Has the pressure on your top trouser button only surpassed by the pressure on your time? Don’t worry, Barry Stalker (pro-trainer.co.uk) has a way for you to burn nearly 500 calories in a 45-minute session. But that’s not all. “The bonus of lifting weights over cardio is that you continue to burn calories for hours afterwards,” says Stalker. “With cardio work, the calorie burning stops almost immediately.” Do 6-8 reps of these for your workout and aim to do it three times a week.
1. Walking lunges
“The key is to make sure you do a full range of movement, as this will activate the glutes and hamstrings,” says Stalker. “Start by just using your bodyweight and then make it more challenging by adding dumbbells or a barbell to the equation.”
2. Turkish get-ups
“Lay on your back then get up as if you are going to stand up fully. Sounds simple, right? You’ll discover how tough it is. Make it harder by holding a kettlebell or dumbbell. This exercise works your core/abs, shoulders, quads, glutes and hamstrings.”
3. Squats
“Often called the king of exercises, squats work some of the largest muscles in your body. The erector spinae in your lower back, together with your abs and obliques, work hard as stabilisers when you perform this exercise. Squats induce muscle growth all over your body. They are also credited for increasing testosterone levels, which is great as these start to lower with age. This has a knock-on effect with body fat, which contains aromatase – which converts testosterone into oestrogen. Having extra oestrogen in your system triggers your body to slow its production of testosterone. And the less testosterone you make, the more belly fat you accumulate.”
4. Deadlifts
“Your body’s supply of growth hormone [GH] will rocket after a set of deadlifts and, along with testosterone, will do miraculous things for your muscles. It is known to support healthy testosterone levels: testosterone and GH are the most effective anabolic hormones in the male body.”
5. Clean and press
“A great explosive exercise, as it incorporates a lot of muscle groups at a fast rate. Place your feet shoulder-width apart, and make sure that the bar is over the top of your feet at the midpoint. Bend down and grasp the bar with an overhand grip. Lower your backside to the floor until your legs are parallel to the floor. It is vital that your lower back does not become arched. Contract your shoulder blades, look straight ahead and explode upward from the bottom of the movement. Using a quick movement, snap the weight up to chest level and then, using your shoulders, triceps and trapezius, push the weight toward the ceiling in a straight line. Then, lower the weight back down to its original position on the floor.”
6. Flat bench press/flat dumbbell press
“Probably the most popular exercise in gyms along with the most common question: ‘How much do you bench?’ The bench press works a variety of upper-body muscles, but its focus lies on the pec major muscles of the chest. As a compound exercise, bench presses also engage the deltoids and triceps as secondary groups that help complete the movement. Additionally, this exercise also works the biceps, which serve as stabilisers by countering the force of the press, and engages the rhomboids, rotator cuff and serratus anterior as secondary muscles. Just make sure you warm up thoroughly and perform it correctly, as the most common injury I have seen in my 20 years in gyms is a pec tear. You don’t want that.”
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