Anyone who has had personal training with us at AdMac Fitness will know how we like to throw in a high intensity workout finisher into our sessions sometimes. It’s a way of maximising calorie burn and intensity of a session. It’s also a great way to challenge your fitness - being able to perform well under fatigue is a true test of your physical capabilities.
Workout finishers can be made up of all kinds of exercises and approaches, but the one constant they have is that they’re high intensity. They can be made up of traditional cardio exercise, resistance exercises or a combination of them both.
Here’s a few workout finisher ideas to add to your training…
Air Bike Finisher: 30-20-10 Watt Marker
This is a fantastic workout based around a mixture of time and power output, which is measured using the Wattage counter on the Air Bike screen.
You start with a 2 minute warm up; this is gentle, the idea is to get your legs and arms moving and your blood flowing.
On the 2 minute mark, the workout starts.
Ride for…
30 seconds maintaining 150-250 Watts (this is recovery pace)
20 seconds maintaining 300+ Watts (this is moderate-fast pace)
10 seconds flat out – aim for 700+ Watts (women) and 900+ Watts (men)
Continue for as many rounds as you need to!
Barbell Complexes
Set a barbell up with a light/medium weight - something you could manage about 20 deadlifts with. Perform the following complex…
1 Deadlift, 1 Power Clean, 1 Push Press
Rest for 10 seconds and then perform…
2 Deadlifts, 2 Power Cleans, 2 Push Presses
Rest for 15 seconds and then perform…
3 Deadlifts, 3 Power Cleans, 3 Push Presses
Keep going until you can’t complete the next circuit. It’s an all-body circuit that will burn a lot of calories and train a lot of muscle in three simple moves. If you don’t know the exercises, give them a quick search on YouTube.
Treadmill Hill Run
This is a great finisher, because it uses one item of kit and is a really simple way to train.
Set the treadmill at 5KPH and at 0% incline. Every 30 seconds increase the speed and incline by 0.5KPH and 0.5% incline.
Keep doing this until you can’t keep going any longer.
At this point either take 2 minutes rest and start again, or finish your workout.
Thrusters to Finish
Thrusters are an excellent finisher exercise because they leave no muscle untrained, they don’t need a heavy weight and they’re great to do when fatigued because the technique is relatively easy to pick up. This combo means that you can keep going until you’ve got nothing left in the tank!
You can either set a rep target (I’d suggest 100) or a time target (I’d suggest 5-10 minutes).
You keep performing reps with as few breaks as possible until your end point is reached.
Rowing Machine or Ski Erg Sprints
This one is particularly nasty… but the good news is it will torch fat, is simple to set up and will improve your cardio capabilities no end!
Set the rower or ski erg to 100m sprints, with a 20 second recovery.
Row or ski as fast as you can for the 100m - it will take you between 20 and 25 seconds per set.
Watch the rest timer count down for 20 seconds…
Repeat as many times as you can. Once your 100m sprints take longer than 30 seconds, it’s time to call the workout off!
These finishers are simple to set up, but tough to execute. The idea is that you give each and every one your all, so you leave the workout having maxed out your capabilities. When you perform finishers properly, they help elevate your fitness and calorie burn to a whole other level!
The AdMac Fitness personal training studio is in Bow, E3. We have personal trainers with a range of specialities, so we can offer the ideal personal trainer to help you achieve your goals. For more information on who we are, what we do and how we can help you achieve your health and fitness goals, contact us on… 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!