This week, my mom and I did a major clean out of all of the cookbooks that have accumulated in the house over the years. I don’t want to go too much into that process, but amidst the clean out, one thing I found was this:
An old 1-page Full Body Superset and Core Workout from back in college. I have no idea how it found it’s way into the cookbook cabinet, but that part doesn’t matter right now!
During the off-seasons, my soccer coaches would send our team workouts to do to help us stay in shape. This was one of their ways of reminding us we had dreaded fitness tests to come back to and that we better not sit on our asses during this time off. I posted another one of these workouts (a treadmill run) here. Due to my enormous fear of failing a fitness test, I followed these workouts to the T, and spent a lot of days training VERY VERY hard.
Now, 2 years later, as I come across this workout – I’m actually not the least bit intimidated.
Since I’ve been doing cross-fit style workouts for the past few months now, I’m used to doing the exercises like the squats, lunges, burpees, RDL’s, etc, that are listed in the workout above, as well as performing them in a superset style workout.
What is a superset you ask??
A “superset” is when you perform two or more exercises in a row without stopping. So, say for example, you’re doing a superset focusing on the same muscle groups – you’d perform 20 squats, followed immediately by 20 quadricep extensions. That equals 1 set.
You can choose to focus on opposing muscle groups during a superset, like your back and your chest, or you can focus on the same muscle groups like in the example above. Your muscular endurance may be a little bit more challenged if you focus on the same muscle group, just because your fatiguing that muscle even more on the second exercise.
How to perform this workout : 2 Options
Since I am, honestly, not sure on how this workout was originally intended to be done – I am recommending two options for doing it. ( I did the first option + the core workout)
Option 1: Run through all 9 exercises with no breaks. This is 1 Set. Complete a total of 3 sets.
Option 2: Repeat the first two exercises with no break. This is 1 Set. Complete 3 sets. Then, move onto the next two exercises, and complete 3 supersets in the same format as the first round of exercises. Run through all 8 exercises and complete 3 sets of 100 crunches at the end, or omit altogether if you complete the Core Workout too.
Comparing the 2 Options:
Option 2 will take you longer to complete because it has more breaks worked into it – but I tried out both last week, and both are very effective (if your goal is to walk away feeling like you got a great workout in). I was also actually able to use a heavier bar when completing option two, and felt that it fatigued my muscles more, while option 1 felt a little more challenging cardio-wise.
Doing Neither Superset and completing just the Ab Workout:
If you don’t feel like ready to try the Leg Superset Workout, you can always just try the Core Workout below! Make sure to complete a total of 3 sets!
Enjoy!!
you were such a better soccer player than me. i always HATED conditioning, and when we would start up for the spring season right after christmas break, i was always in the worst shape. it actually annoys me now to think about that with how young i was, how much easier it probably was for me to do that kind of stuff back then, and i didn’t even capitalize on it!
That makes sense… it’s hard though, to like be in the moment and think about feeling grateful for your body and the abilities it really gives you, and wanting to push yourself because of that. The good thing is that (most of the time) it’s never too late to start being active again!