the grilled veggies, one of the meats, lettuce, maybe a little of the cheese, salsa and a little guacamole.

This is a great, easy meal to make for the family at home as well.

Don’t beat yourself up over everything you just splurged on today-I’m certainly not- tomorrow get on track and start eating right. Clean out the junk food and stock up with the good stuff.